c4countdown

Jon O'Neill

It seems like there is a cliff edge in their algorithm, that Rein Me In survived multiple times, somehow recovering after 2 weeks of decline, when a third would've meant it's score would've halved.

There's a bit about it on here
https://www.masterton.co.uk/week-ending-september-3rd-2026

It sounds ...

Jon O'Neill

Damn, that's a shame. She was an absolute OG.
RIP

Jon O'Neill

Low contrast lettering in kids' books which are obviously often read in low light.

Jon O'Neill

Your argument would make complete sense if you are suggesting that Dott's noncing directly contributed to him winning the Snooker World Championship.

Uhh, that's clearly not what I was saying,

I was saying its more offensive, and it's also far more ugly stain on a sport, than actual drug ...

Jon O'Neill

Your argument would make complete sense if you are suggesting that Dott's noncing directly contributed to him winning the Snooker World Championship.

Jon O'Neill

The main hook of Taxman by The Beatles has a musical allusion to/imitation of the main hook of the Batman theme song.

Jon O'Neill

Obsession.
A great horror film.

Jon O'Neill

Not really the News, and it's also 11 years ago, but at about 10:50 James Martin talks about his epic 952 .

Nice find, but how did you suddenly encounter this now?

Jono was trying to learn how to do 4L? ;)

Not far off!

This is the 3rd Google result for James Martin Countdown. I was ...

Jon O'Neill

Not really the News, and it's also 11 years ago, but at about 10:50 James Martin talks about his epic 952.

Jon O'Neill

If the CoC in 2002 was in 2001, I think 2001 would probably have a shout. It was a significant leap forward in quality of the gameplay, had Whiteley-Vorderman and it was a golden age of TV.
Hard to argue though.

Jon O'Neill

That's what I wanted to see - proper live solves in the app. And as you both said, shows that the others definitely aren't live, but may well be how he solved them himself.

And this is way beyond ordinary. We realised when using the app with our nephew, probably when he was 4 or 5, that even ...

Jon O'Neill

A significant proportion of the comments on the Daily Mail article also think this is fake:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15403765/Four-year-old-aces-Countdown-solving-puzzles-seconds-defeating-contestants-living-room-wants-Rachel-Rileys-job.html

Totally irrelevant... that's an ...

Jon O'Neill

National press now: https://archive.is/LhDnN

Also has posted some real time solves including this one: https://www.instagram.com/p/DSib2p5CEgt/
That looks convincingly a solve by hime. It has a few steps in it. We can probably rule out that "all" he is doing is regurgitating other solutions..

Of ...

Jon O'Neill

Anyone seen this kid Acer on Instagram / TikTok? https://www.instagram.com/daddylmg/
If these are legitimately being solved in real time then this kid is surely coming for the GOAT position, or may already be up there as there are some seriously good bullet solves.
Even if they're not being solved ...

Jon O'Neill

Marc Meakin wrote: Sat Dec 06, 2025 1:29 pm https://photos.app.goo.gl/2UzTjhHweL2594t59

How about this ?

That worked.. very funny (as expected!)

Jon O'Neill

YouTube Music is significantly better than Spotify.
(.. and all other streaming platforms, and downloading/owning the music)

Jon O'Neill

Town is called Dumbarton
County is called Dunbartonshire

Jon O'Neill

https://i.ibb.co/5X3Rjddg/image.png

graph AstonMatrix {
graph [
layout=neato
bgcolor="#ffffff"
]

Title [label="Aston Quiz–Entertainment Matrix", pos="6,13!", shape=none, fontname="Helvetica-Bold", fontsize=20]

node [
shape=box
style=filled
fontname="Helvetica"
fontsize=12
penwidth=1 ...

Jon O'Neill

Philip A wrote: Sat Sep 27, 2025 11:20 am 2025 Ryder Cup Day 2: Europe’s shirt and trouser colours quite clearly represent the USA!

Hard agree.
Yesterday was bad enough with both teams in shades of blue. But EU in Red and USA in Blue, the complete opposite of the scoreboard colours, is a joke.

Jon O'Neill

Lack of contrast between the words and backgrounds in children's books that you'll generally be reading under dim light.

