c

call my bluff
Each panellist gives a definition of an obscure word and is the job of the Chairman to guess which is the true meaning.

calypso/blues
Each team must improvise a Calypso or a Blues on a subject chosen by the opposing team. Songs sung have included The Mary Whitehouse Calypso, and The Bishop of Durham Blues.

car alarms
If it wasn’t for these marvellously sensitive devices we might otherwise occasionally oversleep past 4 in the morning. And cars aren’t alone with their audible alarms. Perhaps the best advance recently is in the field of burglar alarms which are now connected directly to the police, so the Duty Sergeant can now ignore them from the comfort of the local station. There is a new craze for actually collecting car alarms, and the teams are avid collectors and bring along some of their most treasured alarms, many with previous celebrity owners for the audience to enjoy.

car or bedroom
Tim has been saying that he is thinking of upgrading his old Audi, which he says is vital for getting to his various gigs and professional engagements throughout the country. If you are interested, he says it is a bargain at just 5 years old and 3 miles on the clock. The teams are asked to come up with phrases that might be suitable to use in either the car or the bedroom.

casino
Only this spring the Chairman was out in the early morning when he spotted a group of young lambs gambolling together, and thought how marvellous they can afford the membership of Crockfords. Samantha is a part-time croupier there, she says There is nothing more satisfying than when happy guests shell out cash to play Black Jack all evening and Poker all night. She has borrowed some gambling equipment for the night for the teams to try out. The games are:

• Vingt-et-un.
• Roulette.
• Craps.

cat, glass, pudding
This round is based on very old children’s game, and luckily we have four very old children to play it. Its called Scissor, Paper, Stone, and one wonders if it can be turned into amusing radio? Well in a manner of speaking - no. But why break the habit of a lifetime now? The rules are quite simple, namely that cat breaks glass, glass spoils pudding, and pudding drowns cat - all completely logical.

catalogue shopping
This round looks at the pitfalls involving catalogue shopping. There is often the problem of gauging the correct size and colour from a photograph. For example the size 42 brown jersey that Barry is wearing, that was meant to be a 36 inch green rotary lawn mower. One team are the customers outlining their complaint to the other team who are the suppliers.

celebrity animal smugglers
Show business is packed with celebrity animals, the most famous duck was Orville who worked in a double act with Keith Harris enjoying a long and successful career until their acrimonious split in the 1990s. And while Keith went on to star at the Savoy Theatre in a production of Run for Your Wife, Orville went on to star at the Savoy Grill in a delicious orange sauce.

In this round one team are animal smugglers who smuggle the animals in a conversation with one another, and the other team are customs officers who must identify the smuggled animals and can score points by making the noise of the animal in question.

celebrity answerphones
This has nothing to do with answerphones that happen to celebrities in their own right. The teams are asked to suggest some messages that celebrities might leave on their telephone answering machines.

celebrity biographies
The Chairman has been recently reading the Unauthorised Biography of Tim Brooke-Taylor. It relates how at a new school Tim picked his nose all through assembly, let off stink bombs in class, and then climbed over the wall into the girls school playground and pulled his shorts down. His Headmaster recalls Tim as one of the worst Geography teachers they ever employed. The Chairman reads out the first part of various celebrity autobiographies for the teams to guess what the full title might be.

celebrity burglars
The increasing crime rate is often put down to our soft penal system. British prisons these days are more like holiday camps, full of 1970s entertainers. In this game the home of one team has been ransacked by a celebrity burglar and the opposing team are detectives who will try and identify the burglar based on what items have been stolen or vandalised.

celebrity in a box
The rules are self explanatory.

celebrity misquotes
The teams are asked to suggest quotations that certain people, famous and still with us or appearing in Blankety Blank, are most unlikely ever to have said.

celebrity what’s my line
The teams have to guess who a celebrity guest is. The guest first does a mime, after which the teams take it in turns to ask questions to try and work out who the guest is.

censored song
A team sings a song, and censors it as they sing by judicious use of their buzzer. Teams are asked to bear in mind that excessive use of the buzzer may drown out the piano accompaniment Colin Sell. If that doesn’t work they could try banging their shoes on the desk.

certain failures
The teams are asked to suggest titles of books, films, plays, TV programmes, etc. that would have proved sure-fire flops.

