c4countdown

Erm In R12, is AMIRATE allowed? As Amir is an alternative to EMIR, and EMIRATE comes from EMIR, can AMIRATE come from AMIR? Not in the OED, but AMIR as an alternative to EMIR is.

Today I undertook the seemingly autistic task of writing all the words the contestants got, and all the ones I got. I calculate the MAX to be 131, so Kirk did very well. I would have got 26 points if I had been playing (2 x numbers, and MONIES in R7). Think I'll practice some more before applying!

OH and in R7, did Kirk say DOMINE? Because I can't seem to see it in the OED...

Adam Dexter wrote:Erm In R12, is AMIRATE allowed? As Amir is an alternative to EMIR, and EMIRATE comes from EMIR, can AMIRATE come from AMIR? Not in the OED, but AMIR as an alternative to EMIR is.

Today I undertook the seemingly autistic task of writing all the words the contestants got, and all the ones I got. I calculate the MAX to be 131, so Kirk did very well. I would have got 26 points if I had been playing (2 x numbers, and MONIES in R7). Think I'll practice some more before applying!

Maybe we should do that with every game or something!

Charlie Reams wrote: Maybe we should do that with every game or something!

Yes, but you do it for the greater good, wheras mine is akin to onanism....

Incidentally, if the duty recapper needs any help, I have it all here (ish)

jonathan.coles wrote:Absolutely brilliant Kirk. Well done on achieving the record debut score. Wish I'd been there to witness it and shake your hand. I'll see if I can get a ticket for the series finals and meet you then. Looking forward to tomorrow.

This is like when Sobers ran on to the pitch to congratulate Lara when he smashed the 365 record. Beautiful

Incredible performance, Kirk. Loved your efforts to define some of your words. "Stunsail...something to do with boats, I think". And you even managed to wow the audience with your darts stuff at the end, as if they weren't already entranced.

Incidentally, I hammered you 127-43

I'm touched (not touchéd this time) by all your nice comments. I'm glad you all enjoyed the show as much as I enjoyed playing in it.

Kirk Bevins wrote:I'm touched (not touchéd this time) by all your nice comments. I'm glad you all enjoyed the show as much as I enjoyed playing in it.

Kirk - see if you can set up an auto-post script so you can re-send that message to the appropriate spoilers thread at 6pm for the next 7 weekdays

Wow, Kirk, what a brilliant performance. Your pupils must be really proud that 'Sir' has done so well in his first game. How on earth did you manage to pluck those unusual words from nowhere? I can't even find them in my (new from Amazon) OED - must have bought the wrong version! I've never heard of any of these: PROSOMA, TETRODE, STUNSAIL and SOLARISED. Even my spellchecker doesn't recognise them. I can't wait for tomorrow's game and already feel sorry for your opponent.

Kathleen Batlle wrote:Wow, Kirk, what a brilliant performance. Your pupils must be really proud that 'Sir' has done so well in his first game. How on earth did you manage to pluck those unusual words from nowhere? I can't even find them in my (new from Amazon) OED - must have bought the wrong version! I've never heard of any of these: PROSOMA, TETRODE, STUNSAIL and SOLARISED. Even my spellchecker doesn't recognise them. I can't wait for tomorrow's game and already feel sorry for your opponent.

You'll have bought the wrong edition then I'm afraid. The answer to learning these words is easy: Look in the direction of Mr Charlie Reams and the wonder that is apterous.org.

Edit: And how has the title of this thread shortened suddenly?

Well, we've been hearing about Mr. Bevins for a while now haven't we and i was wondering when the "big debut" was taking place and low and behold i switch on Countdown and there he was waiting like a primed racehorse to get the show on the road and boy was it a show. Mr. Bevins was utterly delectable from start to finish. It was really refreshing to see someone playing the game with a smile on their face all the time.

Utter brilliance. Frighteningly good.

Wow, the first show I watch since the CoC and I got a max game! Even beat Kirk to the conundrum!

Jon O'Neill wrote:Wow, the first show I watch since the CoC and I got a max game! Even beat Kirk to the conundrum!

Do I detect a hint of sarcasm?

Adam Dexter wrote:

Jon O'Neill wrote:Wow, the first show I watch since the CoC and I got a max game! Even beat Kirk to the conundrum!

Do I detect a hint of sarcasm?

No, I really did get a max game.

