Notes from New Sodom

... rantings, ravings and ramblings of strange fiction writer, THE.... Sodomite Hal Duncan!!

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Ya Big Fat Fuckin Cheats

OK, so I'm watching dodgy late night telly last night and, flicking channels, I spot what is quite possibly the cheapest, tackiest, lamest excuse for a TV show I've ever seen. On ITV2 (needless to say) it's this show called Big Game TV. You have a presenter sitting there behind graphics of a timer counting down, the game question (e.g. picture of a fish with a speech bubble that says "Hi, I'm Wanda"... Name The Movie, Moron), a huge graphic flashing between "50,000" and "JACKPOT" and an ickle graphic down in a corner for how much you can actually win on this particular game (i.e. 1575). Bottom of the screen is the phoneline number for the drunk schmucks to call in, wait in a queue for 10 minutes racking up the phone charges, then maybe get through to the presenter so they can answer the dumb question and win some dosh.

So far, so crass. But here's the rub.

When I flick onto this show, the timer is at 6:00 mins or so, and the question for this game is a riddle:

Jim and Kim drank 30 drinks
And 5 shots in 30 bars
For every drink they had a drink
Then they were seeing stars

So I flick onto another channel... but ya know how it is with riddles. There's nada on the other side, so I end up curious, flicking back to ITV2 five mins later and see that they're still on the same game. I mean, OK, this is a late night show for drunken fuckwits but, still, surely someone should have been able to do the simple mental arithmatic by now. It's obvious, isn't it?

Well, no, I realise. The question is clearly designed to be ambiguous in its lack of punctuation and precision; there's a couple of readings open at least. My automatic reading is simple, though:

((Jim & Kim together) drank (30 drinks and 5 shots) in each of 30 bars) then (for every drink they had a drink)

Or...

((30 + 5) x 30) x 2

Aside: I've always done this sort of mental arithmatic the "easy way". I reparse this as ((30 x 30) + (5 x 30)) x 2. Actually I reparse the (5 x 30) to (3 x 50) cause that's more natural for some reason, from dealing with fifty pence coins perhaps. Weird. Anyhoo, that's (900 + 150) x 2 = 2100.

As I say, though, the cunning bastards have clearly given themselves a few extra outs. You could also say that Jim & Kim each had 30 drinks and so on (4200). You could say they had these 30 + 5 drinks between 30 bars, each or together. You could exclude the shots as "not drinks". And so on. Clearly they can choose the most awkward solution possible, stretching the logic of the language big time, in order to maximise the phoneline profits from more drunken schmucks phoning in with right answers that aren't "the" right answer. Funny enough, when the timer reaches zero, they put another minute on the clock to pump up those phoneline charges even more -- sorry, to "give someone the chance to win the money".

When some punter phones in with the 2100 answer and it's "wrong", I feel quite justified in not being that drunken schmuck; yer not scamming my money out of me ya goddamn grifting bastards. But by now I'm intrigued to see just how much they've stretched the logic, to see just how left field an answer they've come up with.

Anyhoo, finally the counter ticks down to zero (again) and the presenter reveals the right answer. And my response is WHAT THE FUCK?!?!

2147

Now, if anyone, I mean anyone, can get 2147 out of that riddle, please fer the love of Christ illuminate me, because I think that's a HUGE BIG CROCK OF FUCKING SHIT.

Ya big fat fuckin cheats, I think. They just picked a number that can't actually be reached by any reading of the riddle. That 47 fucks up any process that involves doubling as the last step to get to the final solution. Hell, I don't see how any process could get to 2147 using the numbers involved. So this is like having a question like, say, "What is the capital of Scotland?" where the obvious answer is "Edinburgh", and the sneaky answer to the trick question is "the letter 'S'"... but they say "Bogota".

I repeat: Ya big fat fuckin cheats.

