Uncle Waz's Corner for Unsolicited Advice

So yeah, sorry, I haven't posted in a minute. In addition to things being intensely awful around the English department even by the usual end-of-term standards, I have been slogging through a very tedious Jiang Wen film, forcing myself to complete it before I'm allowed to crack into High Life or Sunset. If you can't finish your "pudding," how can you have any meat?

So anyway, here's something that's been on my mind lately. I am currently obsessed with British game shows, particularly the ones that are so difficult as to make their translation to US television seemingly impossible. I'm not even talking Mastermind or University Challenge, although I've certainly enjoyed those, and by comparison they make Jeopardy! look pretty anemic. (Are Brits really just that much smarter than Americans? Is it the school system, a different attitude toward learning, or some combination thereof?)

No, lately I've been all about Countdown and Only Connect. 

Countdown, in case you're unaware, is a game in which you have 30 seconds to make the longest possible word out of nine semi-randomly selected letters. (You get to choose the vowel-consonant ratio.) Except in the MATH rounds, where you have seven numbers, some large and some small, and must use the four basic arithmetic operations to use a selection of those numbers to arrive at a three-digit "target number," also randomly generated. 

The show is popular virtually everywhere in the Western world except the U.S. There have been attempts to launch it here, but TV executives have claimed (a) it is boring; and (b) Americans can't do the math. Answer B I will perhaps accept, but A is patently false. Susie Dent, the lexicographer in "Dictionary Corner," is one of the most effortlessly delightful TV personalities imaginable -- funny, modest, sharp as a tack. Meanwhile, the letter-turner and math expert, Rachel Riley, is also charming. (And yes, I'm aware of her politics. Don't care.)

Thing is, the show is in its best form when played (with variable success) by comedians. That's what we call 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown (derived from a stats panel show called 8 Out of 10 Cats, which we won't get into right now). Hosted by smug insult comic Jimmy Carr, 8OO10CDC plays the same but also involves slapstick, prop comedy, wry asides, swear words, and a general disdain for the niceties of mid-level show business. 

Now this could work in the States, provided it was on a channel like HBO where swearing wasn't a problem. But here's the thing. Construct a version of "regular" Countdown for the U.S. that is essentially based on 8OO10CDC, in the sense that no one is really taking it seriously, and the difficulty of the game (especially the math) is made into part of the joke. (After all, the infamous Numberwang sketch was based on Countdown.) American Countdown should have the same tongue-in-cheek atmosphere as Match Game, and many if not most of the U.K. crew are more than capable of accomplishing this.

I mean, I haven't even gotten into the Conundrums yet. I mean jesus.

Anyway, if you feel like "practising," there is a Countdown app for iPhone that is loads of fun. Oh, and Only Connect? That's just another world of mayhem, but if you want a taste of it, check out this website: http://www.puzzgrid.com/