Something i'm curious about is why the show counts aren't varied like they used to be. We used to have quite a lot of players do short stints of 9-15 shows (People like Francesca, Crap-deal Beryl, Garvan, Terri, Maxine, Janelle, Jeannie, Dazzling Daz etc.) and long stints of 30+ shows (50-show Lucy, Pat M, Miserable Brian, Siobhan, Walter, Jono etc.), but now we don't seem to get that anymore, players nowadays seem to do 17 shows at least, and 27 shows at most , so they all tend to do pretty average runs now

The last person to do a long run was Maria from August 2010 (2 years ago almost) who did 31 shows and the last person to do less than 15 shows was Joe from April 09 who did 10 shows (which may have been because of his age) and then Kath doing 14 shows not long before him

I was just wondering if there's a reason why they seem to have stopped doing the varied show counts

I'm surprised we haven't had more 15-odd show counts since the move to four shows a day as it would allow them to get a few contestants who could only take one week off work - making their wing debut on Monday and recording their game on Friday.

The only possible reasons i can think of off the top of my head is that maybe it has something to do with the shows reduced budget or perhaps they've realised that the players want to be there for a good amount of time so they can fully appreciate the exprience and not be kept waiting too long for their games or not get played early so they can't fully appreciate it

I personally like high and low show counts for a bit of variety, having everyone do 21-24 shows like most players recetnly have been doing is a bit boring and makes the whole 'Who's gonna play next' thing too predicatable, i remember the Loz-Keith run last year just after the summer break when they had a run of 7 players in a row play on their 22nd show....zzzz

TBH, I actually prefer the players doing a run of at least 16 or 17 shows. I don't know why; it's just what I've become used to.

When Toni played on just her fifteenth show, we all thought it was a bit odd. Though it was suggested her job, and apparant financial problems may be behind that. Not that anyone remembers anything about that game other than the heartbreaking proveout.

Well, I preferred the greater variety...

I gather that Lucy Harrington knows that her record will almost certainly never be broken now. Wonder what she thinks of that? 'Cause you've got to admit, it's no fun holding a record that you know is never going to be broken in any way...

I think we knew all along that Lucy's 50-show stint would never be beaten, but neither do i think Brian's 34 shows will be beaten anytime soon as no one even makes it past 27 shows now