Yeah, I had a max game from the audience, although Kirk had more interesting words than me in most of the rounds. YATTERED was really the only difficult one, and I vaguely remembered Craig getting it in some MSN game. But to drop only 3 points on the other side of the cameras is still a ridiculous standard to set.

I was pushed for time so went FFwd through all the intros, so can someone please enlighten me as to the story behind Kirk? When was he on before? He's definitely a potential series winner!
(BTW, Had time for Phil's balloon joke- wished I hadn't- it was awful!!

Pretty epic. I was wondering in the SOLARISED round - was that fake thinking you were doing for most of the 30 seconds? (When the selection came up I thought "I bet there's a 9" - I didn't get it because I'm rubbish, but was watching you closely to see if you had got one instantly.)

Excellent.

Charlie Reams wrote:Yeah, I had a max game from the audience, although Kirk had more interesting words than me in most of the rounds. YATTERED was really the only difficult one, and I vaguely remembered Craig getting it in some MSN game. But to drop only 3 points on the other side of the cameras is still a ridiculous standard to set.

Is YATTERED allowed? I looked it up, and it's not specified.. I thought anything over 1 syllable had to be? Or am I confused (as per!)?

Michael Wallace wrote:Pretty epic. I was wondering in the SOLARISED round - was that fake thinking you were doing for most of the 30 seconds? (When the selection came up I thought "I bet there's a 9" - I didn't get it because I'm rubbish, but was watching you closely to see if you had got one instantly.)

Likewise. I saw SOLDIERS but thought there had to be a 9, but didn't see it.

Adam Dexter wrote:Is YATTERED allowed? I looked it up, and it's not specified.. I thought anything over 1 syllable had to be? Or am I confused (as per!)?

You're confused. Specifically, you're confusing the past tense of a verb (which is what YATTERED is) with the rule about comparatives and superlatives of adjectives (-ER, -EST).

Just think about it logically - given that YATTER is a verb, why should the past tense need to be specified unless it's irregular? How else would you form the past tense of a regular verb except by adding -ED?

AnnieHall wrote:I was pushed for time so went FFwd through all the intros, so can someone please enlighten me as to the story behind Kirk? When was he on before? He's definitely a potential series winner!
(BTW, Had time for Phil's balloon joke- wished I hadn't- it was awful!!

http://www.countdownwiki.com/Kirk_Bevins

He's been allowed on again (correct me if I'm wrong, Kirk!) as he was under 18 on his first appearance, similarly to Junaid Mubeen's double appearance.

His performance at Countdown events, and on apterous mean that you're probably correct in your confidence in his abilities (no pressure, Kirk, LOL!).

Well in Kirk, that was excellent.

Loving your blitzkrieg letter picking style and how you only look at the monitor as an afterthought.

Julie T wrote:http://www.countdownwiki.com/Kirk_Bevins

Having checked out that link, and being me, I obviously became immediately annoyed by the number of errors on the page and so created an account so I could put them right. However, the page is protected so I can't. Maybe someone else would like to do it? The oddities of punctuation and grammar I leave to you (whoever you are) but the date of Kirk's latest appearance could do with fixing.

Phil Reynolds wrote:

Adam Dexter wrote:Is YATTERED allowed? I looked it up, and it's not specified.. I thought anything over 1 syllable had to be? Or am I confused (as per!)?

You're confused. Specifically, you're confusing the past tense of a verb (which is what YATTERED is) with the rule about comparatives and superlatives of adjectives (-ER, -EST).

Just think about it logically - given that YATTER is a verb, why should the past tense need to be specified unless it's irregular? How else would you form the past tense of a regular verb except by adding -ED?

OK thanks So the thing is when is -ER? As in an "agent verb"... I use this term scaredly... knowing that it's probably not that!

Matt Morrison wrote:Kirk must be 1/5 on to become an octochamp

You mean 1/5 (against), or 5/1 on. 1/5 on is a weird way of saying 5/1. But if you're offering 1/5 on, I'll have a tenner on Kirk please.

[/Phil]

Michael Wallace wrote:Pretty epic. I was wondering in the SOLARISED round - was that fake thinking you were doing for most of the 30 seconds? (When the selection came up I thought "I bet there's a 9" - I didn't get it because I'm rubbish, but was watching you closely to see if you had got one instantly.)

Yes. I had DARIOLES out of the first 8 and was willing a T out. When an S came out, I was mildly disappointed but about two seconds later I had the nine and spent the rest of the time containing my excitement as I knew I had to get a nine there and then to beat the 124 debut record. I told Jeff afterwards I think I broke Coles' record and he said he'd check with Damian and he confirmed it.

