Spoilers For Tuesday June 25th 2013

[James Robinson]

So, we have now reached the last quarter-final, 11 days after they began

And if the last 2 series are anything to go by, this game will not go to form.

So, #4 seed Joe McGonigle will hope to make it a clean sweep of octochamp semi-finalists, with #5 seed Sam McElhinney out to stop him from setting up a semi-final with #1 seed Giles Hutchings tomorrow.

Here are the stats:

Firstly, No.4 Seed Joe "The Stockport Sparkler" McGonigle - 8 Wins, 716 Points. (Average: 89.5) (All in 15.4 format)
Highest Score: 95 vs. Jonny Walker (4th Game)
Lowest Score: 78 vs. Mark Ivey (5th Game)
9's Achieved: 0/4
Total Points/Max/%: 716/1033 (69%)
Letters Points/Max/%: 414/633 (65%)
Numbers Points/Max/%: 242/320 (76%)
Conundrum Points/Max/%: 60/80 (75%)

Secondly, No.5 Seed Sam "The Leeds Lucky Charm" McElhinney - 4 Wins, 393 Points. (Average: 78.6) (All in 15.3 format)
Highest Score: 93 vs. Ricky Roberts (4th Game)
Lowest Score: 67 vs. Andy Platt (5th Game)
9's Achieved: 0/2
Total Points/Max/%: 393/620 (63%)
Letters Points/Max/%: 286/420 (68%)
Numbers Points/Max/%: 97/150 (65%)
Conundrum Points/Max/%: 10/50 (20%)

With Jack away on his hols, Andy will recapping later on.

[Jordan F]

Very well done to Joe for winning and getting his first century, EXORCIST was a great spot. Very unlucky to Sam particularly in the beginning, I went with MOTIVATER as well, but it seemed to be one of Sam's stronger games too.

[Guy Barry]

INFLATE as an alternative in round 2.

[James Robinson]

Quite a good performance from Joe today, although he might have to go up another gear tomorrow against Giles, but let's wait and see.............

FLEAPIT in round 2, ABORTING in round 7, OUTSOLD/STOOLED in round 11, ZAREBAS in round 12 and MAHSEER in round 13.

1st Numbers Alt.: (7 x 7 x 10) - 6 = 484
4th Numbers Alt.: (((75 - 4) x 2) - (100 / 50)) x 6 = 840 (I think I was the only one in the audience who got it actually )

[Gevin Chapwell]

From the previous day's thread - should be in today's:

Susie allowed BAIZES, which I thought was interesting. BAIZE is a mass noun but they can be pluralised if there's more than one type. But her reason for deciding that there's more than one type was that it's listed as "typically green". That goes too far for me. Presumably all mass nouns are typically something, whether listed so or not. I know it's often a bit vague, but to allow something because it's "typically..." is a stretch.

It's listed as allowed in this episode from 2011 but disallowed here in 2009. It's not on Apterous as it happens.

Susie allowed BAIZES, which I thought was interesting. BAIZE is a mass noun but they can be pluralised if there's more than one type. But her reason for deciding that there's more than one type was that it's listed as "typically green". That goes too far for me. Presumably all mass nouns are typically something, whether listed so or not. I know it's often a bit vague, but to allow something because it's "typically..." is a stretch.

It's listed as allowed in this episode from 2011 but disallowed here in 2009. It's not on Apterous as it happens.

It was redone, it was originally disallowed, then 5 minutes later was allowed. I remeber the incident in 2009, so thought it wouldn't be allowed this time.........

Shows what I know.

[John Garcia]

ENSLAVE in R10

[Tony Atkins]

Alt 2nd numbers (50+6)x9-(75/25)

[Graeme Cole]

Something pretty funny happened after this game. After Dudley had made a big show of looking behind him a few times to make sure Ryan Giggs had definitely left the studio, he made a joke about Giggs' infamously super-injuncted off-pitch activities a couple of years ago. After some laughter and a few minutes of other gags, a member of the production team came in and gave Dudley a message.

Dudley suddenly went quiet and shoved the mike into his jacket. Turned out Giggsy had been sitting up in the gallery listening to everything.

Back to the mike... "It's only a joke, Ryan...!"

