Spoilers for Thursday 4th December QF1

[Dinos Sfyris]

ZOMG Finals start today how frigging exciting! Post any beaters/equallers/alternatives/comments on Charlie's dreamy good looks and fascination with the letter K here.

[Charlie Reams]

Exciting exciting! Wonder if we'll get another n00bflood after today?

[Ben Wilson]

Exciting exciting! Wonder if we'll get another n00bflood after today?

Thanks for the warning, laptop on standby.

[Ben Hunter]

OH GOD IT'S ABOUT TO START

[Joseph Bolas]

You could've spelt out COLEI in the middle of the board if you picked the vowel before the 4th consonant

[Matt Morrison]

Charlie's dreamy good looks

Has anyone else noticed Charlie looks like Kai's older brother from certain angles? Just me?

[Matt Morrison]

R2: PRIMATES for a rather less complicated equaller

[Ben Hunter]

Got AILMENTS for R4, I'm one point behind the Reemster.

[Matt Morrison]

lost track of the round but THNDAIOAL
ALATION is there to beat Charlie for 7 points - not sure where I picked up that word from, I thought it had something to do with emotion (like 'elation') but apparently having checked it means the status of being winged

[Joseph Bolas]

What was that Mike Brown who got LUCRATIVE?

[Nick Wainwright]

Halation was there in round 11 I think, which Dan Van will do doubt remember from CoLin. Good conundrum spot there from Mike!

[Stewart Holden]

What was that Mike Brown who got LUCRATIVE?

It certainly was a rather suntanned looking Mr Brown.

[Dan Vanniasingham]

Yeah I got halation . Any DC bit was cut, so I reckon Scott Kenyon ran amok in the studio screaming it before crying "POKERWORK" and leaving the building.

Blatantly Mike Brown with the conundrum spot, or his better-looking twin. Some hit-and-miss rounds from Charlie there, but more than enough to see off Patricia (who made some fine spots herself). I just hope Kirk and Jono have enough spare underwear for the next 6 shows.

[Phil Reynolds]

Post any [...]comments on Charlie's dreamy good looks

If I heard Des right, we can now look forward to seeing Charlie's semi. I'm strangely excited by that.

[Charlie Reams]

Blatantly Mike Brown with the conundrum spot, or his better-looking twin. Some hit-and-miss rounds from Charlie there, but more than enough to see off Patricia (who made some fine spots herself). I just hope Kirk and Jono have enough spare underwear for the next 6 shows.

Yeah, I was awful. Didn't manage to watch the programme today so I have no idea it came across but I felt like David O'Donnell, by which I mean leg-tappingly nervous rather than embarrassingly drunk.

[jeff wharton]

Congratulations Charlie,but she gave you a closer game than I expected.I can,t remember a contestant choosing Z Y and J in one round and then completing the nasty set with the X next time.
I thought the bloke who got the conundrum looked familiar.Also did I spot Kai lurking at the back of the audience,or perhaps it was one of his brothers?

[Frank Rodolf]

K - I could not stop myself... I read this thread, despite not being able to watch the episode until tomorrow. Sounds like it is going to be a good watch!

[Ben Pugh]

MELANITE as a DC beater.

[Michael Wallace]

Yeah, Charlie was a bit out of form today, but I imagine it's pretty terrifying. I was being moderately pleased with my solution to the last numbers, since I went the (6*8/2 + 50)*10+7 route, only to be amused by my lameness when whatshername did it the easy way.

Also, I am disappointed in Charlie for not asking for an inverted cross for his numbers

[Ben Hunter]

I was hoping he'd ask for an Islamic crescent and star.

[Martin Gardner]

I got HALATION as well, which was a bit of a guess but turned out to be alright. I think Charlie gave a good description of his own performance there - an attack of the "oh shit I can't see anything" disease, which I seem to remember catching myself more than once.

[Kai Laddiman]

Charlie's dreamy good looks

Has anyone else noticed Charlie looks like Kai's older brother from certain angles? Just me?

Just you.

[Kai Laddiman]

Congratulations Charlie,but she gave you a closer game than I expected.I can,t remember a contestant choosing Z Y and J in one round and then completing the nasty set with the X next time.
I thought the bloke who got the conundrum looked familiar.Also did I spot Kai lurking at the back of the audience,or perhaps it was one of his brothers?

It was me, but I wasn't allowed to put my hand up in case I was noticed.

[Michael Wallace]

He looks more like (a young) Oliver Queen.

[Frank Rodolf]

Just watching the show now... At least Charlie did not ask for "a better" consonant after the first Q.

[Dinos Sfyris]

Another here for HALATION. Occupational advantage of being a chemist. Also if Countdown were a 10 letter game and another N came up in that selection we would have had another chemistry word LANTHANOID!

Julian corner: I only had LOCALES in round 1 As soon as Patricia said 8 I saw LOCALISE!

Well done to Charlie for a ZANeY (but lets face it, a bit rubbish) performance, Looking forward to tomorrows game already and recapping Kai vs Debs on Tuesday.

[Martin Gardner]

R2: PRIMATES for a rather less complicated equaller

Plus SERAPHIM and TERAPHIM; CountMax gives two others, I'll leave you to figure them out. I'd say neither of them are obvious mind you.

[Matt Morrison]

R2: PRIMATES for a rather less complicated equaller

Plus SERAPHIM and TERAPHIM; CountMax gives two others, I'll leave you to figure them out. I'd say neither of them are obvious mind you.

how about TRAMPISH as a valid synonym of trampy?

[Mike Brown]

It certainly was a rather suntanned looking Mr Brown.

This was obviously down to the extremely sunny weather in Leeds during the quarter-finals!

[Richard Brittain]

Haven't been able to watch the game but I just had a look at the recap.. I too am very surprised by the Reamster's performance. But, at the end of the day he got the job done and had the game won after round 13.

[Ben Pugh]

R2: PRIMATES for a rather less complicated equaller

Plus SERAPHIM and TERAPHIM; CountMax gives two others, I'll leave you to figure them out. I'd say neither of them are obvious mind you.

MATESHIP was one of them.

[Charlie Reams]

So presumably SHIPMATE was the other. Incidentally I had SERAPHIM but decided SAMPHIRE was more interesting.

[Philip Jarvis]

Blatantly Mike Brown with the conundrum spot, or his better-looking twin. Some hit-and-miss rounds from Charlie there, but more than enough to see off Patricia (who made some fine spots herself). I just hope Kirk and Jono have enough spare underwear for the next 6 shows.

Yeah, I was awful. Didn't manage to watch the programme today so I have no idea it came across but I felt like David O'Donnell, by which I mean leg-tappingly nervous rather than embarrassingly drunk.

Well done Charlie on getting through although I have to agree your performance was well under par. I recall not getting close to you in your 1st 8 rounds, but I managed to beat you on 4 word games yesterday plus I got the last numbers game and conundrum - I posted a win of 97 to 71 against you, albeit from the far less pressurised arena of my armchair.

Anyway, well done for getting through and I look forward to you getting back to your usual standards next week.