Hope for our society!

A section to discuss matters not related to Chess in particular.
Simon Rogers
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Re: Hope for our society!

Post by Simon Rogers » Mon Jun 22, 2020 12:31 am

NickFaulks wrote:
Sat Jun 20, 2020 4:34 pm
Nick Ivell wrote:
Sat Jun 20, 2020 3:11 pm
Both were accepted. Now asking the capitals of Australia or Brazil might have point; easy, certainly, but with ways to go astray.

Melbourne?
Sydney??
Sao Paolo???
Rio????
Nigeria is a good one. Also Myanmar ( Burma ).
Certainly asking the capitals of Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Also the capital of Switzerland.
Turkey, Brazil, Nigeria and Pakistan could cause difficulties as the capital was changed to an inland city that has a smaller population.

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John Clarke
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Re: Hope for our society!

Post by John Clarke » Tue Jun 23, 2020 12:15 am

Re Countdown: I’d have been pretty outraged at not being allowed OUTGRADES. As well as a verb, with a meaning every chess-player understands, it’s now also a noun that refers to fruit and vegetables, etc, not regarded as acceptable for putting on sale.

Re Alekhine: questions about individual moves were to my mind going too far, even if drafted properly. (No quiz question should include subjective or inexact terms like “spectacular” and “great”.) Kasparov’s comment on 31. … Ne4 may well be true, but it’s the earlier rook move everyone remembers.
Kevin Thurlow: Dave Ledger had "pincer" disallowed on the basis that it's either "Pincer movement" named after a Mr Pincer
… EH??! What was their source for that derivation? I haven’t been able to turn up anything that cites a personal name.

Re capitals: South Africa, anyone? Three at least there, and now arguably four. (Cape Town: legislative. Pretoria: executive. Bloemfontein: judicial. But since 1994 Johannesburg – which BTW you could call the financial capital - has the Constitutional Court).

Scrooge – perhaps the best-known fictional example of a chrematist – may be a proper noun, but it’s also a verb, one that occurs (in past-tense form) in the opening paragraphs of Wind In The Willows.

That famous question about the draughts board again. Another korekt anser is 204 as any fule kno.
"The chess-board is the world ..... the player on the other side is hidden from us ..... he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance."
(He doesn't let you resign and start again, either.)

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Hope for our society!

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Tue Jun 23, 2020 8:58 am

Countdown used a specific Oxford dictionary as "Dictionary Corner" contained (usually) an employee of OED and a celeb. In due course, Susie Dent was employed by the programme, so she appeared on most of the programmes. http://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_1572 refers to the pincer incident, but I can't find a Mr Pincer either. I may have got it wrong, (misremembering a chat with Dave years ago), as they also disallowed words as you wouldn't get them alone, so "pincer movement" would be considered a single phrase, so "pincer" didn't exist alone, and the gripping tool "pincers" would be plural only? We did get a list of rules before recording. They now use an electronic version of the dictionary.

My first opponent punted "moaniest" in the first round, which was disallowed, as "moaniest" wasn't specified in the dictionary. More recently, they decided that any one-syllable adjective ending in "-y" can automatically have "-ier" and "-iest" as the comparative and superlative. Luckily, I got "minarets". Looking back, http://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_3176 I recall feeling rather stupid that "amortise" and "atomiser" were possible in Round 1, (which they told us) and I missed both again in round 6... My opponent was unlucky to have "moaniest" disallowed, especially as it was round 1 and probably put her off for several rounds.

There were always discussions of this type. E.g. "Mauve" is a colour, but can a shirt (e.g.) be "mauver" than another one, or be the "mauvest" shirt in your wardrobe? I guess "Scrabble" had the right idea, producing and selling a dictionary of their own.

John McKenna

Re: Hope for our society!

Post by John McKenna » Tue Jun 23, 2020 2:38 pm

"... I can't find a Mr Pincer either... "
OIP.jpg
Mr. Pincer lookout behind you!
OIP.jpg (50.31 KiB) Viewed 1064 times

Paul Habershon
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Re: Hope for our society!

Post by Paul Habershon » Tue Jun 23, 2020 3:03 pm

Kevin Thurlow wrote:
Tue Jun 23, 2020 8:58 am
Countdown used a specific Oxford dictionary...

...My first opponent punted "moaniest" in the first round, which was disallowed, as "moaniest" wasn't specified in the dictionary. More recently, they decided that any one-syllable adjective ending in "-y" can automatically have "-ier" and "-iest" as the comparative and superlative.
Re those superlatives, I won a very low scoring round on Countdown so got the teapot. I was then absolutely hammered by a lady who got CROAKIEST for 18 points while I panicked and ended up with something pathetic like TRACKS.
My previous up opponent was a glamorous jazz pianist/comedian called Ariane Sherine. With 5 shows recorded per day you are expected to wear different tops for multiple appearances. Ariane emerged from the green room with a low-cut top which the producer deemed too racy for daytime TV. I was thus able to have a longer chat with Richard Whiteley. Subsequently Ariane made the news when atheist slogans were controversially permitted on (Southampton?) buses to counterbalance religious ones. She wrote them.