[Jack Worsley]

It doesn't seem to have been mentioned that Susie initally disallowed BAIZES because she apparently didn't know enough about snooker but discussions led her to change her mind.

Very good performance from Joe though. EXORCIST was a great spot, as was the conundrum. Sam was unlucky with his first couple of delarations though, if they'd been valid, it could have been very different.

[Adam Gillard]

Another quality close quarter-final that deserved a crucial, really! Some nice spots from both players, particularly EXORCIST, LOUTISH and REHOMES. A very impressive speedy conundrum solve from Joe, too. I've definitely seen enough quality in these last two quarter-finals to suggest that Giles and Andy will have needed to be on the ball in their respective semi-finals, which I'm going to watch now because I don't want to go to sleep yet part-way through the finals!

That was a lovely gesture to have Ryan Giggs there to congratulate Rachel on 1000 shows. Well done to the production team for that and Mazel Tov to Rachel on reaching that milestone. Myleene has been a great guest - it's nice to have someone so genuinely enthusiastic in Dictionary Corner. On to the semis!

[Mark Kudlowski]

Quite a good performance from Joe today, although he might have to go up another gear tomorrow against Giles, but let's wait and see.............

FLEAPIT in round 2, ABORTING in round 7, OUTSOLD/STOOLED in round 11, ZAREBAS in round 12 and MAHSEER in round 13.

1st Numbers Alt.: (7 x 7 x 10) - 6 = 484
4th Numbers Alt.: (((75 - 4) x 2) - (100 / 50)) x 6 = 840 (I think I was the only one in the audience who got it actually )

Sorry to bump the topic after over a year (!), but another solution to R4 was ((100 + 75) * (50 -2)) / (6 + 4).
I set this game to one of my A+ GCSE maths pupils earlier this year.

[Gevin Chapwell]

It doesn't seem to have been mentioned that Susie initally disallowed BAIZES because she apparently didn't know enough about snooker but discussions led her to change her mind.

I didn't realise that knowing about snooker was necessary for reading a dictionary. Further to what I said about it being strange that it's allowed on the basis that it's "typically green", well it makes slightly more sense than allowing it if it was always green. But if it could be any colour with equal probability, the "typically green" bit wouldn't be in the dictionary so it would presumably have been straightforwardly disallowed for being a mass noun. Poor decision by whoever instigated these "discussions".

Not sure why Ryan Giggs came dressed as the postman though.

[Gevin Chapwell]

Quite a good performance from Joe today, although he might have to go up another gear tomorrow against Giles, but let's wait and see.............

FLEAPIT in round 2, ABORTING in round 7, OUTSOLD/STOOLED in round 11, ZAREBAS in round 12 and MAHSEER in round 13.

1st Numbers Alt.: (7 x 7 x 10) - 6 = 484
4th Numbers Alt.: (((75 - 4) x 2) - (100 / 50)) x 6 = 840 (I think I was the only one in the audience who got it actually )

Sorry to bump the topic after over a year (!), but another solution to R4 was ((100 + 75) * (50 -2)) / (6 + 4).
I set this game to one of my A+ GCSE maths pupils earlier this year.

Well it took nearly six years for another bump. I think one year is just outside the 30-second time limit, unfortunately.

[Gevin Chapwell]

Also it's weird that a masher is "A dandy of late Victorian or Edwardian times". If you look up dandy, the definition is "A masher prior to late Victorian times".

And just doing Susie's job here - AMORETTO, not to be confused with AMARETTO, which is "A brown almond-flavoured liqueur produced in Italy".

[James Robinson]

Replacement Game 2020 Word Update

Since this show was broadcast instead of the scheduled one, here's the update for this one, which was shown in the same year as the 30BC.

The max of this game would have increased by two (from 124 to 126), as there were 8's available in Rounds 2 and 12, that weren't available in 2013.

New Words Now Allowed:

R2: PANTOFLE (increases MAX from 7 to 8)
R5: REDATING
R7: ABORIGEN, BIOAGENT, ORANGITE, REOBTAIN
R8: HOUSLIN
R10: ALPEENS, PANELES
R11: STUDDLE, TOODLES
R12: ARABINES, ZEBRINAS (increases MAX from 7 to 8)