Spoilers for Wednesday 15th December 2021 (Series 84, QF 1)

[Thomas Carey]

Ahmed Mohamed vs Janet Noe. Good luck!!

[Philip A]

FETALISED a very good find; it’s not specified but is valid since FETALIZED (Oxford spelling) is the headword.

[Philip A]

I had ODALISK in R5.

[Ryan Lam]

It has been an exciting first Series with Anne Robinson as the host of Countdown (whether you view it positively or negatively), and with Dr. Anne-Marie Imafidon as the temporary arithmetician while Rachel is away on maternity leave. It sure is set to be a great Christmas showdown! Up today are "Guy who probably swallowed a Dictionary as Adrian Chiles, our Dictionary Corner guest claimed" Ahmed Mohamed and "Back on set literally hours after her last appearance" Janet Noe, boy it sure must have been damn convenient to get the latter to appear on the same day she lost to Kim Coltman (who I will talk briefly after the Final airs) On the other end, I can only feel for Jack Millard who barely missed out on the Finals at the last moment, but he nonetheless deserves a mention from me He could have been the youngest finalist up there since Toby McDonald back in 2018.

Letters: Both players get off to a great start with NASALINE and RAINLESS in R1, but Ahmed takes a huge lead with FETALISED in R2. He subsequently just opens up the gap which just gets larger and larger with words such as SOLIDI in R5, REDEPOSIT in R10 (Unlucky Janet who had depositer ), RAPINER in R11 and SPECIATED in R13. However, I have to give credit to Janet who had PANEER in R11 which is a great spot. Man, there's no stopping Ahmed here today...

Numbers: With both players usually picking 1 Large, it was not surprising all the selections were of that choice today. What was unusual today, was the easy standard of all the rounds. I sure hope for harder selections in the later matches! I feel sorry for Janet who missed out on the ten points in R3 though

Conundrum: If you caught the continuity announcer at the end of "Chateau DIY" while waiting for this show to start, he gave the viewers a challenge whether they could solve it or not. This also set us up for an extremely tough conundrum. It was really difficult, but halfway through I spotted "Acetyl" and that's when I gasped and got the answer which in Chemistry, is another name for Ethyne, an Alkyne!

Had Ahmed gotten the conundrum, he would have gotten the highest ever score in the history of Countdown, beating the record Elliott Mellor made back in May 2019 but alas, it was not to be. You could probably feel how Anne was rooting for it to happen as did some people in our Daily chat too, but that doesn't matter, he's through to the Semi-Finals by a very comfortable margin. Knowing how Ahmed performed in his preliminaries, I expected the margin to be around 80 points on the occasion he spotted at least two nine-letter words. The margin was also slightly higher at 84 points, but he also managed to spot three nine-letter words which is stupendous!

Janet, you were brilliant especially leaving us thinking whether or not you were going to appear in the Series 84 Finals or continuing on to Series 85 with a shot at becoming an Octochamp next year. While the latter didn't happen, your skills proved enough to make it. It was always an uphill battle against Ahmed, but I hoped you had fun throughout your time in the studio!

Tomorrow, it's "A Student when he first appeared 14 years ago but now a Teacher teaching students himself" Stu Harkness versus "A serious yet dignified Funeral Driver which I have to salute especially in this COVID-19 pandemic" Roddie Bell. Let's see who takes the second spot in the Semi-Finals!

Progress:
QF1 (15 December): Ahmed Mohamed (#1) vs Janet Noe (#8) (143 - 59)
QF2 (16 December): Stu Harkness (#2) vs Roddie Bell (#7)
QF3 (17 December): Florence Cappleman-Lynes (#3) vs Jasamrit Rahala (#6)
QF4 (20 December): Jeremy Slaney (#4) vs Matt Gould (#5)
SF1 (21 December): Ahmed Mohamed (QF1 Winner) vs (QF4 Winner)
SF2 (22 December): (QF2 Winner) vs (QF3 Winner)
GF (23 December): (SF1 Winner) vs (SF2 Winner)

[John Garcia]

End Credits: Leans over and asks "What was the name of that website you used?"

The first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club.

Ahmed must be kicking himself. That conundrum was gettable. Not by me, but by him. I figured out it was a chemical but didn't have enough time to work out which one. I'm just pleased I got SPECIATED. Well done to both players. Great opener!

[Fiona T]

End Credits: Leans over and asks "What was the name of that website you used?"

The first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club.

Ahmed must be kicking himself. That conundrum was gettable. Not by me, but by him. I figured out it was a chemical but didn't have enough time to work out which one. I'm just pleased I got SPECIATED. Well done to both players. Great opener!

I got pedicates, which I assumed was something to do with feet till I looked it up!

[John Garcia]

I got pedicates, which I assumed was something to do with feet till I looked it up!

I think Ahmed may be onto something in not learning the meanings. Sometimes it's better to not know!

[Jojo Apollo]

Ahmed was awesome again

[Toby McDonald]

Great start to the finals! Well done Ahmed but very unlucky to miss out on the record.

R9 LNAFP: (9*5+4)*10 = 490

[Howie Myers]

r 10 alt: REPOSITED