c4countdown

Fiona T

People need to stop arguing from hindsight, because it's ridiculous. "We should have locked down sooner" - when exactly did you call for lockdown, and why would you do so so early on? Do you not realise it's a weapon of last resort, because evidently you don't. "Stay alert is pants, stay safe is fi...

Fiona T

Series 19 runner up, Gino Corr

Actor and singer, Paul Nicholas

Fiona T

If anyone likes graphs, this is my new favourite CV website

https://www.travellingtabby.com/uk-coronavirus-tracker/

Fiona T

There's no audience, and the sound is added.

That's why Rachel rather than the audience are picking up the unsolved conundrums.

Fiona T

Anyone can run any parkrun course any time they want in perfect safety. They can, but won't. The real attraction of parkrun for most people is the competitive aspect and group participation that gets them running when they wouldn't otherwise be motivated to. Yep needing to be in a particular place ...

Fiona T

This one's quite evocative https://www.lexico.com/definition/ptomaine ‘Being in town, I warily went along to the Colorado Ballet's production of The Nutcracker, a ballet I normally prefer only slightly to ptomaine poisoning.’ (You know you've spent too long on apto when you both spot ptomaines and b...

Fiona T

One of our local parkruns (Rushmoor) has announced they will not be restarting in October.

https://www.facebook.com/Rushmoorparkru ... 5905825969

Given that all our local parkrus are pretty busy, this would only put more pressure on the others. I honestly can't see any of them opening.

Fiona T

Long time replying to this James (I didn’t know the forum still existed until George mentioned on facebook) but just to clear up so you can edit. Sue Picken is my cousin’s step-Mum / my Uncle’s wife. Married to my cousin’s Dad, Charles Picken, another former contestant. Though he’s my Uncle I don’t...

Fiona T

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑
Sun Sep 06, 2020 4:40 pm
How many of you use p for plus? And square brackets.

that is super useful. Every time I attempt to type + I end up with delete.
Love it.

Fiona T

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑
Fri Sep 11, 2020 9:36 pm
In other news, I'm playing in this on Monday!

Yeah, I saw that on facebook

Fiona T

I'll be on Popmaster this morning. Hopefully it won't go to pot! Oh saw this too late to tune in! How did you go? Had to keep it relatively late due to protocol :) Shan't spoil it if others want to listen but you'll find it here- https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08r5m50 Cheers - listening now :)

Fiona T

Tom S wrote: ↑
Fri Sep 11, 2020 8:38 am
I'll be on Popmaster this morning. Hopefully it won't go to pot!

Oh saw this too late to tune in! How did you go?

Fiona T

Worth subscribing to the youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWmQM7 ... CxOwZrBgMg

But yep, back Mondays and Thursdays at 8. Specials TBA.

Fiona T

David Williams wrote: ↑
Thu Sep 10, 2020 6:25 pm
Honourable mention for Jonathan Edwards, whose world triple jump record has stood for 25 years. He also held the previous record, which stood for about 25 minutes.

Blimey, that makes me feel old!

Fiona T

As many of you will be aware, parkrun recently announced their intention to come back in England by the end of October . The announcement was made this recent news about gatherings of more than six people. However, it seems that there was a limit of 30 anyway, and parkruns are generally bigger than...

Fiona T

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑
Wed Sep 09, 2020 9:24 am

Adam Dexter wrote: ↑
Wed Sep 09, 2020 8:54 am

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑
Wed Sep 09, 2020 8:48 am

Countdown is an organised team sport.
I can agree it's organised and would like to think it is a sport (so I can fulfill exercise quotas), but team?
Funeral then?

You volunteering?

Fiona T

As noted on the wiki, greyouts which was offered by DC is no longer in the dictionary.

The two word alternative, grey out, does not include the definition that Susie offered - a momentary loss of vision or consciousness or partial loss of memory especially during flying.

Fiona T

Also, when talking about the death of Chadwick Boseman, Lewis Hamilton said something like "We've lost one of our people." I thought this was a bit of an odd comment - "our people". I'd like to think that he was talking about all of us as people have lost one of our people, but I don't think he was...

Fiona T

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑
Mon Aug 31, 2020 12:56 pm

Fiona T wrote: ↑
Sun Aug 30, 2020 10:36 pm
So with all the tax stuff in the news, who should pick up the covid bill?

Jono - ?
I'm happy with Jono paying.

Sounds fair

Fiona T

So with all the tax stuff in the news, who should pick up the covid bill?