I can't really say I'm outraged at drunken schmucks being swindled by these grifters; screw the morons. I can't really say I'm surprised by the act of swindling; I'm not that naive. But... this is a major fucking TV network running a bona fide SCAM. A real honest-to-God CON. Man, I really wanna know if that's in the terms and conditions these Big Game TV guys purportedly have up on their internet site (which I seem to have misremembered the URL for, cause www.biggametv.com seems entirely unrelated (UPDATE: it's www.biggame.tv -- see below))... "Warning: some of our games are rigged so that you cannot possibly win them. We just want the money from the phoneline, sucker."

I mean, if anyone can show me how you get to 2147 from that riddle, well, I'll take my hat off to these guys for their sheer cunning, but until such time all I can say is:

Ya big fat fuckin cheats.

Afterthought:

I have email addresses for contacts at the main Glasgow tabloids. Should I -- just for the sake of stirring up some shit for the morons who are dumbing down society day by day -- drop them a line about this "national TV network scamming viewers" story? Does this qualify as news or are we too far gone to give a shit? Do we just sit back and wait for the hilarious DIY Con show, you know, where the team gets sent round some senile old granny's place to fix her gutters, only to gradually find more "essential" repair work every day, until eventually they're charging her for replacing the whole fucking roof?

UPDATE:

You know that "I seem to have misremembered the URL..." caveat above? It was indeed the wrong URL (and has now been corrected). My humble apologies to the Big Game TV company which is NOT the Big Game TV company with the dodgy game show on late-night ITV2, for the irate punters I seem to have misguided in their direction. And a tip of the hat to them for being so polite in their request to please point aforesaid irate punters elsewhere.

12 Comments:

Blogger David Moles said...

Nail the fuckers. Or at least make them explain what kind of kabbalistic numerology makes "then they were seeing stars" come out to 47. Not just 47, 47 drinks.

11:00 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh, hell I feel partly responsible for this for talking about it in the pub the other night. 'Cept, of course, on Quiz-call (freeview ch37 - it's on NTL somewhere Al but I dunno where) with the funtastic Alex, the games aren't rigged, or even amorally ambiguous - ALEX WOULDN'T LIE TO US LIKE THAT! There are some mighty tricky puzzles and a whole bunch of time wasting, money grabbing ploys, and some very long odds (the "jackpot" can only be won by guessing a sequence of fifty-fifty left/right calls on a totaliser). But nothing dishonest.

But look Al, the evidence is there for all to see, it's a long odds gambling game - it's up to the players if they want to pay to play. And if they don't have the knowledge of grammar to realise that your riddle there is basically a punt in the dark then, that's their look out surely?

Having said that I'm sure the tabloids (which is near enough ALL the papers now, right?) would have a good-old scam-buster witch-hunt given the option, so why not?

neilw

11:02 pm  
Blogger AbbotOfUnreason said...

Thanks for shooting my whole morning of "work." Geez.

Ok. If they TOGETHER had 30 drinks, but each drank a drink at the bar for each one (so, total 2 for each of the 30). 2 drinks at the bar for every one of those drinks is 30x60 = 1800.

Then, (this is the shakey bit) they had 5 shots at each bar and one drink each for "the drink"; that is, the visit to the bar is a "drink" itself (5+2 = 7). So, you add 30x7 = 210.

210+1800 = 2110

Finally (or rather, at the beginning), they had thirty drinks and 5 shots BEFORE THEY EVEN WENT TO THE BAR. That adds 35; 2110 + 35 = 2145.

Oh, and don't forget, that first session counts as a drink, so add two more and get 2147.

No, that doesn't completely do it, but I have to go back to work and earn my living.

6:01 pm  
Blogger AbbotOfUnreason said...

Shoot, I just checked my math and I'm off by a hundred.

6:02 pm  
Blogger Hal Duncan said...

See! See! They're just making it up.

The big fat fucking cheats.

6:23 pm  
Blogger emmafork said...

Speaking as a professional (I do still have my 2:2 degree in Mathematics in a cupboard somewhere) I wouldn't touch this one with a shitty stick.

You can do all the MathS you like, at the end of the day these guys are drinking extremely heavily and will do doubt just lose count.

"Hey - JIM!!! Hey man, how ya doin?"

"uuuurrr I'm real drunk, amin't I Kimmy...?"

