^am tempted to compose a witty reply containing a whole bunch of Mel C song titles, but can't be bothered, so can you all just imagine I did and be impressed by my creativity - I may do it later, so never say never but here and now I'm pooped. :yawn:

To be honest I can't remember how often a single contestant hasn't written the answer down - that's despite watching regularly for many years. I'll make a note over the next 2 weeks and check.

Lets do a bit of working out.

As an example if a contestant hadn't written the answer down occurred on average once every 3 days then the chances in any single round of both doing this would be 1/(84*84) meaning it would happen once every 100 weeks or about every 2 years. On the other hand if on average the declaration happened once every programme then we would get a clash every 11 weeks. The results depend on both contestants being equally likely to have not written it down, in practice one would be more likely than the other which would significantly increase the length of time between clashes.

Eh?? Einstein.

I'll expand the working for 3 days as an illustration.

If once every 3 days on average a contestant declares "got it but not written down" then that means (with 14 rounds a day) that each contestant will declare this every 14*3*2 = 84 rounds (the *2 is because it's for each contestant rather than both contestants).

Given the chances of either contestant declaring is 1/84 the chances of both declaring in a single round is 1/84 * 1/84 or 1/7056. This means it would happen once every 7056 rounds or 7056/14/5 = 100 weeks approximately.

The above does depend on the likelihood of a declaration being random, if they are not then the odds will be affected.

As I said I don't know how often the "got but not written down" is declared and I also have no inside knowledge of what happens so if somebody knows that they do usually give the contestant a little more time to write it down I certainly wouldn't argue with them. It does show that with a reasonable average time between declarations of 3 days the chances of a clash are less than you might intuitively imagine.

^I got the exact same answer, I just didn't write it down

Just put it on as I've been out and noticed Rachel has a knee-length dress on today!

She also got the conundrum today that nobody else could get!!!

Poor Nick sounds a bit rough today.

He should have a few days off...





Quick get Jeff back

I like him....

But that Doc is very annoying!

To be fair, he has improved and he is quite funny sometimes.

I really like him, I went to see his "Rude health show" last week and thought he was brilliant. Definitely one of my favourite guests.

I have been watching Countdown today and although it's probably only Nick's third day of filming I can already see he seems more relaxed... and I have always liked him on The Apprentice and hope he's a grower with those who doubted his ability to do Countdown! Rachel wore another knee-length dress too!

Yes, I'm back to fast-forwarding this week as I can't stand that doctor man.

I used to do that with Keith Barron and Philip Franks who were really boring old farts. No chance with Dr Phil though as I think he's one of the best guests along with Tim Vine.

Agreed. Add to that Jon Culshaw, Alistair McGowan, Dave Spikey, Paul Zenon - top tier guests.

I'm surprised Susie said "spooler" isn't in the dictionary. It's been a common computing term since the '60s.

Yes, that was a poor call IMO.

I've just remembered who the current champ reminds me of - Kevin from Eggheads. He sounds a lot like him.

So am I, but it's not in Collins either. It is, however, in the Shorter Oxford and in Chambers.

Not really as there was no room for discretion on this one. It's not in the Oxford Dictionary of English so it's not allowed on Countdown.

Not a poor call. If it's not in the dictionary it can't be allowed

Another wonderful display from Rachel today.

Speaking of Rachel, voting opens today this year's FHM 100 Sexiest Women. She has never placed to my knowledge, which is quite frankly ridiculous.

Vote here:

http://www.fhm.com/girls/100-sexiest-women

Multiple voting is allowed as far as I can tell.

I can't believe that they didn't get today's conundrum.

I usually struggle with it but I got it straight away!

Haha, I voted for Rachel and got a 'nice choice' from FHM

why does rachel keep her hair short??

it's annoying, i want it to be long.....she looks old with it short