Seriously, how can this game be clased as a debut when its not your first appearance?

Adam Dexter wrote:OK thanks So the thing is when is -ER? As in an "agent verb"... I use this term scaredly... knowing that it's probably not that!

You mean agent noun. This is the noun formed by adding -ER to a verb to indicate a person or thing that performs the action indicated by the verb. Thus WALKER is the agent noun from the verb WALK, because a walker is a person who walks. Here, the rule is simple: an agent noun must be specified in the dictionary for it to be acceptable. There is no "unless it's only one syllable" qualification. So, for instance, a person who yatters might well be referred to informally as a "yatterer", but YATTERER is not specified in ODE2r as a derivative of YATTER so it would be disallowed in the game. Likewise NEEDER (a potential agent noun from NEED, a one-syllable verb) is invalid for the same reason.

Joseph Bolas wrote:Seriously, how can this game be clased as a debut when its not your first appearance?

I think you should make your debut in my new game "Shut The Fuck Up".

I was mighty pleased to stay within fourteen points of Kirk and then he got that nine and he was gone. Outstanding stuff.

Jojo Apollo wrote:

Phil Reynolds wrote:Dr Phil's shirt reminded me of my favourite Tim Vine joke: "So I said to my girlfriend, how do you like my new shirt? It's got cactuses on it. She said, cac-TI. I said, that's as may be, but what do you think of the shirt?"

The legend Tim Vine. Bring back Whittle I say. They should get him in dictionary corner, he could easily rattle off a few dozen jokes in his slot.

Get to the dictionary corner thread and second my request. We can get him on! I saw Tim Vine live a few months ago and laughed until it hurt. He's like a young Ken Dodd; the first joke may not make you laugh, the second may make you groan, but eventually he'll get you and once he does the jokes come so fast that you don't stop laughing.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Joseph Bolas wrote:Seriously, how can this game be classed as a debut when its not your first appearance?

I think you should make your debut in my new game "Shut The Fuck Up".

Jeez! It was just a question.

Great debut Kirk - well done.

I can't believe Kirk yattered Coles' record! Watching along at home I knew he needed a 9 in the last letters round to do it, and like Kirk, was praying for a kind final letter! I remember thinking...P for POLARISED, then the S came and I still didn't see it

Awesome game mate. Wish I could have been in the studio for it. Fucking poofter melon arse exams!

Also without looking I'd assume Kirk receives the prestigious award which I just made up, for greatest improvement since original appearance, increasing his score by a factor of 1.84 (or 18 and double top points!)

Phil Reynolds wrote:

Adam Dexter wrote:OK thanks So the thing is when is -ER? As in an "agent verb"... I use this term scaredly... knowing that it's probably not that!

You mean agent noun. This is the noun formed by adding -ER to a verb to indicate a person or thing that performs the action indicated by the verb. Thus WALKER is the agent noun from the verb WALK, because a walker is a person who walks. Here, the rule is simple: an agent noun must be specified in the dictionary for it to be acceptable. There is no "unless it's only one syllable" qualification. So, for instance, a person who yatters might well be referred to informally as a "yatterer", but YATTERER is not specified in ODE2r as a derivative of YATTER so it would be disallowed in the game. Likewise NEEDER (a potential agent noun from NEED, a one-syllable verb) is invalid for the same reason.

Thankyou Phil for your clear and unpatronising response. You have made the whole issue a lot clearer So to clarify, there are no rules concerning anything to do with monosyllabic words?

Adam Dexter wrote:So to clarify, there are no rules concerning anything to do with monosyllabic words?

Yes there are. We covered that already. The rules say that the regular comparative and superlative forms (i.e. -ER and -EST) of one-syllable adjectives do not need to be explicitly specified.

Joseph Bolas wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:

Joseph Bolas wrote:Seriously, how can this game be classed as a debut when its not your first appearance?

I think you should make your debut in my new game "Shut The Fuck Up".

Jeez! It was just a question.

I'm new here, but I do remember Kirk's first appearance. It sounded like a fair question to me so I don't understand the response.

Clive Brooker wrote:

Joseph Bolas wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:I think you should make your debut in my new game "Shut The Fuck Up".

Jeez! It was just a question.

I'm new here, but I do remember Kirk's first appearance. It sounded like a fair question to me so I don't understand the response.