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Hope for our society!

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Tue Jun 23, 2020 4:58 pm

"My previous up opponent was a glamorous jazz pianist/comedian called Ariane Sherine."

I got the impression she was there mainly to get, er, exposure. She wasn't the usual dour chessplayer-like competitor who regarded the game as a matter of life or death.

I did know someone who recorded that day and he was grumpy at not getting the teapot and was delighted when she donated hers, which was a nice gesture.

Nick Ivell
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Re: Hope for our society!

Post by Nick Ivell » Tue Jun 23, 2020 5:33 pm

I agree the Alekhine question was poorly worded, but I still think it was easy. It's obvious what the question was getting at, and I'm not even an expert on Alekhine.

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John Clarke
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Re: Hope for our society!

Post by John Clarke » Tue Jun 23, 2020 11:39 pm

Despite my considerable TV experience I'd never go on Countdown because I know I can't do that type of thinking fast enough under acute time pressure. (Recalling factoids near-instantaneously and stating them concisely is a different skill set.) But I play along at home on the rare occasions when I happen to catch an episode. Was quite chuffed once to get COSTIVELY for a niner.
"The chess-board is the world ..... the player on the other side is hidden from us ..... he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance."
(He doesn't let you resign and start again, either.)

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John Clarke
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Re: Hope for our society!

Post by John Clarke » Tue Jun 23, 2020 11:49 pm

Kevin Thurlow wrote:
Sat Jun 20, 2020 10:54 am
It's alarming to find that they only told him how they would pronounce Alekhine at the start of filming, when the theme music was playing.
So how did they actually pronounce it? I think most of us by now know the correct way for "Alekhine", but TV presenters can be surprisingly casual about these things. One episode in NZ's short-lived revival of Mastermind a few years ago had a question about "COVVerlunt" bonds in amino-acid molecules. A minor point of course, and it was obvious what was meant, but it doesn't take much to render your concentration a bit less than total in those circumstances.
"The chess-board is the world ..... the player on the other side is hidden from us ..... he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance."
(He doesn't let you resign and start again, either.)

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Hope for our society!

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Wed Jun 24, 2020 9:22 am

"So how did they actually pronounce it?"

Al-yekk-in, which I believe is the Russian pronunciation?

Someone else did chess and I got thoroughly confused by some of the pronunciations.

I do recall a children's TV programme about 50+ years ago where Eamonn Andrews asked, "What is the Tate-ra of the air?" The answer was "radio", as he was asking about "theatre" in a strong Irish accent. The otherwise very clever child in the studio was perplexed, as was I, and doubtless many others.

I can't remember the title of the programme, I don't think it was "Crackerjack"... (all together now...)

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Michael Farthing
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Re: Hope for our society!

Post by Michael Farthing » Wed Jun 24, 2020 9:57 am

I seem to recall there was a period when Eamonn Andrews had another show which ran alternate weeks with Crackerjack. It was a much more staid affair and I can no longer remember its name - maybe that's what you're thinking of.

Mick Norris
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Re: Hope for our society!

Post by Mick Norris » Wed Jun 24, 2020 10:31 am

Playbox
Playbox used to alternate weekly with Crackerjack both hosted by Eamon Andrews. Whereas Crackerjack was set in a theatre with an audience, Playbox was studio based with quizzes and games plus the animated cartoon Bengo about a pet puppy and the drawings of Tony Hart
Any postings on here represent my personal views

NickFaulks
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Re: Hope for our society!

Post by NickFaulks » Wed Jun 24, 2020 10:36 am

Michael Farthing wrote:
Wed Jun 24, 2020 9:57 am
I seem to recall there was a period when Eamonn Andrews had another show which ran alternate weeks with Crackerjack. It was a much more staid affair and I can no longer remember its name - maybe that's what you're thinking of.
If anyone is nostalgic for Seamus Android, Round the Horne currently has a regular slot on Radio 4 extra.
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a QR code stamped on a human face — forever.

Nick Ivell
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Re: Hope for our society!

Post by Nick Ivell » Wed Jun 24, 2020 1:10 pm

In my view, the natural way for us to pronounce Alekhine is with stress on the first syllable. After all, we don't even try to pronounce Sharapova properly (stress on the second syllable, I believe).

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Hope for our society!

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Wed Jun 24, 2020 1:12 pm

I don't recall "Playbox", but that seems to be the only other possibility.

Round the Horne was a classic. I had a chat with Bill Pertwee (who voiced Seamus Android), when he opened Hastings Chess Tournament a long time ago. (Everyone else wanted to talk about chess.) He was a really nice guy.

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