Countdown

I love how the celebrity guests sometimes profess to not having done well in school but still manage to find alternatives to the contestants. Every time!

Methinks that there's some kind of jiggerypokery going on here, or am I just far too cynical?

Countdown, Channel 4's longest running and first programme to air on the network. The concept is simple: 9 random letters, make the longest word you can. Repeat four times. Now get six numbers of any combination from 1-10 twice over and/or 25, 50, 75 or 100 all once-over. Have a huge sum total and try to get to it using only addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Now repeat all of that three times over, chuck in a 9 letter word scrambled up, descramble it, thank you, goodnight.

Okay, so its a popular programme. It turned purple in 2003 for its new set (although it looked like somebody had started hanging wallpaper and left the job half finished) and the show later changed timeslot as well which caused a major upset in the political world of the House of Commons with an early day motion tabled to get Channel 4 to shift it back again! I kid you not.

One thing that strikes you when you first see this show is Richard Whiteley, or rather what he's wearing. This man must go out of his way to pick some awful blazer in some shocking colour and/or pattern and then choose a tie that doesn't complement it or the background in any way whatsoever. I thought there was something wrong with my set when I turned Countdown on one day and there was Mr Whiteley in some god-awful blazer that looks like the sort of interference you get when you use a mobile phone next to the TV set.

Fortunately the shocking blazers don't happen *that* often I'm pleased to say and you can see this man in "normal" attire most of the time.

Carol Vorderman launched her TV career on the back of this. Initially wandering on to do the numbers game, now she does everything. She works well with Richard. It's incredible to think that we are now on series 52 and these two presenters have featured in every single episode to date, which is well over 3000 episodes by now.

The show "expanded" to a 45min format in 2002 from its previous 30min format which tided it over for 20yrs. While the 30min format indeed felt "cramped" at times, You now get the impression that there's too much time to fill under the 45min format which might explain why there's more yakking overall.

Still, beggars can't be choosers I suppose.

Worth watching though but will eventually grate as the format doesn't change. When it does, watch something else for a few months.

It's a classic "oh what shall I do today when I can't be bothered to get out of my pyjamas?" sort of show. Also worth watching for Rachel Riley.

Countdown is the greatest gameshow ever, and here's why. 1/richard Whiteley is a diamond in the world of TV. he is not airbrushed or botoxed, or the product of a competition and text-in voting.He was a bright and compassionate person. The quote most widely attributed to him is "I never do impressions, unless I'm asked to." It is that kind of humble and self-effacing humour which made him a diamond in the mud that is modern telly. And he had over 500 ties - all of them atrocious. The only person on TV with the character to wear clothes that bad is Richie Benaud (the cricket commentator). If you are American or Martian and have never caught a period of Richie's commentary you are missing out on a beautiful thing, but i digress... The thing about Whiteley is that you knew what he was.....he didn't pretend to be cool and as a result people grew to love him. compare this to modern stars who start out attractive but get uglier the more you know about them..... 2/ Carol Vorderman is perfectly cast as Whiteley's sidekick. There is no substitute for good casting. 3/ The show cost less than 15000pounds per episode to shoot, and still did huge numbers. You can't beat that. 4/ In an era where game shows are built around greed or cruelty, Countdown offered no great prizes and actually made you think. If you have never seen it you are missing out, and for those of you who have seen it remember it with fondness because gameshows as pure as that may well be a thing of the past. Bon Voyage Richard.

This was the first show ever aired on Channel 4 on its debut afternoon in 1982. I'm not sure whether the fact that it's still being trotted out every weekday some 21 years later says more for it, or Channel 4.

Essentially it is mainly a word game loosely based on, I suppose, 'Scrabble' where contestants have to make the longest word possible from 9 letters selected in a nearly random manner (they can choose between a pile of consonants or vowels, but not see the specific letters beforehand) To add interest they have a couple of rounds of numbers chosen from rows (organised into large and small numbers) of face-down cards that contestants must combine arithmetically to produce another larger number generated by 'the' computer. Contestants range from fairly ordinary folks to the sort of geek that can recite the entire bible backwards - in Latin. The geeks always win of course.

Every five or ten years the producers like to have a anniversary special so they can trot out the original tapes of their younger selves and enjoy a good giggle with the audience. They of course never show old footage of the presenters who have been quietly shelved over the years, including my personal favourite Cathy Hytner who used to select the letters - 'consonant please Cathy.'

It was the numbers sub-contest that Carol Mather (as she was known before reverting to her maiden name Vordeman some years later) used to get her minor starring role. A former propeller-head technician on the Welsh 'Electric Mountain' Hydro project she had the mental agility to get the numbers game right, most of the time. As her fellow presenters (I mean hostesses of course) were switched and then dispensed with she gradually took over the entire stand up role, moving from area to area as required. Richard Whitely, the host, remained sitting behind his desk and the lack of exercise appears to have doubled his body weight since 1982.

But while Whitely simply loosens the cut of his bizarre jackets every year, Vordeman has undergone a selection of makeovers testing stylists skills to the limits. It seems to have achieved the desired effect as she managed to present and appear on shows of unrelated genre, and adverts promoting a wide variety of products from low cholesterol spreads to loan sharks.

I've never felt the need to rush home to watch this, preferring instead the show which immediately precedes it on the schedule, the excellent 15-1, presented by William G. Stewart. I wonder how much the viewing figures for countdown are inflated by folks who like me are too damned lazy to switch channels after 15-1 has finished...