Don't worry it's just Charlie's humour. I *think* Joseph knew that too.
For what it's worth, I laughed when I read it. Don't be offended!
Mind you, maybe I just understood it wrong and Charlie does actually just want you all to shut the fuck up.

Brilliant stuff Kirk. I think all the superlatives have been used, so as a racing man I will try and summarise as follows:
First time out this season, The Kirkinator was quickly away, soon in front going well.
Established a good lead at the first Teatime Teaser.
Pulled further away on the bottom bend and led comfortably at the second Teatime Teaser.
Put in a startling finishing burst in the home straight to break the course record for a Novice and win by a distance.
Finished full of running without coming off the bit.
More expected next time out.......

Many congratulations and well done in front of the cameras mate - just what we expected and a little bit more!

Al

Charlie Reams wrote:Yeah, I had a max game from the audience, although Kirk had more interesting words than me in most of the rounds. YATTERED was really the only difficult one, and I vaguely remembered Craig getting it in some MSN game. But to drop only 3 points on the other side of the cameras is still a ridiculous standard to set.

I wasn't originally gonna post this, but Kirk beat me 111 - 120. SOLARISED is one of my favourite words, so I always spot that one. I got YATTERED as a few months ago someone (Jason?) set the GINTREATY conundrum. I only got ATONES in the first round, and obviously I hadn't even read the conundrum before Kirk buzzed.

Comment: Are you actually both joking about the max game?

David Roe wrote:

Paul Howe wrote:

Ben Hunter wrote:The superbly named Ann Abel

Haha, worst parents ever.

Don't blame the parents - she's married.

The best one of these I know is my friend Dominique (female) from France who married Dominique (male) and took his name, so husband and wife have identical names, apart from the middle names. When she gets a phone call and he answers, the person tends to say "can I speak to Dominique" and he says "speaking", which is obviously confusing because it's a male voice. Haha.

Martin Gardner wrote:Comment: Are you actually both joking about the max game?

I wasn't, and I don't think Jono was, although I only posted about it to wind Kirk up. For once I seem to have failed in my favourite pursuit.

Very impressive Kirk.

Well done.

Matt Morrison wrote:Don't worry it's just Charlie's humour. I *think* Joseph knew that too.
For what it's worth, I laughed when I read it. Don't be offended!
Mind you, maybe I just understood it wrong and Charlie does actually just want you all to shut the fuck up.

If this was Charlie's humour, then I definitely didn't know this (but I don't think this was).

Clive Brooker wrote:I'm new here, but I do remember Kirk's first appearance. It sounded like a fair question to me so I don't understand the response.

Maybe this is a good example of why newbies tend to find me unfriendly. The question is per se a fair one and I've responded to it properly here. However, with broader context, we see that approximately 99% of Joseph Bolas's posts are whinges about the fact that he lost on the show and wants to go back on, despite him being 1) not very good 2) a personality vacuum 3) a well-known cheater in online games. So when Kirk has his big moment, getting a second chance and taking the show by storm, I knew as soon as I saw a new Joseph Bolas post that it would be some smarmy comment about Kirk being allowed back on, attached to a lame compliment in an attempt to avoid being insulting. Sure enough it was. So, given the full history of the situation, I think my reply was pretty fair. You may not agree but hang around here for a while and I bet you will.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Clive Brooker wrote:I'm new here, but I do remember Kirk's first appearance. It sounded like a fair question to me so I don't understand the response.

Maybe this is a good example of why newbies tend to find me unfriendly. The question is per se a fair one and I've responded to it properly here. However, with broader context, we see that approximately 99% of Joseph Bolas's posts are whinges about the fact that he lost on the show and wants to go back on, despite him being 1) not very good 2) a personality vacuum 3) a well-known cheater in online games. So when Kirk has his big moment, getting a second chance and taking the show by storm, I knew as soon as I saw a new Joseph Bolas post that it would be some smarmy comment about Kirk being allowed back on, attached to a lame compliment in an attempt to avoid being insulting. Sure enough it was. So, given the full history of the situation, I think my reply was pretty fair. You may not agree but hang around here for a while and I bet you will.

It's mostly newbies of the female persuasion who worry about it, Charlie. It's our motherly nature that makes us intervene when we see a group of boys wrestling and play-fighting - we just can't help it - but we do usually try not to get so close as to risk getting a kicking ourselves.

Rosemary Roberts wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:

Clive Brooker wrote:I'm new here, but I do remember Kirk's first appearance. It sounded like a fair question to me so I don't understand the response.