change a letter ruin an author new!
A misplaced letter can be ruinous to the success of a book as was borne out by the disappointing sales figures following publication of Thomas Hardy’s the Milk on the Floss. And similar is true for the authors themselves. In this round the teams are asked to suggest the names of certain well known authors for whom the simple change of a single letter would have proved ruinous.

change a letter, ruin a band
Over the years, Newcastle United fans have created their own versions of many well known songs to sing in the terraces. One immediately thinks of I Can See Shearer Now the Rain Has Gone, the Why Aye of the Tiger, You Ain’t Seen Nothing Pet, and of course It Was an Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Cheryl Cole Fernandez -Versini. The Chairman asks the teams to provide examples of well known bands likely to have been a lot less successful had there just been a single letter changed in their name.

change a letter, ruin a book
A single mistake by printers can be very dangerous. Viking Penguin’s first edition of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses almost included the back page review which said “We read it and we loved it, well done Salman, from your neighbours at No 7 Lavender Gardens.” The Chairman asks the teams to suggest book titles that could have been ruined by a single letter typo.

change a letter, ruin a film
A mere reference to the United States in a movie title is seen as a guarantee of box office success. Sadly the same can’t be said of similar films featuring British place names. This is probably why no one’s even heard of Mr. Smith Goes to Warrington, Debbie Does Dawlish, or Things to Do in Dudley When You're Dead. The teams are asked to change just 1 letter of a well known film title in a manner likely to completely ruin it.

change a letter, ruin a musical
The Chairman asks the teams to suggest musicals that have been ruined by the simple change of a single letter.

change a letter, ruin a song
As summer approaches music fans will be attending festivals across the country. Yet for the organisers planning their headline acts it is fraught with difficulty. Even back in the 1970s picking the right headliner could mean the difference between success and disaster. For example, at a festival in Woolacombe in Devon featuring Paul Weller and Eric Clapton, Paul insisted Eric’s band should headline instead of his and to great acclaim. And yet the next week in Cornwall, when Cream went on first followed by the Jam, the crowd rioted.

The teams are asked to suggest song titles ruined by the change of just a single letter.

change a letter, ruin a sport
These days the world of sport is mired in corruption and no game more so than professional football. Only recently a disgruntled employee from the Referees Association decided to become a whistle blower. And no one noticed. The teams are asked to suggest some well known sports that might be ruined by a single letter typo.

channel 4 children’s hour
The teams are asked to suggest new titles for racy children’s programmes suitable for a well known minority channel faced with privatisation. To help, they are asked to think of childhood innocence tinged with sinister corruption - think Andi Peters.

channel 5 children’s hour
One sector of the X-rated market that Channel 5 seem to have overlooked is Children’s Programming, and the teams are asked for suggestions of shows that might be scheduled during a Channel 5 Children’s Hour.

charitable organisations
The teams have specifically asked not to mention their charity work, because they don’t do any. We have all heard of the large well known charities but in this round the teams are asked to suggest the names of some obscure charities that have been less successful fund raisers.

chas’n’ dave
This game is in tribute to that fine Cockney songster duo - Flannigan and Allen. Chas and Dave have over many years become as integral a part of our culture as cockles and mussels, bangers and mash, rhubarb and custard, and kaolin and morphine. The teams are asked to sing a well known song in the style of Chas and Dave, accompanied as ever by Colin Sell on the piano.

the chase
The show is lucky to be able to bring the radio version of the popular afternoon TV quiz show The Chase. The panellists have joined forces to form a team of four who will answer a series of questions and try to out-smart and out-run the chaser, to win big money prizes. The teams have already done their cash builder and they have scored a total of £8,000, and now everyone is in position to see if they can outrun the chaser - On your marks, get set, go! It’s a one mile course …

chat-up lines
The teams are asked to come up with suggestions for chat-up lines suitable for use by various groups of people. Groups that have had suggestions made for include Ecclesiastical, Anglers, Hospital, Gardeners, and Medical.

chat-up rejections
This round is about classic chat up lines and the likely turn-down responses they may elicit. One of Tim’s sure fire chat lines is “Who’s your favourite Goodie?” Luckily he does a fine impression of Jade. The teams are asked to suggest possible replies of rejections to various classic chat-up lines.

cheddar gorge
The game has a fascinating history. It became first popular under Hanoverian rule as Cheddar George, being the pet name given to George III by Charlotte de Mecklenberg when she found she’d married a King who was convinced he was a small portion of cheese. And so began a fine tradition of British Royal dottiness - Queen Victoria was a succulent purple plum, Louis of Battenberg a moist pink and yellow marzipan sponge cake, while our last King Edward was a small lumpy brown Nazi sympathiser.