Jono - any wisdom on this?

Fiona T

He confirmed in apto CD chat that it was telecon. The wiki records this correctly.

Fiona T

I think you make some fair points Eoin If I were on that board of directors I would be asking my exec team - What is the day intended to achieve? What steps are being taken to ensure long term positive change and not a one day gimmick? What are the measures of success? But then I would support the p...

Fiona T

Interesting timing with this

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... can-people

I saw the sketch and found it uncomfortably cringey - didn't have the redeeming feature of being funny

Fiona T

Well said Noel! Next there will be calls for a "White Takeover Day" ;) My worry with this is that it takes time for new presenters to settle into a role and for viewers to get used to them (look at top gear, or even the comments about Katherine Ryan in this thread), so it's unlikely to be a cracking...

Fiona T

Thanks for organising this Tony - was a challenging evening with aptocrashes and players dropping out, so good job in keeping it going and getting us all through it. Was good fun, and great to see so many new players, some of who were frighteningly good! Hopefully some will hang around

Fiona T

I did for the two letter words! https://www.apterous.org/ticket_view.php?ticket=5224 I was pondering this yesterday after the MSO tourney, where a lot of extremely good players turned up and were getting caught out by dictionary differences. I'm assuming CD have some sort of deal with ODO to use tha...

Fiona T

Strikes me that an easyish way to make cheating more difficult might be to prevent copy from the letters, and paste in to the answer box. I can't think of a single instance where you'd legitimately need to do this. I copy and paste pretty much all declarations these days. That's only because I'm pl...

Fiona T

Marc Meakin wrote: ↑
Wed Aug 19, 2020 4:04 pm

How do you fold a fitted sheet ?

LMGTFY

Fiona T

Found this today

https://www.reddit.com/r/Unexpected/com ... rrier_bag/

I haven't been so excited since I learned to fold a fitted sheet.

Fiona T

Paul Worsley wrote: ↑
Mon Aug 17, 2020 8:35 pm
Pat Seed.

She died in 1984, but everyone of my age has heard of Pat Seed. She was even the subject of an Eammon Andrews "This is Your Life".

<googles>

Nope, don't remember her at all

Fiona T

Mark Deeks wrote: ↑
Mon Aug 17, 2020 6:26 pm
Shit happens, don't worry about it. We've all got receipts out there on the internet.

Thank feck (most of) my youthful misdemeanours were pre-internet days!

In terms of positives, I guess saving money due to having no social life must be one.

Fiona T

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑
Mon Aug 17, 2020 6:56 pm
Captcha. Do you really need me to click on endless pictures of traffic lights to prove I'm not a robot? No, so fuck off.

In South Africa, traffic lights are called robots.

Fiona T

The show uses ODO - Oxford dictionary online. Lexico is the free version which is good enough for most of our purposes.

ODO is different (much smaller) to OED.

I understand that where there are differences in the premium version and lexico, they will also check lexico.

Fiona T

Confirmed in Aptochat that he was talking about COVID.

Channel 4 had forgotten to tell the team that they didn't want him to talk about COVID...

Fiona T

Charlie Reams wrote: ↑
Fri Aug 14, 2020 9:00 pm

Tony Atkins wrote: ↑
Wed Aug 05, 2020 6:41 pm
If you are an expired apterous user or want to play anonymously, then create yourself a new (trial) user (for free) using a second email address.
Please don't do this, it's very clearly against the terms of service.

Apterous has terms of service?!?

Fiona T

Aw, that's a disappointing - I was thinking Dr Phil was a secret apterite! Had been very impressed by him - he beat me easily yesterday.

Fiona T

Maybe not overused , but definitely used incorrectly. No they were not homophobic . No my colleagues analysis was wrong. He is gay and laughed at the comment but pointed out that others may find it so. I do not regret making the comment as it was a joke and all my colleagues laughed , it was banter...

Fiona T

Homophobia is a word that is over used. For example I made a joke that wouldn't look out of place in a carry on film using the word knob as an inuendo. My college who wasn't offended said it could be deemed a homophobic comment. I am guilt of casual sexism on occasions but I'm not a misogenist . So...

Fiona T

If you missed Conor's pic with his trophy, it's on fb here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/countdo ... 976190569/

Fiona T

From lexico https://www.lexico.com/definition/all_right Usage There is no logical reason for insisting that all right should be written as two words rather than as alright, when other single-word forms such as altogether have long been accepted. Nevertheless, alright is still regarded as being unacc...

