c4countdown

Philip A

KATIPO, a venomous spider from New Zealand, an an alternative to OPTIMA.

ALIDADE in Round 10.

Also, haven’t spotted this myself, but a few eagle-eyed fans have noticed that this conundrum and the one from Ian’s debut two days ago each had 6 letters already in the correct position.

Philip A

This very minor discrepancy I believe is a currently unknown rule on Countdown, but as this affects the Apterous dictionary I think it might be worth asking here. US spellings such as color and signaled are not allowed on Countdown (but American words like diaper are valid)… …but what about North Am...

Philip A

Wiktionary gives only POSSETS, POSSETING and POSSETED as the inflected forms of POSSET. Of the OneLook hits, only a few give verbal inflections for POSSET, and they all have them as POSSETING and POSSETED likewise. POSSETING itself has five hits, including the OED, and POSSETTING only one (TFD)! So...

Philip A

INSTAGRAM is a valid Scrabble word.

Philip A

The more videos I watch of Acer the more I’m convinced this is 100% genuine. Rachel even sent him his own numbers which can be seen in one of the short videos. https://youtube.com/@daddylmg?si=TEJR7gIABb0yiOVe

Philip A

And I did (7+5)*75-3*6 for 882.

Philip A

A nervy game there but just one of these shows.

R4: ALGINATE

No meteorics, alas.

R6 alt: 25*3*10+100+3+1 (750+the rest)

Philip A

I think the reason why ‘sonnies’ doesn’t direct to ‘sonny’ is because the plural wouldn’t be used very often, but I doubt it’s invalid.

Philip A

In Round 1, Susie’s offering of HEMATIC is invalid as it is an American spelling: haematic Pronunciation: /hiːˈmatɪk/ (US English hematic) ADJECTIVE DATED Medicine Relating to or affecting the blood. But THEMATIC was an excellent get. I had ANTHEMIC In Round 14 I did ((5+4)*9+1)*4=328 Close game!

Philip A

Susie makes an error in this episode. She said CODING doesn’t take an S, but actually CODINGS is perfectly valid according to the dictionary:

[COUNT NOUN]
A code assigned to something for classification or identification purposes:
PAYE codings

Philip A

Round 2: ABELIAN

Round 6: 75 * 5 - 8 = 367 is doable but not obvious;

25 - 9 = 16 which is 8 doubled, so:

75 * 5 - ((25 - 9) / (100 / 50)) = 367

Philip A

Obscure 8 but Apterous favourite in Round 3: PTOMAINE

Philip A

Well that should double the viewing figures for this week of episodes, for its temporary 3:40 pm slot due Channel 4’s coverage of the Winter Paralympics. Normal time slot returns on 16th of March.

Philip A

The minuter / minutest thing came up again today, but it wasn't explicitly discussed. MINUTEST was given as a beater in one round, and then in the very next letters round minuter was offered by a contestant but rejected by Susie. It would have made sense for her to say at that point about the asymm...

Philip A

Yeah it’s dud.

Can’t wait for my Everything Counts Quarter-Final!

Philip A

Re conundrums, there’s a reason why even good players miss them. There is absolutely nothing to clue you to the answer. Even if it’s an utterly ubiquitous word that everyone knows and uses in normal conversation and writing, it can be really difficult to break it down. It’s quite different to solvin...

Philip A

If this series gets 10 octochamps which would be a record…

…then the producers may need to re-think the 8-player knockout format, no?

Philip A

Philip A wrote: ↑Wed Feb 25, 2026 5:09 pm Broken down again. It got laggier and now won’t load. Hopefully will be back but it might mean no chat for the 3rd time this year.

Turns out it fixed itself, good.

Philip A

Broken down again. It got laggier and now won’t load. Hopefully will be back but it might mean no chat for the 3rd time this year.

Philip A

When was Formula 1 on? I need to check the iPlayer for this. Edit - oh sorry I see, not on Mastermind. On The Floor whatever that is! it's a song by jennifer lopez the floor is 81 specialist subjects no? or i guess 80. either way making all of them unusable would surely make people run out of subje...

Philip A

Goodbye crudities, Susie has discounted you. https://www.apterous.org/ticket_view.php?ticket=7390

Had OWLERIES to beat RECOILS.

Philip A

How many times has a target of 100 appeared on the show?

Philip A

This “restaurant rule” is rubbish. Scrap it.

But I’m going to ticket QUINOAS anyway. https://www.apterous.org/ticket_view.php?ticket=7389

Philip A

The Floor recommissioned for Series 2 and we haven’t even reached the final of Series 1. No news yet on Time Is Money. I like both shows. They were appealing for contestants at the end of the show yesterday - get that application form in Philip! I’ll have to choose a subject that isn’t Formula 1 th...

Philip A

The Floor recommissioned for Series 2 and we haven’t even reached the final of Series 1. No news yet on Time Is Money. I like both shows.

Philip A

I got HATORADE - one of those extremely obscure words you wouldn’t find in any other dictionary. Interesting bit of Countdown trivia: a target of 100, though has occasionally appeared recently includng today, appeared way back in 1994 [https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_1504] - but as the 100 card wa...

Philip A

Axed.

Philip A

Hello Kitty is not a cat.

Philip A

Obscure 8 in ANAPSIDS to beat PAISANS.

A tense game for both players.

Philip A

Had an email reply and others have had exactly the same: Hi Philip, Thanks for your email. As you may be aware, the Oxford Dictionaries Premium is constantly evolving to best reflect current English usage. Both of the words highlighted - PILOTAGES and WOMBLED - were invalid entries at the time of re...

Philip A

At least there is no content warning on streaming for this particular episode, unlike yesterday’s.

