c4countdown

Fred Mumford

I had the same impression.

Fred Mumford

Stewart Gordon wrote: ↑Sun Aug 20, 2023 12:43 am
JackHurst wrote: ↑Thu Aug 10, 2023 9:19 pm FAQs
What does this stand for?

Lots of people have been asking that.

Fred Mumford

If you can read that then what do you need the glasses for?

Fred Mumford

Marc Meakin wrote: ↑Thu Jun 29, 2023 9:03 am Top ten singles in 1984 is better somehow than top 10 singles in 1984

This made me think of another one: why do we not put a comma to separate the thousands when talking about years?

Fred Mumford

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 12:16 pm Edit - Perez, Ascari, Clark? Presumably Ascari and Clark got the max points from the best x of y scoring. And Perez is Max's team-mate.

Yes on Ascari and Clark. They fit the achievement better and also have the advantage of being less transient. In 5 years time the Sergio name may confuse.

Fred Mumford

Johnny Canuck wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 10:42 pm A "Sergio game", perhaps?

I vote for an "Alberto" game (a "Jim" game is also appropriate but the name is perhaps too common), where someone gets a maximum possible points score without getting the best possible result in every round.

Fred Mumford

Marc Meakin wrote: ↑Tue Dec 13, 2022 10:24 am That you can buy mince pies with sell by dates before Christmas

I especially recommend Morrisons, where you can buy mince pies with sell by dates three weeks before you buy them

Fred Mumford

In fairness I would trust that website more for Countdown queries than F1 queries. The first thing I ever looked up on it was wrong.

Fred Mumford

I think when aged about 12 I wondered why the word was used without the "a" infront and was told that the word means 10,000 and so should have the same grammatical treatment. It had never been an issue for me since. Thanks.

Fred Mumford

Art Garfunkel's enormous moustache on the album cover photo for Bridge over Troubled Water.

Fred Mumford

Racing drivers often made that claim, especially in the days when the cars caught fire easily and the marshals wore t-shirts and smoked. I didn't know road users argued against belts on safety grounds, I assumed it was just about comfort and infringements of civil liberties etc.

Fred Mumford

A lot of drivers hated it. I spent part of January 31st 1983 gesticulating to unbelted drivers, correctly anticipating how much it would wind them up. Clearly belts are uncomfortable and restricting. That's why. How anyone could think the downsides outweigh the upsides is beyond me though.

Fred Mumford

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑Sat Jul 23, 2022 7:08 pm Race walking is a joke event.

It's not even proper walking, it's basically "nearly running".

Whoever invented it should be forced to participate in a new event, "nearly swimming".

Fred Mumford

If you get the correct word first time on Wordle it calls you a genius. That's the last thing you are, you're either very lucky or a cheat. No skill involved.

Fred Mumford

There may be something important I've not considered, I suppose one concern is that reaction times would immediately be vastly improved across the board, which for sprint races in particular would mean a huge improvement in everyone's times, making comparisons to past performances impossible. Obvio...

Fred Mumford

Since Yesterday was about nuclear war apparently.

I even took years to get what Enola Gay and I Don't Like Mondays were about.

Fred Mumford

He was the one defender who had the measure of George Best.

Fred Mumford

The main character in Kokotoni Wilf looked kind of religious. Not Jesus, but thought it was worth a mention for elimination purposes.

Fred Mumford

Paul Anderson wrote: ↑Thu May 26, 2022 12:53 pm Ha, at least it's catchy, unlike your Mrs Lincoln one, whatever that means...sounds awfully parochial

The reference is to Abraham Lincoln's assassination in a theatre, so you can probably deduce when to use it from that.

Fred Mumford

Paul Anderson wrote: ↑Thu May 26, 2022 9:32 am Wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire?

That's a terrible saying, as I am not sure which option is worse.

Two I like are " yes Mrs Lincoln, but apart from that did you enjoy the play?" and "about as much use as a snooze button on a smoke alarm".

Fred Mumford

I was in the "got three of them quickly, but took ages on the final one" club, but would be interested to know if we all struggled on the same number. The one that took me longest was the third in Callum's list, possibly because with the others I sort of knew those numbers must be gettable...

