The five conundrums answers were, of course:
- ADVENTURE
- EXPLORING
- DISCOVERY
- SUBMARINE
- LONGITUDE.
And the winner is a rather special entrant: it's young Countdown wunderkind Kirk Bevins, maths teacher who was the first Countdown champion of 2009's six-month series with a total record score which broke the existing very high record, held by Julian Fell since 2001, for the highest total number of points every won in the 27-year history of this iconic Channel 4 afternoon programme which specializes in testing contestants in solving anagrams and very tough sums in thirty seconds or less. You may remember it was hosted for many years by maths genius Carol Vorderman and the late, great Richard Whiteley, who sadly passed away in 2005 and is still much-missed by his legions of devoted Countdown fans, as is Carol since she left the show after years of distinguished service.
But the show continues to maintain its high popularity, in the capable hands of presenter Jeff Stelling of Sky Sports fame, and of Oxford Maths genius Rachel Riley, who has stepped most ably into the (very hard to fill) shoes of numbers genius Carol, who is now involved in many other projects.
And the anagrammatic and arithmetical prodigies continue to enter the show in hordes and, like our blog winner Kirk, continue to show that astounding records are always there to be broken.
Kirk is due to make a welcome reappearance to our screens on the 15th March, 2010, for a one-off very special game in which he will pit his wits against those of current record-holder Chris Davies, the most recent series champion, and as only a miniscule number of points already separate these two Achilles of Anagrammia, the outcome of such a Clash of the Titans is simply anyone's guess. Worth betting some money on, I would think. But even if you don't usually watch Countdown, this will be a historic, classic duel not to be missed. So set those video-recorders if you're not at home that afternoon...
It's a kudo for this blog to have its first competition won by a world-class professional anagrammer. So this is the standard you will be up against, folks; so all you Translation Theorists out there, I challenge you to take on the might of the Kirkulator Bevins in future competitions for anagrams. The next anagrams will all, as i've said in a previous posting, be words which are Translation Theory concepts, so will that give you Translation people any advantage over a Countdown champion? Watch this space and find out, competition due to appear shortly. Plus some numbers games, Countdown style, using numbers with Vernian connections but still using the range of numbers and numerical targets acceptable under Countdown rules.
A copy of the 2009 edition of Verne's The Tour of the World in Eighty Days (1873), first translated by the Philadelphia-based translator Stephen W. White in 1874, and containing beautiful original illustrations and new critical material, including two essays i've written for it, one co-authored with Verne savant Norman Wolcott, is winging its way to York as we speak, to add to Kirk's existing book collection, viz. the entire leather-bound set of the complete Oxford English Dictionary which he won on Countdown.
Well done, Kirk!
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