"brggggggggg"

"so, uh, you guys have had a bit to drink eh?"

"yeah we're makin a night of it. I've had at least 1,073 drinks as has Kim but she's about to collapse as I have one last tequila..."

Mathematics and alcohol do not mix, people...!

10:38 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As you say, b******s in the extreme, left to interpretation:

I saw:

"Sarah Dance had 20 friends and twenty sisters too for every dance they did a dance and a pole dance just for you"

Depending on drunkenness - went from 80 something to 921 to 1760..hmmm, read it several times, it'll be different as interpretation is different, my guess in my current inebriated state, all of above probably wrong, so what, f*ck it, I tried to keep my mind active for 5 mins whilst p*ssed, got bored :)

Note: upto twenty sister too was normal font, afterwards was italics or different font, hard to tell difference.

Hmmm....semantics can change so much with a smart arse with a font!

Decided that even though I'm brighter than this I'd try it anyway, first 3 calls (at 75p on landline, used moby cos pissed n bored, phone upstairs too far away), "oh I'm sorry, youve not made it", bee in bonnet: next 3 cos I know it's shit, "congrats made it, but you've not been picked this time?", decided even as a drunken bum with money they'd pissed me off royally....started looking for complaints via trading standards, got bored, came across this...so having small rant for hell of it!

Obviously I wouldnt denounce them as the devil, but hmmm, soz off on a new one now,

Presenter: "oh we have a new call"

Me talking to self: bollocks, he's been on the line for at least an hour (and has phoned at least 7 times!)

Is it this 42 he says (for the 20000000th time AGAIN!)

No it's not, if you had not been waiting on phone for last x hours and being told to turn tv down (or not so dumb), you'd already know that had been suggested 20000000 times before!

Oh rant, yup, bored, yup, addictive, yup, in same way original author said......need to know answer. I need to stay awake til 3am, been up since 5am, tired, bored, pissed off, done m25 and m1 after finishing 16 hr day, me ranting noooooo....presenter pissing me off now, oooohhhh any calls (let me flash me goods), let me pretend you're in with a chance, phone again, go on, go on, my guess: they got some poor b*****d on the line who's been waiting for hours, he is the right answer, they will wait the same way as the whole "shit there's a bomb, it's got 5 red wires, don't cut the red wire, at which point, they're so lucky they cut all the red wires in order and save the day)

Ok rant over, I'm bored, you're bored, we're bored.

That said........waiting til 3 to see answer at which point I think rearrange this phrase:

CHEATING BASTARDS YOU!
:)

2:25 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Christ yes, agree 1760 seems right,

sarah danced with 40
20 friends danced with sarah and also each danced with 20 friends (420)
each dance, they done same again (840)
pole dance each dance = 840*2 = 1760

As for programme: go to bed ffs, amazing how many people are so f*cking thick! maybe I reasoning it out wrong but if 20 dance with twenty, they all take turns, majority of calls are 100 and less, big game tv are making a lot of money without even cheating, guess the old sticker on american trucks is right! (I see dumb people)!

2:35 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hmmmmmm, nice sentiment but 840*2 is not 1760, it's 1680, lost interest too now but good reasoning except for the final answer!

2:52 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just watched the same stupid show and apparently the answer is 906. "Not the 902 that caller X gave because he didn't include the 4 times the word 'dance' appears in the question"


aaarrrggghhhh.. that means i'm going to have to try to match some drunken bums maths to get the 902 now!!!

3:11 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hmmm, mensa member since 18, didnt get 902 or 906! How many arseholes does it take to rip optimistic people off??? Rhetorical question, but obviously it's worth their while, that said.....if you could do the same, would you?

11:07 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

might be a bit late on the post, but was trying to find some solutions for BGtv. the first i have no idea how they did it, but the pole dance one i got (after knowing the answer i must add):
20 friends + 20 sisters + sarah = 41 total people
20 sisters + sarah = 21 dance sisters.

41 people having 21 dances (one for each dance) = 861

each one has a pole dance so 861 +41 = 902

4 dances in question so 902 + 4 = 906

2:38 am  

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