Fiona T

Excellent stuff. My mother always insisted "all right" was two words. I recall her arguing with my class teacher who had marked my two word version incorrect in a spelling test. (As a aside I also recall her arguing with the RE teacher who had given me a very low mark for one of the exam questions a...

Fiona T

Well if we're on words that sound like they mean something entirely different to what they do, I give you bucolic. Sounds like a particularly nasty ailment of the bowels. The dictionary gives "Relating to the pleasant aspects of the countryside and country life." So that's nice.

Fiona T

IMO it would be a shame if Jack is deterred from posting future videos because of negative feedback.

Fiona T

I enjoyed it Jack - thanks for sharing. Always enjoy seeing the highest quality games.

Personally, I find new words are more likely to stick from a game I'm watching and engaged with, so all good stuff!

Fiona T

You are the tournament organiser. You clearly overhear Cock and Dick agreeing with each other not to buzz for the conundrum, so as to deliberately draw the game, giving them 5½ wins each, putting them both through to the final. What action, if any, do you take? Is this hypothetical or has this (or ...

Fiona T

You are the tournament organiser. You clearly overhear Cock and Dick agreeing with each other not to buzz for the conundrum, so as to deliberately draw the game, giving them 5½ wins each, putting them both through to the final. What action, if any, do you take? Is this hypothetical or has this (or ...

Fiona T

haha looking back at the youtube chat guess spirogyra must have specifically been an 80s school biology thing - Ian, Steve H and I all knew exactly what it is; younger guys never heard of it!

<old person mode>what do they teach them at school these days...</old person mode>

Fiona T

OK - this is my set up On the left is my laptop screen with the excel overlay The big screen has zoom on the left, and OBS (the streaming software) on the right On the right is my old laptop which I use for youtube switch on/off stream/chat/messenger/other browser stuff cos having the browser open a...

Fiona T

I enjoyed the sem-finals today! How does the letter selecting and going up on the screen work? At one point today it became clear that Paul wasn't selecting the letters himself because James Rowen made a mistake (vowel instead of consonant or vice versa) and apologised for it. But then is a third p...

Fiona T

Johnny Canuck wrote: ↑
Sun Jul 19, 2020 9:56 pm
Is Saldanha really making an appearance? Wonder what he’s up to now in any case.

Paul can be very persuasive

Chance to find out!

Fiona T

A good point. Most drawstrings seem to come with sportswear. Is there any reason why elastic wouldn't do the job...

Fiona T

Something that prevents drawstrings being lost in waistbands. Yes, I know a knot helps, but only until the strain against the hole causes the fabric to give, then we're back to square one with retrieval being hindered by the presence of a knot catching on the fabric. How many human hours, that could...

Fiona T

Youtube link is https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWmQM7wUgtyzmCxOwZrBgMg Subscribe to get notified when stuff is happening :) Monday 8pm - Dan v Elliott, then Conor v Ian Thursday 8pm - Brad v Hazel, then Jonathan v Steve Worth watching live if you can cos half the fun is joining in the live chat :)

Fiona T

After a fantastic three months, the ZoomDown heats are done, and we now know the final 8 who will battle it out to see who will become the inaugural ZoomDown Champion! Let's take a look at our seeds in reverse order 8 - Elliott Mellor Elliott endured a nail biting end to the series to see if he wou...

Fiona T

I can't remember the last time I ironed anything. It must be several years - more than five - quite possibly ten I'd guess.

Last clothes of mine that got ironed were by that nice chappie (Lee?) at the countdown studios

MrT occasionally irons a shirt. Crazy fool.

Fiona T

For those that think it's fine, when declaring your word second, to have written down 10-15 plausible words and then just point to the one your opponent says... would you prefer if apterous was coded in this way, instead of the perfectly logical way it's coded now? It would be stone cold mental to ...

Fiona T

6:15 here

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x70wdke

Doesn't show the checking, but Suzie asks for spelling which she doesn't usually do.

Fiona T

A good example is re- and -er If I had for example noted lacquerer and relacquer without being sure of either, and my opponent went for one, I'd go for the same one every time. Never occurred to me that that could be considered cheating. In fact I'm sure someone advised me to declare the same word a...

Fiona T

Most of you can ignore, but the software folks amongst you might appreciate this - I think we all have a duty to name our kids in a way to give us as much work as possible!

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/445 ... onscript-3

Fiona T

Search found 389 matches