This is just one of many games inspired by English place names. There is also Barrow-in-Furness which involves burning garden implements, Sellafield where the object is to try to flog off a plot of contaminated land, and of course not forgetting Broadstairs a game for people who are too fat to use the lift. There is also Redditch which is a competitive form of chicken-pox, Dimchurch which involves founding a new religion for stupid people, and the much loved Nuneaton where players compete to spot Sister Wendy coming out of a Spud-u-like.

There is also Biggleswade which involves crossing rivers as a fictional air ace, Cardigan Bay where players knit woollen garments for brown horses, and Burnham-on-Sea the hilarious game played in coastal crematoria. Not to mention Leamington Spa the game played only by fathers who have sons called Leamington, Winchelsea Harbour where the object is to try to win Chelsea Harbour, and of course there is the old favourite Littlehampton an intensely competitive game that requires a very cold day and a small ruler.

Cheddar Gorge is just one of many food-related place names with interesting stories. There is Spaghetti Junction - so called because in the Winter months, the council employs men to throw on a powder that makes the whole place smell of dried cat sick, and the Greek city of Marathon, which once lent its name to a popular chocolate bar, before the town reverted to its original ancient Macedonian name of Snickersopolis. And one also thinks of Steak Tartar which involves saying good-bye to a piece of Sirloin, Cottage Pie a geometry game played on Hampstead Heath, and the old favourite Bakewell Tart which is quite simply shouting instructions at Nigella Lawson.

One must also not forget Felixstowe - an East Anglian game that involves hiding cat food, Fishguard - a Welsh game where you have to pick a soldier out of a river, and we mustn’t forget County Down - the game inspired by a Chinese space launch.

There is also Helsinki, the Chinese game that involves shouting from a leaky boat, Paris Texas, which involves going to a DIY store on Eurostar, and a seasonal favourite is one called Santa Cruz, where the players dress up as Father Christmas and take a walk on Clapham Common.

Cheddar Gorge is also from the family of games that take their names from famous landmarks. In Edinburgh they play Arthur’s Seat - it’s like Musical Chairs except there’s no music and only one chair, which belongs to Arthur. In Devon they enjoy Westwood Hoe, a game that involves pointing garden tools at the setting sun. And in Leeds they play Yorkshire Dales which involves pretending to host Supermarket Sweep with their face coated in Cuprinol. There is alsoBrooklyn Bridge, a card game for toddlers whose parents give their children stupid names.

One should also not forget Table Mountain where the winner is the player who makes the highest pile of dining room furniture, Hoover Dam - a game that involves stubbing your toe on a vacuum cleaner, and St. Bernard Pass where players sit in a circle and take turns to unwrap a large dog. And there is Victoria Falls, which involves white water rafting on a sponge cake.

There is also Alaska Highway which is a bit like Songs of Praise but with more Eskimos, and we can never discount Amazon Basin where players have their hair cut like Henry V by tall muscular women.

There are also number of related games taking their names from famous locations around the world - many of them originating in the East. There is a game called New Delhi, which involves opening a sandwich shop, another is called Seychelles where the winner is the first to say the word shells , and there is even a game from Thailand called Bangkok which is too painful to describe in detail.

There is also Eiffel Tower which involves being poked in the eye with a souvenier of Paris. Then we have River Jordan, a delightful past-time based around dropping a waste of space off a bridge. And of course we most not forget Gobi Desert, a revolting game which involves spitting into a bowl of custard - hang on, that is Gobby Dessert.

Titles of games are taken from all manner of sources, and a recent trend towards using TV programmes. These include A Place in the Sun which involves buying a daily newspaper containing a fish, Waking the Dead which is an interesting look at the audience at a Phil Collins concert, and then there’s House Doctor which involves treating serious injuries sustained while playing Bingo.

The basic premise for this game and its variants is that each panellist says a single word at a time but must not complete a sentence. There are a few variations in the words they are allowed to say:

• All the words must start with the same letter.
• Each panellist must use a word given to them by the Chairman.
• Alphabetical Cheddar Gorge The players must construct a sentence using words in strict alphabetical order until they reach Z. If anyone can’t think of a word within the time limit he must go back to the letter A and start again without repeating any words already used.