Fred Mumford

It's like bringing in Mo Farah to do the athletics because he's a superstar athlete, but unfortunately the event required on the show is the 100m sprint. Actually I suppose it isn't really like that at all, but the point is that whilst there is some correlation between maths academic achievement and...

Fred Mumford

I noticed a few people failed on yesterday's Wordle (CATER). They got the ATER and ran out of guesses for the first letter. I went for WHEEL. Took out WATER, HATER and LATER in one go. That's how you're supposed to play, losers. I had REACT after 2 goes (5 yellows), and it took me an embarrassingly...

Fred Mumford

Philip A wrote: ↑Wed Mar 09, 2022 2:50 pm R13: can stick the R on SUICIDE for SUICIDER.

That sounds like someone who does it on a regular basis.

Fred Mumford

Does the Flat Earth Society have a Global President?

Fred Mumford

British Bulldog played with professional teams.

Monkey tennis.

Fred Mumford

I seem to remember years ago Carol Vorderman calculating that the dead outnumber the living by 10 to 1. Whether this was on Countdown, How 2 or something else, I can't remember. I can remember a bit more than you about this in that I know it wasn't on Countdown, but can't recall what show it was. I...

Fred Mumford

I thought factoids were things that aren't really true.

Fred Mumford

I guessed you would know that.

Fred Mumford

Marc Meakin wrote: ↑Fri Feb 25, 2022 1:10 pm The Champions League final will no longer be in St Petersberg

The Russian GP might be off but Indycar is racing at St Petersburg this weekend guilt free.

Fred Mumford

Disagree about Grange Hill, I've been watching the very early series recently and am impressed by the writing - realism, humour and the absence of anything preachy.

I'm surprised they didn't bother doing re-takes whenever someone fluffed their lines though.

Fred Mumford

There's similar issues with that question about someone who has 2 kids and at least 1 is a boy - what is the probability of them both being boys? Clearly the answer isn't particularly interesting if it's 1/2, so they want the correct answer to be 1/3 - but that entirely depends on how the question i...

Fred Mumford

I'd also be interested to see how important you think the wording of the problem is It's critical. The way you have worded the puzzle, switching would not necessarily change your chances. You have to emphasise that Monty will always open an empty door. For me the biggest puzzle about the Monty Hall...

Fred Mumford

Dylan Taylor scored a debut 120 out of a max 121, so that can only be 14 maxes.

Fred Mumford

Maybe slightly under 90% if someone flags it up on a forum that gets frequented by the series producer.

Fred Mumford

Have watched this a few times now, and I find myself wondering why they bother having questions on it at all. None of the contestants ever seem to know anything, and are almost always just picking up bags at random - often displaying poor tactical play to complement their woeful lack of any general ...

Fred Mumford

Still thinking about Mama Cass and Zsa Zsa Gabor no doubt.

Fred Mumford

I remember my disappointment when I realised that the lyric in Creeque Alley about who is sat in the coffee shop is really (John) "Sebastian" rather than "the bastards".

Fred Mumford

If heart attacks are more lethal for women than men, why is Mama Cass literally the only woman I can think of (famous or otherwise) who died from a heart attack?

Fred Mumford

Emlyn Hughes once stole a win in an episode of A Question Of Sport after Bill Beaumont's team was asked the rugby question "who won the Stewart Wrightson Trophy last year?". Beaumont's incorrect guess of the Army rather gave the game away to the otherwise clueless Hughes.

Fred Mumford

Marc Meakin wrote: ↑Thu Oct 07, 2021 6:47 pmNot crap per se but not the best drummer in the Beatles

There's no record of Lennon ever actually saying that, even though it sounds like the sort of thing he would say. Bit like Hemingway, he sometimes gets credited for saying things he didn't.

Fred Mumford

Mark Deeks wrote: ↑Sun Sep 26, 2021 6:26 pm When the electric toothbrush drops power every thirty seconds or so, it's not broken. It's a deliberate signal.

