c4countdown

Graeme Cole

Not sure if it's an atropine thing as such, but we've had a couple of tourneys where a very good player has missed the first round for various reasons (I can think of 3 tournaments I've attended in the last year where this has happened)- they then join and play the lowest scoring player and inevita...

Graeme Cole

The main change for Atropine 1.3.0 is an internal technical one, but one which opens the door to a significant improvement. Since Atropine's first release in 2014, all its web pages have been generated by what are called CGI (Common Gateway Interface) scripts . These start up a new Python process fo...

Graeme Cole

I'm going to publish Atropine 1.3.0 soon, probably before the end of the year but definitely before COLIN. It contains a number of improvements, including the main one which I'll describe in a separate post below. This thread is intended for users of Atropine , the application that administers fixtu...

Graeme Cole

Chapter 1 page 1 of the Book of Disappoint has to be this nonsense . At first glance it's a box of delicious chocolate, but then you realise it's only a jigsaw puzzle. Somehow this got through all the whiteboardy-flipcharty meetings at Cadbury. And despite what is claimed on the picture someone uplo...

Graeme Cole

MK is then largely paid for by the levies which organisers have raised, absorbed from their admission revenues at an agreed rate per attendee, so that you as a participant have another like-for-like event at which to round off the year. I've no criticism of this arrangement, which I think works ver...

Graeme Cole

Well done to David Roe for becoming an octochamp and narrowly missing out on being the number 1 seed (but ending up 3rd). I thought it was interesting what Colin said about the tie-break if he'd got the conundrum. David would have ended up on 819 points, the same as Fiona Wood, but Colin said he'd ...

Graeme Cole

There are too many back seat drivers in this thread. Some of you obviously come on here a lot to comment on what organisers should do. To be fair, that's the whole point of this thread. It's a place where people can post general feedback on co-events, without posting it under the thread of the most...

Graeme Cole

Do you mind if I ask who you are and which specific events you attended? I can't find any record of a David Harrison ever having played at a co-event. No, I attended events under my real name which I’d rather not divulge in the public domain but I can say you and I have met at events in the past, t...

Graeme Cole

IIRC some of the early Readings and possibly Dublins? Had separate paper cons for each table. I attended some of the early FOCAL finals, in these events only the people in the open could pick the letters and numbers meaning it was fair for all finalists, is this still the case? I’ve read some posts...

Graeme Cole

Yesterday there were clumsy conundrum disputes pertaining to premature buzzing and losing conundrums due to spelling errors. I mean if you spell it wrong, it's wrong and you don't get the points. Ideally hosts of Bristol events could avoid using cons that can be easily misspelled, eg METER/METRE su...

Graeme Cole

In Reading (Bristol Style) we tried one conundrum for each half of the room, with one half adjudicating while the other solved. I liked this and think this slight variation may be even better: 1.One conundrum for every fixture number 6 or lower, i.e. not in the first 10 places, conducted as usual w...

Graeme Cole

Bucket of gunge for people who ask for all 9 of their letters up front at Bristol style events. "CV9 please" Double bucket of gunge for the people who pick the first 7 letters like they care that they are picking, and then they just double up with their final pick. "And 2 more conson...

Graeme Cole

Braintree 2022 fit in 7 14-rounders which is only 7 rounds shorter. Surely once a year starting an hour earlier or finishing an hour later wouldn’t be that much of an issue? It is a special occasion after all! Opinions may differ on this, but these are mine . Pushing the start time earlier makes it...

Graeme Cole

Well, Reading effectively played 6 games as the final takes the same amount of time. It doesn't. Waiting for everyone in the room to finish their declarations/numbers method always takes longer than than waiting for two people to do it. Also, in the final you don't have to collect score slips and t...

Graeme Cole

If we scrapped the final and just had an 8 way round robin to decide the winner, do you think it would be feasible to have all 7 games as 15-rounders? No. You can't play seven 15-rounders in one day unless you start ridiculously early. The general rule I would use for Bristol-style events is to all...