The following games have the same origins as Cheddar Gorge:

• blind man’s buffalo mozzarella
• pasteurise the parcel
• musical churns

Cheddar Gorge is also often confused with Pinochet Gorge, where the object is to avoid starting a sentence.

children’s classics
Teams have to come up with children-friendly versions of some literary set texts, taking care to include some of their favourite characters.

children’s questions
One the most frequent we hear on this show is “Isn’t there something else on?” Another frequent question these days is “Daddy can you let me have 45 grand so I can go to college?” I’m sure we are all shocked by the number of students who were away from University recently rioting in London. They destroyed a branch of McDonalds and Cash in the Attic’s viewing figures. The chairman has a selection of difficult questions from a young listener for the teams to answer.

christmas answers
Christmas is almost upon us, the presents are wrapped under the tree awaiting the grand children, and the buckets of water are by the upstairs window awaiting the carol singers. Actually, it is an interesting historical fact that there is no evidence at all that Christmas Day should be in December. Some historians believe it should be in the month of September, some support October or November, while Tescos goes for all of them. The teams are asked to provide answers to questions about Christmas.

christmas or bedroom
The teams are asked to come up with phrases that might be suitable for use both in the bedroom and during the Christmas festivities.

christmas pantomime
Very much a British tradition the word pantomime derives the classical Greek word for “bloody hell isn’t it over yet?” By the way, Barry Cryer is in panto again this year playing the back end of the cow. So he has to spend hours in make-up having his face made less realistic. One aspect of the modern pantomime is that the cast is joined by a so called celebrity, usually so barely remembered they have to have a special billing to remind us who they are. But we do things differently here. We have a real celebrity guest in Stephen Fry and a cast of 3 who can barely remember who they are. Now a star of stage, movies, and literature, Stephen first came to notice doing an advert for Whitbread Best Bitter but he has since advertised Vauxhall and Honda cars, Heineken lager, After Eight mints, and Marks and Spencer - so a firm favourite with overweight drunk drivers who want to take a cardigan back. The teams improvise a version of the pantomime of Jack and the Beanstalk, they have been provided with a box of sound effects to play in themselves.

christmas quiz
A general knowledge quiz with a Christmas theme, with the winner walking off with a star prize:

• Guaranteed to keep a cook amused in the run-up to Christmas - an Advent Colander.

christmas solutions
Yuletide is a time when families get together with all their relatives to exchange gifts. Humph always finds the children are always buying him presents that he does not really want to use - an electric toothbrush, an ill-fitting sweater, a cemetary plot,  The Chairman brings along a selection of listeners Christmas problems for the teams to provide solutions.

cinema or bedroom new!
Incidentally, our own Colin Sell was telling us about a recent visit to his local cinema and his fury at having to pay £6.50 for a bucket of pop corn. He told an usherette how the last time he had been to the pictures he’d paid just 50p for the same. She replied “Well you're in for a treat sir, they have now added colour and sound.” The teams are asked to come up with phrases that might be heard both in the bedroom and the cinema.

ciryl
A long forgotten game that involves singing the words of a given song but in reverse order. They call it Ciryl, because rather cleverly, this is lyric spelt backwards. The idea to revive this old classic came whilst the Chairman was walking through Finsbury Park, or as Ciryl players know it - Krapy Rubsnif!

clanger theatre
Inspired by the moon based antics of the Clangers. The Chairman has some classic excerpts from the stage and screen for the teams to re-enact. Actually Tim Brooke-Taylor might be at something of an advantage with this game, as he has toured recently in a production of Othello where everyone enjoyed his Casio. Who thought Desdemona’s death scene could be livened up with a cheap electric organ? One team member plays one of the roles as a human, while the other member plays the other role as a Clanger.

classic movie straplines
The twentieth century certainly produced some wonderful movies. One thinks of A Night to Remember, telling the tale of that fateful night aboard the SS Titanic as the mighty steam ship hit a … oh hang on, I musn’t ruin in by giving the end away. As sought after actors go, Tony Hawks will be at something of an advantage in this round as it was surprising to learn that Tony recently instructed his agent to turn down Casino Royale, but his agent threw him the remote and told him to turn it down himself. The panellists are asked to complete various film taglines.

clichés explained
It is well known that when it comes to language the Chairman is a sticker for the correct spelling but he is also a scourge of lazy grammar and tired old cliches. You certainly wont hear any overused phrases or hackneyed figures of speech on this show while he is in charge, over his dead body. To this end this round takes a look at the cliché in everyday usage. The teams are asked to suggest some well know English clichés or idioms together with their real meaning.

