phenomenal brainpower

grecian · Post by **grecian** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 9:04 pm

roberto la vigna wrote:I think Stelling is great.

Only on Sky Sports News on Saturday, surely? I thought he was lousy the couple of times I've seen him on Countdown.

When are you going to go on Countdown Bob? You'd be the biggest shoo-in for the title since I don't know when.

roberto la vigna · Post by **roberto la vigna** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 10:52 pm

grecian wrote:Only on Sky Sports News on Saturday, surely? I thought he was lousy the couple of times I've seen him on Countdown.

Why? He has a relaxed, amiable manner, doesn't patronise the contestants, tells terrible jokes, chats about the footie, winds up Rachel and on occasion even comes up with winning solutions himself.

grecian wrote:When are you going to go on Countdown Bob? You'd be the biggest shoo-in for the title since I don't know when.

Very kind of you to say so, but I fear that I would be tempted to do silly things, like offer gash non-words once I've built a lead, throw rounds or forfeit completely once I get bored (assuming that I don't have to play anyone decent); I'm a deadly combination of irreverence and nihilism in those kinds of situations.

If unknown goes on, I'll try to go on too (maybe).

Istenem · Post by **Istenem** » Fri Nov 06, 2009 9:50 am

i can quite understand where Bob is coming from. it has always appealed to me to be sat on countdown with an appealing selection like ERINGSTEN and declare a two-letter word. i haven't yet decided whether it would be funnier to offer a pathetic word like IS or to crap out with something unlikely such as RN.

Matt Vinyl · Post by **Matt Vinyl** » Fri Nov 06, 2009 9:54 am

I think Stelling is top drawer on Soccer Saturday - just think he's a touch awkward on CD. Far better than Lion-man Lynam though...

civ77 · Post by **civ77** » Fri Nov 06, 2009 9:57 am

Jeff is a top bloke on Countdown, chats with contestants in between games and is in my opinion as good a host for the show as could be asked for.

If anyone is going on then my only advice would be to steer clear of any word games based on Chambers dictionary (scrabble Word-Up etc) as countdown uses OED (or more specifically NODE) which has some key differences in it's word list.

If anyone happend to be watching tonight, then I'm the guy on the right.

cool · Post by **cool** » Fri Nov 06, 2009 11:07 am

'When are you going to go on Countdown Bob? You'd be the biggest shoo-in for the title since I don't know when'

He'd probably prefer to go on Carol.

roberto la vigna · Post by **roberto la vigna** » Fri Nov 06, 2009 5:07 pm

civ77 wrote:If anyone happend to be watching tonight, then I'm the guy on the right.

I watched this - funny that Stelling didn't really comment on your massive pub crawl!

Which bits of the country are you still to do?

civ77 · Post by **civ77** » Fri Nov 06, 2009 9:40 pm

Next big crawl is Blackpool-Carlisle-Glasgow-Edinburgh-Newcastle-Leeds (as long as work don't cancel my holiday again). Other than that I am planning on a couple of London day trips seeing as out of the 1700ish pubs ticked off my list only about a dozen have been in the capital.

I was more expecting a cautionary tale from Dr Hilary than a pat on the back from Jeff, perhaps they like me were expecting I would be there for more than one game.

roberto la vigna · Post by **roberto la vigna** » Fri Nov 06, 2009 9:42 pm

Dr Hilary and his book, so shameless.

fotherz · Post by **fotherz** » Sun Nov 08, 2009 12:45 am

Surprised to hear you got beat, civ.

A summary for those of us who missed it ?

It is now too late to suggest that all of us apply for the same series!!

BigEd · Post by **BigEd** » Sun Nov 08, 2009 8:47 pm

Matt Vinyl wrote:Vorderman... <Adopts Kenneth Connor-like pose> Phwwwooooooaaaaarrrr! ]

I'm sorry, but I never got it.
It has to be said that Vorderman = Great big Double Antler Moose.

Channel 4 wrote:Thinking man's Totty

This is one of the best examples of the Emperor's new clothes that I have ever seen.

Next you will be saying that Rebecca Adlington hasn't got a great big fat nose

K_Oranj · Post by **K_Oranj** » Mon Nov 09, 2009 4:33 am

Some might prefer to focus on the aquadynamicness of Adlington's 605 hooter. Fin(e) I'm sure, as long as it doesn't breach FINA guidelines.

I wonder if any of those who complained about Frankie Boyle's quip on Mock The Conk about her looking like someone looking at themselves in the back of a spoon would look in the back of one themselves. Hold up a mirror and they might see that they are inadvertently helping to get it blown out of all proportion. No doubt they'll be disappointed by Boyle's departure - they'll now have to find something else to watch which they can get righteously offended by.

Anyway, hard luck Chris. I thought you were going to pull it back at one point. I'm sure you're enjoying Susie's book though, which seems as good a guerdon as any a consolation prize.

Matt Vinyl · Post by **Matt Vinyl** » Mon Nov 09, 2009 8:42 am

Love the hooter punnage!

As for Vorders - She wouldn't be 'top of my list', but she's (on a good day) certainly very far up it (so to speak!)

civ77 · Post by **civ77** » Mon Nov 09, 2009 12:16 pm

[quote="&quot"]Surprised to hear you got beat, civ.

A summary for those of us who missed it ?
[quote]

Going into the game I was confident that I would only lose to someone of octochamp/quarter finalist standard, unfortunately my first game was against someone who looks like they fit that category.

I had a bad start when he spotted filagree in round 1, then I had swotter disallowed in round 2 (it's fine in scrabble), so I was 14 points down and no score on the board.

It settled down a bit after that with mainly drawn rounds including the first numbers, he had another few good spots of obscure words 'guerdon' and 'daikon'. I intentionally tried to avoid looking for obscurities as I knew many scrabble words are not included in the OED.

The second numbers was a toughy and although neither of us got it dead on he was closer so took the points for that.

I managed to pull back a bit and won a couple of rounds in succession, which left me 18 points behind with just the last numbers round and conundrum still to play. I knew that I needed to get the 10 points for the numbers but also for him to not, so I had to take a risk and opt for the (sometimes) tricky 6 small. Alas it was too tricky and again neither of us got it dead on.

That just left the conundrum but I was already out of reach, so made little difference that neither of us solved it.

I looked back over the rounds and have to say that there were a host of bad letters, 2 Qs, J, X, and Z all appeared. Perhaps I sabotaged myself by thinking I would get an extra 10 seconds for using the Q.

Matt Vinyl · Post by **Matt Vinyl** » Mon Nov 09, 2009 12:59 pm

Perhaps I sabotaged myself by thinking I would get an extra 10 seconds for using the Q.

Something fundamental I've always wondered, but in the numbers round, is the 'Target' number really randomly generated, or calculated based on the values that have been selected, so as it's 'always' possible, however difficult? :P