c4countdown

David Williams

This time next week I shall be in Alaska. I'd hazard a guess I've been to one place in the USA that few others have made it to. Point Roberts is a peninsular on the west coast that juts southwards out of British Columbia a couple of miles south of the 49th parallel. Presumably some bureaucrat in the...

David Williams

I've never watched an episode of EastEnders, Emmerdale, Hollyoaks, The Wire, The Simpsons, a Harry Potter film, or a Lord of the Rings film. I have never played on a games console, or read a single word of a Harry Potter book. Until last year I had also never owned a microwave, or watched Eurovisio...

David Williams

Kieran Child wrote:I'm scared of bubbles.

marlo, omar, snoop in particular. but bubbles?

David Williams

Am I right in thinking that this is about one of them deducing that he has the best chance of guessing right, rather than being certain?

David Williams

Time for an update of Rachel v Carol while you're at it!

David Williams

I've started pulling the numbers out of the published BARB data to try and see what the overall picture is. Available data starts in June 1998, and in the week beginning 1/2/1999 the lowest audience was 4.32m, the highest 4.48m. During that month the average appears to be well over 4m and I think t...

David Williams

I inhabit that nether world of the over 50's, who cannot play chess seriously unless it takes place in some freezing inconvenient location on a winter's evening when everyone else is watching the Champions League. I play for my local club in two leagues, and my grade is 170. I can claim to have play...

David Williams

Yes. But I'm less happy than I was about the significance once you get wider than two words that appear only in each other's entry.

David Williams

There's something about closed loops as well. If A and B are both in the dictionary, and both appear only in the definition of the other, then one, and only one, of them has to be in the list. You can extend this to groups of three self-contained words, and so on. And as all the words left in the di...

David Williams

I don't have the maths to tackle this, but here's a way to start. First, find any words that appear in definitions, but are not themselves defined. (I think FORELEG was one such.) All of these need to be in our list. Next, find all the words that are defined but do not appear in any definition. I'm ...

David Williams

Another point to consider is that you probably don't need to understand every word in in a definition to understand the meaning of a word. For example : Chambers defines "elephant" as "a mammal (genus Elephas) of the order Proboscidea" and "Proboscidea" as "the el...

David Williams

Stewart Holden wrote:... in Damian Eadie emailing the ABSP asking for us to get more Scrabble players to appear on Countdown, and then putting two of the UK's keenest young players up against the #1 rated player on Apterous?

You must have done something to annoy him.

David Williams

D Eadie wrote:Apterous for me anyway, hasn't affected Countdown at all.

David Williams

Closing date was 6th June. How did it go? This wasn't entirely flip. The Government website says " Once your petition has closed, usually provided there are 500 signatures or more, it will be passed to officials who work for the Prime Minister in Downing Street, or sent to the relevant Governm...

David Williams

Closing date was 6th June. How did it go?

David Williams

This forum presumably comprises people who are among Countdown's keenest viewers, but I wonder if any one of them has ever bought anything advertised in the breaks. Ratings are a reasonably accurate and prompt form of data, that show how viewer numbers are moving, but ultimately the only thing that ...

David Williams

And not a drop spilled.

I walked past the famous Sleddale Hall a couple of months ago. Always had the impression it was in the back of beyond, so I was a bit surprised to find it's only a couple of miles from the nearest motorway junction.

David Williams

Sue Sanders wrote:Please excuse the language but it is in hommage tomy favourite film!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9p8bz ... omy_people

I'm sure it's very good, but why is it your favourite?

David Williams

It's a blatant copy of the game, and any "disclaimers" only reinforce that. I'm not infringing their trademark, they do not have a patent and copyright does not apply to the rules of games. If that's the legal position I'm delighted, if a little surprised. Not least because what you say d...

David Williams

I don't have any real legal knowledge, but I would have thought that the owners of Countdown would have a pretty strong case for shutting down apterous. It's a blatant copy of the game, and any "disclaimers" only reinforce that. How would someone get on if they put out a board game called ...

David Williams

Sue Sanders wrote:Is this just what Doug wanted when he muted the BB House idea??