Maybe this is a good example of why newbies tend to find me unfriendly. The question is per se a fair one and I've responded to it properly here. However, with broader context, we see that approximately 99% of Joseph Bolas's posts are whinges about the fact that he lost on the show and wants to go back on, despite him being 1) not very good 2) a personality vacuum 3) a well-known cheater in online games. So when Kirk has his big moment, getting a second chance and taking the show by storm, I knew as soon as I saw a new Joseph Bolas post that it would be some smarmy comment about Kirk being allowed back on, attached to a lame compliment in an attempt to avoid being insulting. Sure enough it was. So, given the full history of the situation, I think my reply was pretty fair. You may not agree but hang around here for a while and I bet you will.

It's mostly newbies of the female persuasion who worry about it, Charlie. It's our motherly nature that makes us intervene when we see a group of boys wrestling and play-fighting - we just can't help it - but we do usually try not to get so close as to risk getting a kicking ourselves.

Technically I'm male. Does this mean I have a female persuasion?

I'm a bit disappointed I don't have the highest score of the series any more (though I didn't expect to keep it long anyway). This performance annihilated that previous score! Oh well. As long as I beat Kirk in the final, I won't mind

Clive Brooker wrote:Technically I'm male. Does this mean I have a female persuasion?

Technically? Is there some doubt?

Neil Zussman wrote:I'm a bit disappointed I don't have the highest score of the series any more (though I didn't expect to keep it long anyway). This performance annihilated that previous score! Oh well. As long as I beat Kirk in the final, I won't mind

Clive Brooker wrote:Technically I'm male. Does this mean I have a female persuasion?

Technically? Is there some doubt?

It seemed to be the buzzword on the Kirk's Debut Poll thread and I couldn't get it out of my head.

If I get through my upcoming audition (highly unlikely) you'll be able to judge for yourself.

Martin Bishop wrote:I was mighty pleased to stay within fourteen points of Kirk and then he got that nine and he was gone. Outstanding stuff.

Jojo Apollo wrote:

Phil Reynolds wrote:Dr Phil's shirt reminded me of my favourite Tim Vine joke: "So I said to my girlfriend, how do you like my new shirt? It's got cactuses on it. She said, cac-TI. I said, that's as may be, but what do you think of the shirt?"

The legend Tim Vine. Bring back Whittle I say. They should get him in dictionary corner, he could easily rattle off a few dozen jokes in his slot.

Get to the dictionary corner thread and second my request. We can get him on! I saw Tim Vine live a few months ago and laughed until it hurt. He's like a young Ken Dodd; the first joke may not make you laugh, the second may make you groan, but eventually he'll get you and once he does the jokes come so fast that you don't stop laughing.

Agreed, he is a human joke machine gun, one of his bullets/jokes is bound to hit the target.

Where's the thread, is it the one here in this spoiler section (started by AnnieHall), can't seem to find your request?

Clive Brooker wrote:Technically I'm male. Does this mean I have a female persuasion?

I think you have to ask yourself which sex you find most easy to persuade. Does that help?

Clive Brooker wrote: If I get through my upcoming audition (highly unlikely) you'll be able to judge for yourself.

Where? (edit) I meant where is your audition?

Jimmy Gough wrote:

Clive Brooker wrote: If I get through my upcoming audition (highly unlikely) you'll be able to judge for yourself.

Where? (edit) I meant where is your audition?

I can't help feeling that discussing this sort of detail is a bit questionable, although I'm quite sure the organisers have everything well under control.

However I can say it's not in Canterbury.

(Don't mind me, I'm usually excessively cautious).

Clive Brooker wrote: I can't help feeling that discussing this sort of detail is a bit questionable

Why?

Jimmy Gough wrote:

Clive Brooker wrote: I can't help feeling that discussing this sort of detail is a bit questionable

Why?

When I really think about it, no reason at all.

So the answer is: Bristol, March 18th. Sorry we can't meet up afterwards to drown our sorrows.

Clive.

Record for closest to max score?

Coming to this a bit late but - wow! What an amazing game Kirk! I thought you would do well but that was stunning.

Kai Laddiman wrote:Record for closest to max score?

120/121 by Beevers.

Michael Wallace wrote:

Kai Laddiman wrote:Record for closest to max score?

120/121 by Beevers.

sorry, didnt realise. edited

OH MY GOD YOU FUCKING CUNT