Spoilers for Friday April 27th 2012 (Series 66 Prelim 74)

[Clive Brooker]

A momentous day in Countdown history: today's challenger will be the 5000th to try his/her luck in the hot-seat.

"Challenger" here refers to a player in a preliminary game who was not the winner of the previous preliminary. All prelims nowadays have one or sometimes two, but in the early days when drawn games were replayed there were occasionally none.

I've taken no account of returnees - I'd guess there are about 40-50 people who've had two or more bites for whatever reason. There are also 20-odd people who've played in a non-regular game only, so on that basis the true 5000th player will appear in about a month's time. But sadly we'll never be able to work out exactly who it is.

Nick Hall may have broken a few hearts yesterday, but the game certainly won't be quickly forgotten. Good luck to both players today.

[Tony Atkins]

How many winners have there been? Are there over 5000 teapots out there?

[Bob De Caux]

AEGROTATS in Round 8, SAURIAN in Round 9

[Tony Atkins]

AEGROTATS in Round 8

And I was pleased with GAROTTES for a mere 8. First numbers also 3x137.

[Keith Bennett]

How many winners have there been? Are there over 5000 teapots out there?

Don't know how many winners there have been, but clearly fewer than 5,000, and in any case teapots weren't on offer in the early days were they?

But of course there may well be vast numbers of these revolting objects on offer in markets or on e-bay, they just may not all have been provided by the official manufacturer....

[James Robinson]

CORONAE in round 7, CLOWNED/DEMONIC in round 13.

Also did the first numbers by Tony's method.

AEGROTATS in Round 8, SAURIAN in Round 9

I got both those too. We could use someone of your quality at COHUD, BDC. How about it

[Richard Priest]

BANSURI in the round where DC came up with BRAINS.

[Rufus Frog]

AEGROTATS in Round 8

I just saw Suzy Dent in Sainsbury's - I considered sidling up to her and whispering 'aegrotats' in her ear, but she looked a bit flustered, so I thought better of it.