Graeme Cole

If we scrapped the final and just had an 8 way round robin to decide the winner, do you think it would be feasible to have all 7 games as 15-rounders? No. You can't play seven 15-rounders in one day unless you start ridiculously early. The general rule I would use for Bristol-style events is to all...

Graeme Cole

At some point we have to ask ourselves what are "reasonable steps". We could go down the route of things like metal detectors or hired security, making every event prohibitively expensive. Alternatively, we take a step back and do a sensible assessment of the risk. The incident at Blackpoo...

Graeme Cole

Going back to signing in at FOCAL/Co events , wouldn't fire regs expect a list of attendees as a duty of care , especially a room in a bigger establishment? The organiser already has a list of attendees. You can't build a fixture list or standings table without it. The organiser also notes who's ar...

Graeme Cole

In a previous line of work, I used allocation software to supervise and manage staff's rotas, shifts and pay. I remember a story in training that, if a member of staff came to the counter and asked what shift another employee was working, we couldn't tell them. In this particular example, person A ...

Graeme Cole

Hello everyone. Yes, I'm putting the hat on again. Yet another reminder to everyone to be careful what they're posting. There are worthwhile discussions to have about safeguarding at future events, and this is the ideal thread to have those discussions in. For that reason I don't want to lock the th...

Graeme Cole

I think for any new newbies going to a co event it might be better for someone to vouch for them for safety sake You could makes this forum a closed forum so nobody dodgy can lurk Well-intentioned though both of these ideas undoubtedly are, in both cases I think this is how communities die. It's a ...

Graeme Cole

Today's episode (Oct 14) had some tough math, I suspect Rachel got fed the answers for this one. Once again - Rachel doesn't get fed answers, but I don't think anything any of us say is going to convince you of this. But do you agree that the math today was tricky ? No idea. I haven't seen today's ...

Graeme Cole

Jamie Weisenberg wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2024 7:59 pm Today's episode (Oct 14) had some tough math, I suspect Rachel got fed the answers for this one.

Once again - Rachel doesn't get fed answers, but I don't think anything any of us say is going to convince you of this.

Graeme Cole

Obviously a difficult situation, this. I think we should acknowledge that some events are more at risk than others, through factors such as their location (particularly, proximity to known threats), and the security at the venue itself. We have had some events this year where you have to be buzzed ...

Graeme Cole

Keeping the venue secret is an overreaction. No other organised sports/games/tournaments have to do this. If we really are saying co-events might not be safe for attendees if we publish the venue in advance, that's the point at which I question whether I still want to go to these at all. Just for b...

Graeme Cole

I totally understand that recent events (well, a recent event) has led people to want to reduce the risk of this sort of thing happening again. Not publishing a list of attendees seems a reasonable thing to do. Not all events do this anyway (I know Braintree doesn't) and people can still discuss am...

Graeme Cole

Does that mean a criminal or their lawyer could post stuff online (under some other name or names presumably) about their crime to get the trial thrown out? They could try, but presumably they'd be running the risk of adding perverting the course of justice to the charge sheet if they were found out.

Graeme Cole

This has now been made public: John Cowen charged with stabbing at Blackpool tournament. Quick reminder to everyone, especially those who were there, not to post anything about the suspect or the incident which might prejudice the trial. Journalists know the complex laws about what is allowed to be ...

Graeme Cole

Having seen a few numbers rounds disputes at Co-Events over the years, I think it would be a good idea to have FOCAL policy/guidelines around this, particularly in relation to Bristol-style events. This could be publicised and announced by the event host in advance, so that everyone is aware. Some ...

Graeme Cole

But on top of that there's this extra lottery that if you can make certain weekends, you can get double or maybe even triple the normal allocation of "turning up". I can totally see actually why it is done as it is by default. It takes an extra step to think about it the way me and Fiona ...