To avoid you making a fool of yourself in your first show as host, please be aware that the same is true of the Countdown clock.

Fred Mumford

Susanna Raganelli was a world champion in karting, beating the likes of all time F1 great Ronnie Peterson.

Michele Mouton was an excellent rally driver, but not quite the very best. She was runner up in the 1982 world rally championship though.

Fred Mumford

Why is it more acceptable to mock someone over their height than their weight, even though we have much more control and choice over the latter?

Fred Mumford

What is the smallest positive whole number such that there is no standard numbers selection that would be able to solve it? For example, 937500001 is one such number, because the largest possible number that one can make from a countdown selection is 100*75*50*25*10*10 = 937500000. Apparently it is...

Fred Mumford

Surely nobody considers themself to be a moron, so I don't quite understand who would be offended by the word appearing by chance in a word game.

Fred Mumford

And whilst we're on music, is the Bryan Adams/Mel C collaboration When You're Gone a rip off of Albert Hammond's It Never Rains In Southern California?

Fred Mumford

The song My Sharona.

Sharona is not a name. Sharon is a name. Why not pick a real name that had the requisite number of syllables then amend a real name to fit, but that now just sounds stupid?

Fred Mumford

There needs to be a distinction between upsets or long odds at the start of the contest or part way through. A lot of those mentioned so far are really great comebacks, but not necessarily big upsets based on how people thought beforehand.

Edit - yeah, what Noel said basically.

Fred Mumford

Roger Bannister breaking the 4 minute mile should be up there. How quickly people forget - that performance wasn't even enough to win him Sports Personality of the Year. Once the barrier had been broken everyone started doing sub 4 minute miles, and a particularly dramatic televised mile race later...

Fred Mumford

Most bands in the 60s were ugly fuckers. It's almost as if in those days it was the actual music that mattered rather than their look. Thank God we've come so far since then.

Fred Mumford

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑Mon Aug 09, 2021 9:03 amAs said before, track and field is the true Olympics.

Yes. The Summer Olympics are only about athletics.

And as a huge winter sports fan I should take offence at your dismissal of the Winter Olympics, but you're actually right. Too many fluke champions.

Fred Mumford

Thank you. More confused than ever now, that looks like a totally different race to the one I remember, not least the time of day. Hmm, more digging required. I will report back. Edit - Yep, I'm obviously mixing up two memories - the windy one was his Tokyo 1991 run of 20.01 into a 3.4 headwind. I c...

Fred Mumford

Question for the older members - Michael Johnson first entered my consciousness in 1990, when he ran a 200m in Edinburgh in 19.85 despite an enormous headwind. I thought that he would have easily smashed the world record in better conditions, and he later told Brendan Foster that he'd have gone unde...

Fred Mumford

Italy is best, then Germany. Still didn't make up for the Schumacher Ferrari era being tedious as fuck though.

Fred Mumford

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑Tue Aug 03, 2021 9:00 pm Beamon's record was at altitude of course

Damn right - in that famous head-on photo, he looks about six feet off the ground. Definitely helped.

Fred Mumford

I don't suppose the track surface is the same as used in the Tokyo world championships of 1991? There was controversy about it at the time, to the extent of a newspaper sports headline saying "Tokyo records tarnished forever". I don't think Beamon got his record back though.

Fred Mumford

Awful. In skiing they changed the World Cup rules in the late 1970s to stop Ingemar Stenmark becoming the overall champion on the grounds that he didn't compete in downhill - but at least he was utterly dominant in the other 2 disciplines. This takes the biscuit though.

Fred Mumford

the seventh-placed athlete behind Rudisha when he set his 800m world record in 2012 would have won gold in 2008 with his time I would say the 800m is the shortest of the "tactical" races though, so speed comparisons aren't quite as relevant - sometimes the big finals do have quite slow ti...

Fred Mumford

Thank you - yes it was around 1980 that the grids became staggered all the time rather than genuinely side by side (I'm a motorsport history obsessive actually, knowing far more about eg the 1956 season than 2021), but this particular quirk has always confused me.

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