coals to newcastle
Panellists have to suggest sayings associated with place names, either in this country or abroad, together with their meanings.

commentaries
Panellists are asked to give a commentary on some event in history in a style selected by the Chairman.

common clichés explained
Like an aphorism a cliché is often a way of handing advice from one generation to another. The other week Tim was trying to explain to his 4 year old grandson that it is perfectly normal to wet yourself. It didn’t work, the boy is still teasing Tim about it. The Chairman asks the teams to suggest some well known English clichés or idioms together with their real meaning.

complete advertisements
In a recent customer survey we discovered that 78% of our listeners disliked pointless statistics. The other 22% like statistics that look like two little ducks laying eggs. Although we know him now as a script writer to the stars, Barry Cryer’s first job was in an advertising agency where he cut his teeth banging away at an old typewriter. Then someone told him you type with your fingers. The chairman presents the teams with the strap lines of some genuine advertisements and the teams task is to identify the product or organisation being advertised.

complete auto-biographies
It is a little known fact that most people employ ghost writers to complete their auto-biographies. Here is an example from Arthur Scargill’s see if you can spot the hand of the ghost writer - “Friday May 3rd 1976, the Grimethorpe Pit management are still refusing to refurb the bucket chain excavator for the fourth time of asking - wooOOOoooOOooo!” The teams are asked to complete the first sentences from a selection of celebrity auto-biographies.

complete bastards
The chairman has brought along a selection of unfinished quotations from some the world’s most unpleasant human beings such as Adolf Hitler, Bernito Mussolini, and Richard Branson - hang on Branson doesn’t deserve to be included with Hitler and Mussolini, they managed to get their trains to run on time. The panellists are asked to complete the quotations.

complete bellocs
This round is guaranteed good old fashioned fun. The teams are presented with some opening couplets of cautionary rhymes in the style of Hilaire Belloc. The teams have to finish the rhymes off and points will be awarded for the speed with which they are able to despatch the errant child in question.

complete cats
Many people who are cat or dog lovers use pictures of their pets as their facebook profile picture. Tim Brooke-Taylor has been repeatedly poked by a Yorkshire Terrier, so he had to send his trousers to the cleaners. This week’s featured pet is the cat, and there are dozens of expressions which include cat references. For example, it may be true that there is more than one way to skin a cat, but it never helped Graeme Garden’s career as a childrens entertainer. The teams are asked to finish off some incomplete cat related sayings and proverbs.

complete children’s jokes
Children famously use comedy as a defence mechanism against bullies, which is why Tim spent most of his schooldays on a coat hook suspended by his underpants. And the chairman’s kids are always trying out jokes around the house with anyone who’d listen. One he remembers went like this “Knock knock. Who’s there? HMRC. Daddy says he’s out.”

In this round the teams here the first part of jokes written by children and their job is to try to guess the punch line. The jokes are from the web page kidswritejokes.

complete children’s rhymes
The Chairman has before him a selection of genuine but incomplete children’s rhymes which he would like the teams to finish off for him.

complete christmas card greetings
There are several elements without which Christmas would never be complete. One is the Christmas card and the chairman has the first parts of some genuine Christmas card greetings which the teams are asked to complete.

complete crackers
In this game the teams attempt to provide punch lines to terrible jokes, just like they do in all the others.

complete dogs
Incidentally I notice that Dulux are going to replace the dog in their ads with a Golden Retriever, well a Sunrise Halcyon Yellow Retriever. We should be aware that certain types of dogs suffer if they are inbred, by which we mean a Korean sandwich. The chairman has some incomplete dog related sayings and proverbs which he asks the teams to finish off.

complete dubya quotes
George W. Bush is the elected leader of the world’s only super power, controller of the world’s most influential economic infrastructure, and supreme commander of the largest nuclear-weapons equipped military force on the planet. You couldn’t make it up could you? But then, according to a Gallup poll 3.7 million of the American electorate believe they have been abducted and interrogated by Aliens. Presumably with the question What were you thinking? The chairman brings along a selection of incomplete quotations from speeches made by President Bush which the panelists are asked to finish off.

complete family sayings
One saying is that you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family, unless you are Angelina Jolie and buy them on eBay. The Chairman reads out the first part of some genuine family sayings sent in by listeners, and the teams job is to complete them.

complete greetings cards
There are greetings cards available for many diverse occasions such as Mother’s Day, when sending your mother a cute picture of three kittens in a Wellington boot on a bit of folded cardboard is deemed sufficient thanks for her going through excruciating pain of childbirth.