Jon O'Neill

I understand now. I guess the strange part to me is having playlists on a service you don't use. To your original point, yes, it probably is just you.

Music content: I'm going to Glastonbury this year. Very hyped for The Prodigy although the other headliners are quite shite. I got the original ...

Jon O'Neill

Personally I'm still perplexed.

- By "find" do you mean "search for" or "discover new"?
- Where is your list?
- If not Spotify, why do you need to go on Spotify to add songs to your list?
- How are you hearing songs if not by Spotify?
- Why do you need Spotify at all?

Jon O'Neill

I guess they put lower effort into checking the DC offerings than contestant offerings and therefore DC offerings should not be considered to set a precedent.

Jon O'Neill

Last One Laughing UK (Prime)
This was very very very funny.

Jon O'Neill

Jumped on the Adolescence bandwagon (Netflix).

One shot, one camera.

Unbelievably good.

Especially episode 3.
Erin Doherty was amazing as was the boy tbh

Googling, “Who plays the boy in adolescence” returns, “Hand that boy the Emmy!!!”

There are now calls to show it in every secondary ...

Jon O'Neill

Jon O'Neill

I've known about this for a while but when they tell you at school that the three primary colours of pigment are red, yellow and blue, they're wrong . It's yellow, cyan and magenta, which you might have noticed from printer ink.

Edit - actually this is old news .

With printer ink, the combined ...

Jon O'Neill

Citizen Kane. Then I had to go read about why it's good.

In other words it isn't. I watched it a couple of years or so ago and wasn't massively impressed.

Yeah it's a tough watch. Why does everybody keep talking over each other? It wasn't completely unenjoyable though. And after doing the ...

Jon O'Neill

Fabulous updates.

Jon O'Neill

Fellow parkrun wankers - since I only have I and J left for my alphabet and the Is are annoying if you don't live in the south, I'm going to be doing the newish Ingrebourne Hill in Rainham before this. There's a 10:03 train that gets you to Finchley Road before doors open so time won't be an issue ...

Jon O'Neill

Or allow driverless cars to hit you if you're being antisocial. Not hard enough to kill or injure, just enough to make you drop your phone.

I think this is the way. It could taper down to a crawl and eventually stop if the person was about to get crushed under the wheel. Alternatively the cars ...

Jon O'Neill

Must we?

Jon O'Neill

Marc Meakin wrote: Sun Dec 22, 2024 1:54 pm
Jon O'Neill wrote: Sat Dec 21, 2024 12:35 pm In the Bundesliga the player names are sometimes below the short number rather than above.
The fact that you haven't corrected your typo (which is rich coming from Lord Fat fingers himself) is a minor irritation

Oops. It's because I was blonded by rage when I typed that.

Jon O'Neill

In the Bundesliga the player names are sometimes below the short number rather than above.

Jon O'Neill

So the actual question/picture is here (spoiler)

https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/article34289939.ece/ALTERNATES/s1200e/0_eightJPG.jpg

Knowing what it's supposed to be, I can just about see it, but to me the centre looked raised not recessed. I guess if you see it you see it, if you don't ...

Jon O'Neill

To actually offer something genuine:
- Everything Everywhere All at Once might be the worst film I've ever seen. Crazy how many awards it won.

I've just watched this (it's available on c4) and I think it's fine as just some silly bit of fun but I also find it strange how it's held up as this ...

Jon O'Neill

For the benefit of those who missed it - what happened in round 8?

Jon O'Neill

Mark Deeks wrote: Wed Nov 20, 2024 8:10 pm How come you can sometimes see the moon in the daytime, but not always?

We can only see the moon half the time. Right?

Jon O'Neill

- Wicked - great
- Dr. Strangelove - great
- Back to the Future - amazing special effects
- Bootleg Beatles (if that counts) - fantastic likenesses and faithful renditions

Jon O'Neill

I like David Mitchell but Ludwig was crap. A poor man's Jonathan Creek.

Jon O'Neill

Fantastic.

Jon O'Neill

Cool.