Philip A

10th February 2026 episode has brought a lot of online players to attention. Spoilers below: Susie said PILOTAGE is a mass noun when it is not and saying WOMBLE is capitalised when it is not. She allowed PILOTAGES in 2014. Clearly something’s wrong with the illusion they give when suggesting their o...

Philip A

Susie also defined PILOTAGE, which doesn’t actually have a definition in Oxford Dictionaries Premium. Are they using a different dictionary or other websites such as Google? Also I think they need to scroll up and down the page when they search for inflections. Had Susie scrolled up she would have r...

Philip A

John Virgo :_(

Philip A

Susie twice alluded to the 2024 dictionary reset when 95,000+ entries were removed, though a few words do get removed anyway. Callum’s obviously watched past episodes to learn and practice. I think he’s registered the first conundrum solve in under a whole second for a long time so still coming up w...

Philip A

Martin Hurst wrote: ↑Tue Feb 03, 2026 10:14 am
Philip A wrote: ↑Mon Feb 02, 2026 12:57 pm With Colin Murray unavailable for the recordings, Les Dennis returns to guest host this week’s 5 shows. Great to have him back.
Where is Colin?

Well according to the Countdown Wiki Colin had back pain apparently. Unsure if that’s legit but he’s billed to return next week.

Philip A

With Colin Murray unavailable for the recordings, Les Dennis returns to guest host this week’s 5 shows. Great to have him back.

Philip A

C4Countdown on X 110% confirms Les Dennis will host 5 shows this week.

Philip A

Les Dennis will only do 5 shows; Colin Murray is billed to return on 9th February. Update: according to Radio Times, Les Dennis is only doing the Monday show. Freeview guide has him down as 5 and Channel 4 say 5 as well. At least one person is getting fired. And if they’re all wrong and Les isn’t h...

Philip A

Les Dennis will only do 5 shows; Colin Murray is billed to return on 9th February.

Philip A

Wacky Races only had 1 series.

Philip A

I would hazard a guess Callum’s the first person ever to declare the same 9 in consecutive shows. He’s obviously watched the show closely enough to practise.

Philip A

If you spotted SWATTERS for 8 – unfortunately, ‘swatter’ only appears in ‘fly swatter’ in Oxford Dictionaries Premium, so SWATTER and SWATTERS are not in the Apterous dictionary.

Philip A

16th January 2026 episode pulled in a 7-day rating of 963,000 viewers; daytime Countdown on 12th January had 391,000.

Source: thinkbox.tv

Philip A

Congratulations to Daniel Face, who becomes the first new contestant since Rob Barkess in Series 90 to average over 100 points as an octochamp - 461 days ago! Between them, every 800 club member has been a returning contestant except Rhys Jones who averaged exactly 800. Next week, for reasons that w...

Philip A

After talks of The Traitors possibly peaking out in 2026 in the same way as Big Brother, The X Factor and The Apprentice did in 2004, 2010 and 2012 respectively according to popular opinion, it got me wondering, when was Countdown’s finest year? I think it’s 2013 – the last full year to use the pape...

Philip A

Les Dennis to occupy Colin's chair for an unspecified duration from the start of February: https://www.channel4.com/tv-guide/2026-02-02 Wow, good find. Les Dennis has been stand-in before and I thought he was good, and it’s no surprise that guest hosts are the future when one is unable to record (d...

Philip A

I wonder how the 23rd January 2026 episode did in the viewing figures directly up against The Traitors Final!

Philip A

How many octochamps did not score a century in any of their preliminary matches?

Philip A

Anyone thought through the tactics for Millionaire Hot Seat? If you're player six, what chance have you got? You'll almost cetainly get on, as each of the others either passes or gets one wrong. But if you pass there's a high chance you won't get back. The only way is each of the other five gets on...

Philip A

Sorry to sound picky but on today’s Time Is Money, a contestant’s answer, "Maria” Carey, was accepted. It’s definitely Mariah Carey. I’d say that’s wrong. Reminds me of a recent controversy on Jeopardy in the USA where they disallowed an answer of "what is Gangster's Paradise" becaus...

Philip A

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑Sat Jan 17, 2026 2:16 pm 11 points for the conundrum in those days?

Uuh I can’t get anything right these days.

Philip A

- I believe Zarte is the only person ever to score a century with 6 rounds to spare (before the second commercial break). The cull would not have affected the record, and the max would only be 1 point lower now (with ‘pardonee’ being the only deletion offered). In other words, Zarte has the fastest ...

Philip A

Very true. I think 1,000+ points in 8 straight games is still practically possible, but a fraction harder without all those OED words imported from 2015-2024. Tom Carey’s combined time of 17.75 seconds across 8 conundrums is also a very tough one to break. We very rarely see conundrums solved before...

Philip A

Sorry to sound picky but on today’s Time Is Money, a contestant’s answer, "Maria” Carey, was accepted. It’s definitely Mariah Carey. I’d say that’s wrong.

Philip A

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑Fri Jan 16, 2026 10:08 am Should that be 15th?

Yep my mistake, sorry.

Philip A

No ‘gunkier’ surprisingly.

Daniel still playing on Apterous, as is Megel.

Philip A

Yeah because Darryl Francis lost in Series 1 and was allowed to return in Series 6 when he went all the way (first returnee to become series champion).

Philip A

A non-exhaustive of records which may never be broken, for various reasons (e.g. rule changes or simply too good); - In 2006, Conor Travers made headlines by becoming the youngest ever series winner at the age of 14. In 2011, the age limit was increased to 16. This prevented a couple of players, not...

Philip A

A bit surprised that HANGOUT isn't valid Yes, it is surprising, especially when considering DUGOUT is one word. In one context, ‘hang out’ is two words and in another, ‘hang-out’ it’s hyphenated. No one word entry in ODP at all. One of those where only experienced Apterites would go for its correct...

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