In this round the teams will attempt to guess the endings to some lines taken from genuine greetings cards.

complete headlines
Much of the British press is controlled by Rupert Murdoch’s News International Corporation who also own a large share of Sky TV. The Chairman recently worked for Sky TV so he knows My Rupert Murdoch is an honourable man who was shocked to have his integrity impugned by Leveson, and he knows how strongly the Chairman feels because he has listened to all of the Chairman’s voice mail messages. Some incomplete headlines are read out from various newspapers published exactly 10 years ago and the teams have to guess how they might have finished.

complete jokes
The Chairman presents the teams with the first part of his favourite old jokes, and asks them to try to remember the punch lines.

complete kama sutra
Misunderstood by many the Kama Sutra is in fact an ancient Hindu text considered by experts to be the standard work on human relationships. Written in Sanskrit, Kama is the main spiritual goal of Hindu life, while Sutra literally means a thread that holds things together and refers metaphorically to a collection of aphorisms in a form a guide to virtuous and gracious living. And it’s got drawings that show you unusual ways to get your leg over. The chairman has a number of incomplete sections of the Kama Sutra and the teams are asked what the missing words might be.

complete limericks
This round is played in tribute to Edward Lear, the writer famous for his nonsense poems. Today we are concentrating on limericks. The standard form of a limerick relies on a 5 line stanza with the defining foot of its meter being the anapest in a modified iambic pentameter, and the fact that vicars rhymes with knickers. The chairman reads out a classic Edward Lear limerick minus its last line and the teams aim to come up with a better closing line than the original.

complete love songs
The Chairman presents a selection of opening lyrics to some popular songs which are all incomplete and the team’s job is to correctly finish them off.

complete marriage
Under Scottish civil law married couples stand together as complete equals, while under Muirfield golfing law the woman stands in the car park with a bag of crisps. The Chairman supplies the teams with a selection of unfinished quotes and sayings on the subject of marriage, and the team’s job is to finish them off.

complete nursery rhyme
There was a story here recently of an 11-year old who weighed 15 stone, but when the news hit the American papers they started a campaign to raise money for the poor starving children of Britain. We shouldn’t be doing jokes about obese people of course, they already have more than enough on their plate. In this round the teams are given the first part of genuine children’s rhymes from around the world which they should try to complete.

complete openings
The teams are no strangers to the world of books. After 7 years hard graft Graeme Garden has just finished his first novel - then he always was a slow reader. And an unauthorised biography of Barry Cryer is soon to be published, titled Barry Cryer: His Life Was a Joke, it relates the roller coaster of success, fame, and fortune enjoyed by the many people he’s heard of.

In this round the Chairman brings along the first parts of some famous openings to a range of books, novels, and autobiographies, that the teams are asked to complete.

complete playground rhymes
Playground rhymes have been a feature of our schools for generations. A popular one at Barry’s school was:

Barry and Gracie Fields sitting in a tree
K-i-s-s-i-n-g!

To be fair, she always liked the older man. The Chairman has a selection of genuine school and playground rhymes from the past 50 years, however each is incomplete, and the team’s task is to finish them off.

complete poems
This round is an interesting version of the Sunday evening Radio 4 show Poetry Please, or as most listeners will know it, Poetry-click. We will be examining how great works of poetry are inspired. For example what prompted Robert Burns to write this:

Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!

Perhaps we’ll never know.

The Chairman gives the teams the first lines to some well known poems and asks them to suggest how the works might have been completed less successfully.

complete quotes/closed quotes
The popularity of the well-turned phrase that’s wittily delivered never seems to diminish. Who for example can forget the great Oscar Wilde’s memorable outburst “I have nothing to declare but a bottle of vodka and 200 cigarettes.” In this round the teams hear a series of famous personalities unfortunately stopped in mid-sentence which the they then have to finish off. Points are deducted for correct answers.