Graeme Cole

I was perusing the standings spreadsheet, and thinking about the burgeoning number of add-on events, especially with the COLIN bumper weekend at the end of January. Anyone attending those events can hit the 8 events threshold quite quickly, but increasing the threshold would make it tough on anyone...

Graeme Cole

I was perusing the standings spreadsheet, and thinking about the burgeoning number of add-on events, especially with the COLIN bumper weekend at the end of January. Anyone attending those events can hit the 8 events threshold quite quickly, but increasing the threshold would make it tough on anyone...

Graeme Cole

I was watching a 1966 episode of Call My Bluff , and apparently I've only just realised something about the format which now seems obvious. See how the host, Robin Ray, describes the rules from 2:40 onwards. The implication from what he says is that when the panellists open their cards, of which one...

Graeme Cole

I guess my main suggestion now would be to go back to 6 rounds as opposed to 8 in lincoln. I know i'm part of the problem why it became 8 but 8 every now and then is better than 8 as the norm. Blackpool was refreshing with 6, I've actively started to feel myself enjoying it less with the more games...

Graeme Cole

It needs phone signal to load the map but only the satellite connection to get your co-ordinates, which can be placed on the loaded map. I think. I figured that but I can't get my head round that it knows what speed you are doing countdown the miles and directs you without a phone signal so I can o...

Graeme Cole

12 entrants, meaning that the Friday event is already 2/3 full! :-O if there's enough demand (24 being the cut off) I'll see about getting us into the bigger room at the memorial hall, but now really is the time to listen to that FOMO voice is you want to to the treble in January. In attending ever...

Graeme Cole

12 entrants, meaning that the Friday event is already 2/3 full! :-O if there's enough demand (24 being the cut off) I'll see about getting us into the bigger room at the memorial hall, but now really is the time to listen to that FOMO voice is you want to to the treble in January. In attending ever...

Graeme Cole

Good afternoon everyone, I’ve just heard about the events of yesterday and am horrified, even more so given that I intended to attend until Friday morning when a member of my family was taken ill who remains in hospital. I’m glad that everyone was ok and sending my thoughts and prayers to everyone ...

Graeme Cole

If I was willing to organise one could I pay for a TD /CO to manage the event ? Not computer savvy and want to learn what's involved in running an event. So what is the going rate to hire someone? At co-events, there isn't much demarcation between such things as "organiser", "tournam...

Graeme Cole

The app uses a SQL DB with a large number of columns including aCount, bCount ... zCount Getting every single available word from a selection is the. A single DB query. You just build a query to fetch all words where aCount of the DB row is LTE the number of As in the selection. I think when I meas...

Graeme Cole

Yeah makes sense for this specific scenario, but not sure how/whether that approach works with the more common scenario of finding all maxes/words from a selection (but typically just one selection at a time so slowness much less of an issue!) I've had a bit of a play and improved the permutation g...

Graeme Cole

You might want to exclude the scramble itself from the possible solutions. It's valid for the scramble to be a valid word if there's only one anagram of it, but if you feed the conundrum checker "RAUNCHIER HURRICANE", for example, it complains that there are two solutions. yeah I consider...

Graeme Cole

I've put together a conundrum checker that event hosts can use to check the validity of their conundrums. https://focaltools.azurewebsites.net/ConundrumChecker.aspx It checks the scramble matches the solution (Graeme's conundrum printing thingy already does that) but also checks that there is one a...

Graeme Cole

Well as Callum says, there's already a tie-break mechanism used on the show so it would be simpler to do that. Plus the suggestion is worse. No, it isn't. The show and the tourneys are similar, but distinct in many ways. From the view of an organizer, it makes things a lot simpler in these situatio...

Graeme Cole

After watching every episode of the last three months, I am convinced Rachel Reily is fed the answers through an earpiece. She can't be this good, conjuring all kinds of obscure solutions. What a shame. You've obviously done your research, having watched three months' worth of episodes. Here's a li...