Jon O'Neill

Mark Labbett isn't called The Beast because of his physique. His surname is a homophone of la bête which is French for the beast.

Jon O'Neill

Last week I played cricket on Sunday and scored 104 runs. Then I played golf on Monday and took 104 shots.

Yesterday I went to the dentist and the dental nurse who was a woman was being assessed by a woman. The nurse and the assessor were named Rhys.

Jon O'Neill

Why do car boots take place so bloody early? Just passed a sign for one that said 7am to 12pm. Well then I'm not bloody going to your bloody thing, am I? Why can't they be like 9-3?

I've always assumed it was because of two things:

1. Buyers want first dibs
2. Sellers want the best spots

So ...

Jon O'Neill

That's good that.

Jon O'Neill

Great stats.

Jon Stitcher wrote: Mon Jul 22, 2024 11:16 pm 3 players who were octochamps on their debut returned to lose on their second debut.

Who were they?

Jon O'Neill

Interestingly, some academics were polled in 2011 on various single-winner voting methods. Approval voting come top, and FPTP (also known as plurality voting) came bottom.

It's fascinating that this happened. Just looking at the paper and it's very self-critical of the way the question was ...

Jon O'Neill

Interestingly, some academics were polled in 2011 on various single-winner voting methods. Approval voting come top, and FPTP (also known as plurality voting) came bottom.

It's fascinating that this happened. Just looking at the paper and it's very self-critical of the way the question was posed ...

Jon O'Neill

I should have realised the gods were against us as the last 3 Spanish Wimbledon Wins have lead to a football win in the same period (if you count The Nations Cup last year )

This sort of statistical paradoelia gets a lot more discussion than it really deserves.

What do you make of this ...

Jon O'Neill

Callum Todd wrote: Fri Jun 07, 2024 4:57 amI'm a fan.

Still?

Jon O'Neill

Fiona T wrote: Sat Jun 22, 2024 11:24 am The coloured block image thing on the BBC election coverage says 24...

Very good one. Once seen it can't be unseen.

I've just realised that the letters in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th are the last letters in the spelt words.

Jon O'Neill

Are we watching the Mens Euros ?
I think with the General Election and The Olympics its a little overshadowed.
That said I think England will win , we made the final 3 years ago and we are a better team than that

Absolutely; could be the last proper international tournament for a while and ...

Jon O'Neill

Are we watching the Mens Euros ?
I think with the General Election and The Olympics its a little overshadowed.
That said I think England will win , we made the final 3 years ago and we are a better team than that

I think England have a good chance to win. The midfield and attack are top tier ...

Jon O'Neill

Jamie Weisenberg wrote: Thu May 16, 2024 5:01 pm Who is the best ever contestant on TV Countdown that isn't involved/is completely oblivious of the professional scene ? By professional, I mean Apterous, CO-events, ZoomDowns etc ..

Scott Mearns, Harvey Freeman, Allan Saldanha.

Jon O'Neill

The 952 method was used twice in last year's CoC. It looks impressive at first glance until you spot it.

That's not really accurate. The 952 solution is based on an extension of the methods I think you're talking about from a quick scan of all the games.

I guess you mean these 2:

James ...

Jon O'Neill

JackHurst wrote: Tue May 14, 2024 4:02 pm
Jamie Weisenberg wrote: Tue May 14, 2024 3:49 pm However, in Ahmed's defence I'd say the quality of the opposition was FAR higher than what Conor faced.
Rude.

Extremely.

Jon O'Neill

I recently read an article about the death of the sitcom.
No TV studios in America are commissioning anything new as its not viable because people's tastes have changed and also too many groups are likely to take offense
Maybe it was hyperbole but I haven't seen anything new recently.
Also where ...

Jon O'Neill

Yeah it's decent.
I wonder if it's physically possible on one piano. I don't have a good enough ear to tell but it sounds like it might be 2 pianos. Or could all be computer-played.
Also in general I think it sounds really thin/tinny. Maybe I'm too used to the old one.

Anyway I thought I wasn't ...

Jon O'Neill

Interesting.. look forward to hearing it. I've never heard a good piano arrangement of it yet. It's too percussive and synthy.

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