Best idea yet.

David Williams

Gotta love Liverpool fans, next they'll be telling us Steven Gerrard really was innocent. Anyone with an accent like that should just be sentenced without trial really. Absolutely. And wearing a light blue jumper for a night on the town. In Southport. What surprises me is that the blame is put on a...

David Williams

Every time we think we're done, you come up with more good stuff, and it's back to the drawing board. Perhaps if you went quiet for a bit . . . ?

David Williams

Carol essentially has a mundane role where she has done the same task many thousands of times. She somehow contrives to do it so well that she has made herself a star by doing it. Even when she's laughing too loud at some duff celebrity you know it's because her only thought is to make every episod...

David Williams

Of course, Carol appeared on panel shows and stuff after she was on TV for 6 months as well. In fact, watch any early Carol shows and the personality just shines through, because it's so easy to project personality while putting numbers and letters on a board. I'm guessing there's an element of iro...

David Williams

Dinos Sfyris wrote:
David Williams wrote:(If the service was good, do you tip on the basis of what you pay, or what you should have paid?).
Except your bill isn't a tip. A waiter doesn't see any of the money that foots a bill.

Your bill is £30. It should be £40. Do you tip £3, £4 . . . or £10?

David Williams

I'd throw away a Christmas card without a second thought unless it was obvious. But I'd point out a bill was wrong even if I was outvoted. Vote all you like, it's still stealing. (If the service was good, do you tip on the basis of what you pay, or what you should have paid?) Probably I'm the odd on...

David Williams

Lesley Hines wrote:largely trial and error

In much the same way as getting monkeys to type Hamlet is trial and error . . .

David Williams

Did you actually do it unaided? If so, VERY impressed. I think the musical scale would have done for me no matter how long I took.

David Williams

Good on you. Less so on the police (can't be bothered, too many forms to fill in, etc.), the bank (can't be bothered, data protection, whatever). And of course the chap you spoke to, had he followed the 'correct' line, would have assumed that you were trying to get a mother's maiden name to go with ...

David Williams

It's quite high on Channel 4's top 30's really up until they switched transmission to 3.15, and from then on, bar RW tributes/Carol's last show, and some Des Lynam episodes making the list, it's totally vanished. Cause and effect? My recollection is that at one time Countdown and Brookside were alw...

David Williams

Done it! With vast amounts of help. Anyone who could do that in two hours unaided has skills the like of which I cannot fathom. I don't think I would solve the codes that quickly even if I knew what I was looking for. Did you? Honestly?

David Williams

I've got a test tube, two batteries, a gold bar that I know what to do with, I've opened the brief case, I've opened both panels and I've found a safe.

I hate you.

David Williams

I have to say, Howard, that although your answer is correct I can't quite persuade myself that adding the expected times together is valid. Probably it is, but I don't think it's self-evident. So much easier to say it takes one minute to reach A, and then every two minutes there's a 2/9 chance of re...

David Williams

Charlie Reams wrote:But I am officially cleverer than Feynman. Shall I collect my Nobel prize on the way out?

Prizes are for achievement, not for potential. Check the New Years Honours List for your MBE for services to Countdown.

David Williams

I have a general aversion to IQ as a concept because summarising one person's intelligence as a single number seems obviously bullshit to me (Gödel numbering notwithstanding). Having avoided IQ tests all my life, I was recently obliged to take one as part of an application process, and this served ...

David Williams

Lesley Hines wrote:I'd argue that hydrogen bonds with two oxygens, for example.

Shows how out of date I am. It was the other way round when I were a lad.

David Williams

I think two large is probably the most difficult choice. You have potentially four large numbers (x, y, x+y, x-y) and all the combinations of four small numbers to work with. Where to start? If your aim is no more than to break even I'd go for one large. Options are much more limited, and there's a ...

David Williams

I haven't got an up-to-date dictionary but certainly in the past the OUP were hopeless at chemistry. In the NODE Elements appear to be all mass nouns, surely correctly, but SULFUR is only shown as an American spelling, whereas it is also the internationally-agreed technical spelling. For me, SULFUR ...