Graeme Cole

Jamie Weisenberg wrote: ↑Sat Jul 20, 2024 7:50 pm
JackHurst wrote: ↑Sat Jul 20, 2024 7:02 pm Also I bet you wouldn't be saying this if "Rachel" was a man.
It is so lazy to trot out the misogyny card whenever a woman is criticized.

This argument might have made sense if you hadn't said two minutes earlier "she gets paid a lot because of her looks".

Graeme Cole

Marc Meakin wrote: ↑Sun Jul 14, 2024 9:23 pm Also the shooter was on the opposite side to trumps wounded ear

No, he wasn't.

Graeme Cole

There's a new version of Atropine (1.2.4), with not enough changes to need its own new thread. The only substantial change is to how the fixtures are displayed to everyone when they're announced. It used to show the name-to-table-number index, rather than the full fixture list, if there were 36 or m...

Graeme Cole

All-round interesting technology spokesperson Dylan Beattie has created a crossword which has two valid solutions. You'll find out which one is correct on Friday.

He talks about it in his latest video, but note that there are mild spoilers after about 5 minutes.

Graeme Cole

Carol Vorderman appeared as a guest on HIGNFY on Friday, with former contestant Little Alex Horne as host. Is this the first time a former contestant has hosted a TV show with a former/current Countdown team member as a participant? (excluding Catsdown) No, it isn't; Carol Vorderman appeared in a s...

Graeme Cole

Maybe the one thing I would question is the value of having a 3rd/4th place play off going on at the same time as the final. I've seen it done before at CoMso, and I'd have to admit I really didn't like it. Trying to play 2 games simultaneously from the same selections with an audience is just real...

Graeme Cole

Peter Thomas wrote: ↑Tue May 21, 2024 5:56 pm There was also Isabelle Heward from earlier this year.

Forgot to mention that this only counts games up to the most recently-completed series.

Graeme Cole

Marc Meakin wrote: ↑Thu May 23, 2024 9:09 am It bodes well for England's chances in the football.
England last won a trophy during a Labour government.

*England women's team has left the chat*

Graeme Cole

Hi Graeme, I was wondering how many octochamps in the fifteen round format have scored less than 100 each game? (I originally posted this a couple of weeks ago, but there have been no replies. Sorry if my original wording was a bit abrupt.) 15. Here are all the 15-round octochamps whose maximum hea...

Graeme Cole

Does Graeme work on the TV show ? No. If not, what's this thread about ? A very long time ago, I wrote a loose collection of Python scripts to scrape all the results and rounds we have on the wiki into a database. Over the years I've refreshed and updated it, usually after each series, and I use it...

Graeme Cole

Hope nobody is offended but .. has anyone ever suspected that Rachel Riley (or even Carol) might be getting fed the solution through an earpiece by the producers ? Surely has to be in some cases. I find it hard to believe she can get all the tougher ones in 30 secs that the maverick contestants are...

Graeme Cole

http://www.c4countdown.co.uk/viewonline.php?sg=1&sk=b&sd=d You can see what the 'guests' are up to. It is a bit odd. Dunno if it displays IP addresses for admins... I can't see IP addresses of non-logged-in users, but I'm a "global moderator" rather than an "admin". Perh...

Graeme Cole

Found it - CO:LON 2017 has the record with 68 players. CO:LON 2018 had 67 and CO:LON 2019 had 65. Besides those events, I can't think of any others that got higher than the low-to-mid 50s. The recent Reading event had 53 but I don't think all of them were there at the same time. One of the more rece...

Graeme Cole

I'm playing in a scrabble tournament with over 160 entrants , so I was interested in what was the biggest attendance for a Countdown event ? Jen's CO:LON events from 2017-2019 consistently hit the high 60s, and I'm pretty certain that no other co-event has ever had that many people. I think the hig...

Graeme Cole

Fast forward a few years, and David Harewood says go for it ! Blackface in Shakespeare was much like men playing women's parts as women wernt allowed to act in those days and presumably black actors were not in abundance. So I kinda disagree with blackface in this context but RDJ using blackface in...

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