Nick Girdler - Competitions

Competitions

The BBC doesn't favour competitions anymore so 'The Top Ten' is not a competition but a BBQ...as Nick would say. The Top Ten lasts for the duration of a three hour show. An example being 'The Top Ten Runs', with easy answers such as Dexy's Midnight Runners and more difficult answers such as 'The National Union Of Railworkers' or NUR...which is RUN backwards! The answers are often "off the planet" and a Top Ten has never been completed. Nick always gives the answers at the end of the show with Number 10 being the most difficult and rarely guessed. The Top Tens are either made up by listeners, Nick, his Producer (Rebecca Parker) or a combination of all three.

Former competitions include:

• Sod-u-ko - based on the popular new numbers game. If the listeners guess the correct number in the correct place, they are asked a general knowledge question. If they can't give the correct answer, it goes out for any listener to answer.
• Crossbar (or Son-of-Crossbar) - Nick gives clues to 5 words or phrases which intersect like a crossword, one word crossing the other four.
• Famous Five - clues are given for 5 words, one in each of 5 'drawers'; Julian, Dick, George, Ann and Timmy. Answers will either start or end with one of the letters in the name of its 'drawer'.
• Top 10 - this began when listeners completed a competition very quickly, so Nick invited them to guess his top 10 James Bond films. The top 10s have moved from being simply a factual list, to one involving wordplay and obscure information.
• The Hard One - a very hard question for which very little information is given initially. Further clues are given as time passes. 'The Hard One' originally ran until it was solved - often several weeks. Recently the 'Well-Hard One' has lasted only a week before the answer is revealed.