David Williams

Whoops. I'm still with Craig, though.

David Williams

No tangelos?

David Williams

Can't find it online, but The Times agrees with Charlie. Change the W. You have a 57% chance of picking a letter that gives you a seven letter word, and, if your opponent doesn't swap as well, there are 81 different ways of making an eight letter word. Mind you, I've never come across Alan Simmons w...

David Williams

There's been a bit lately about the tactical element of Scrabble differentiating it from Countdown. The following is in today's Times.

At the start of a game you have AEIDRTW. What is your best play?

David Williams

Probably I could look it up somewhere, but I was wondering about these 'stems'. For example, what's the longest word you can get out of TRAINED+A, TRAINED+R, and TRAINED+A+R? Is there a danger of missing the obvious?

David Williams

Are you suggesting that Scrabble players improve their word-finding skills, which are similar to Countdown, by practise, and improve their tactical play by study? If anything I'd have thought it was the other way round. Not that I've ever played Scrabble outside my own house, or any competitive Coun...

David Williams

I'm not convinced by the 'just practise' argument. Do Scrabble players just play Scrabble? Has anyone tried any sort of systematic analysis? For example, what proportion of letter selections contain three of AEIO and three/four of DGNRST? How many possible words of seven or more letters contain thes...

David Williams

Charlie Reams wrote:No one cares about 9 round octochamps.

Sniff . . .

David Williams

Charlie Reams wrote:Julian and Kai are the only two to get every conundrum.

I think not.

David Williams

Memory may play tricks, but surely Susie was accused of exactly this. She tried, not entirely successfully, to cut back on it. It doesn't bother me, but I can see how it could be annoying. If I were in Jeff's shoes I'd want someone to point it out if I had a potentially annoying habit I wasn't aware...

David Williams

I'd just finished university. I stayed up to watch. Sometime in the long hours while we waited for American prime-time to begin, I fell asleep. When I woke Armstrong had already got down the steps, or so they said - I couldn't make head nor tail of the pictures. I don't know why, but everyone seems ...

David Williams

I love oxymorons. Even the word is one of the best-sounding words in the English language. But what are some of your favourite oxymorons? Here are some of mine: Military intelligence Professional footballer Dinner lady Virgin air hostess Forgive me for asking, but how is "professional football...

David Williams

Phil Reynolds wrote:TITF

If there is no plagiarism involved in that, I salute you as a giant of modern English literature.

David Williams

Yes, since we've been assured that apterous has no real effect, I'm totally baffled. Who assured us this? I fully expect Chris Davies to threaten 925 too if he plays like he does online (and gets nice letters) too. Apterous for me anyway, hasn't affected Countdown at all. The Beevers, Kirks, Fells ...

David Williams

Junaid Mubeen wrote:It is incredible though that just months after the new record was set, it is already under threat.

Yes, since we've been assured that apterous has no real effect, I'm totally baffled.

David Williams

The first few of these were very interesting, telling prospective contestants what it's really like to be on Countdown, but they do get a bit samey. Offhand, the only one I remember at all was Stewart Holden's, with a lot of detail about his preparation and his opinion of Richard Whiteley. I'd be fa...

David Williams

I'm quite prepared to believe that your sole motivation is to see Countdown improve, but what you say is less important than how it's perceived. I suspect many people view you in the same way as Damian does. You may not be trying to make friends, but nor do I think you influence people as much as yo...

David Williams

Gavin, you make it awfully hard to be vaguely supportive of what you're saying.

David Williams

No second chances? Damian makes his own decisions and he's good at it. Have some faith. War in Iraq? Tony makes his own decisions and he's good at it. Have some faith. Securitisation of sub-prime lending? Lehmans make their own decisions and they're good at it. Have some faith. Andriy Shevchenko? Ro...

David Williams

As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap

David Williams

Say what you want guys, i don't really give a hoot. Have a poll, write to Channel 4, complain to your MP, it won't make a difference. The people who run the show are those who are paid to, not those who think they know it all. Yeah it was my decision, and yeah it's not changing. Have said enough ab...

Search found 1269 matches