The game of Complete Quotes should not be confused with the game about builders estimates - that’s Incomplete Quotes.

complete romantic drama
This round is all about the art of romance. There is a touching story concerning the social reformer Florence Nightingale who lived in Chesterfield. Her parents romantically named her Florence after the Italian city, as that was where she had been conceived. This story was often told by her brother Busshelter Nightingale. The explicit content of some romantic drama is being toned down at the BBC so the teams are supplied with the first part of some well known romantic lines of poetry, prose, or dialogue, for them to complete in the least romantic manner possible.

complete sayings
It would have been a wasted opportunity to visit Lancashire and not get immersed in the full extent of the richness of the depth and culture there, and besides there is 90 seconds to fill. Before coming to Preston messages were put on social network web sites seeking to meet locals who are exponents of Lancashire’s oral heritage, and now we find we have been put on a register. The chairman has been provided with a list of traditional Lancashire sayings which are incomplete, and would like to test the teams local knowledge by asking them to finish them off.

complete scotland
Greenock gave the world James Watt and his steam engine, Alloway gave the world Robert Burns and his poetry, and Glasgow gave the world the secure online money-transfer system PayPal-Pal. The chairman has a collection of unfinished Scottish quotes from various sources for the teams to complete.

complete slogans
The chairman is quite an aficionado of TV commercials, and particularly used to enjoy that one featuring those monkeys dressed in human clothes, the ones who used to advertise Kwik-Fit. The chairman reads out various incomplete advertising slogans, from past and present, and to test the teams advertising knowledge they are asked to provide the missing endings.

complete song lyrics
The Chairman reads out the first lines of well known songs for the panellists to complete.

complete strap lines
The rise of social media has prompted concerns about plot spoilers. Remarks or information which give away important plot elements of a film or drama and which, if not monitored, can ruin the experience for others. Actors are particularly conscious about revealing spoilers to the shows they’re in, as the Chairman learnt from an actor friend of his shortly before he took to the stage as the murderous train driver in Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap. The Chairman reads out some genuine but incomplete strap lines to a series of famous films for the teams to complete them

complete towie
The ground breaking reality show that featured its own famous pre-Spanish holiday diet No Carbs before Marbs  - this is based on the original Barry Cryer diet No Stella before Marbella. The chairman reads to the teams the words of a renowned local celebrity from which certain key passages have been removed, and their job is to fill in the missing bits.

complete trailers
A family trip to the cinema is an enjoyable if expensive treat. The Chairman’s advice is to bring your own food although it is best to sit away from the smoke alarms when lighting your charcoal. In this round the Chairman reads out a series of interrupted lines from classic movie trailers and the teams job is to finish them off.

complete warning signs
One of the earliest public Health & Safety warning signs that intrigued the chairman was the railway sign that warned Alight Other Side, until one night in 1945 when his train drew into Dresden station. Just across the street there is a sign that says Watch Batteries Fitted Here - what kind of spectator sport is that? The chairman presents the teams with the first part of some of some of his favourite warning signs for them to finish off.

connections
In this round the teams have to guess what might link various disparate persons, items, or facts. So for example, if they were asked What might link Osama Bin Laden and Noel Edmonds? then the obvious answer is that they both disappeared without trace.

consumer competitions
We all love a competition and the chance to win a prize. Just look at the ongoing popularity of the National Lottery. Only last month following a surprise win at the lottery, one lucky Darwen man was able to purchase his local football team - Blackburn Rovers. Just imagine what he could have bought if he got four matching numbers.

The Chairman provides the teams with sort of unfinished opening statement that well known companies and brands send out to people who enjoy entering competitions and their job is to finish it off.

contrived content
With literally hundreds of TV channels being filled with all sorts of stuff these days it is sometimes difficult to exactly know what it is that you are watching. The Chairman dipped into a programme the other night that was about killing chickens, scavenging from dustbins, and having noisy sex in the garden - it turned out it was Fox News. The people whose job it is to come up with ideas for radio and TV shows can be remarkably lazy, so the teams are asked to announce examples of programmes where the content has been contrived to suit what someone thought would make a clever title.

conveyor belt
Based on the Generation Game. The teams will watch a selection of items on a conveyor belt which they should attempt to remember later. Thus will be created all the excitement of an airport baggage reclaim. After the items have passed by the teams will have 60 seconds to recall as many as possible.

cookery show
The genre started with Ready Steady Cook originally hosted by Fern Britten. Interestingly Fern only went into TV after she failed to qualify to join the Post Office, so Royal Mail’s loss is the house bounds gain. One team has laid on a 3 course dinner party at their house to which the other team are invited. The guest team’s job is to repay this hospitality by finding as much fault with the meal as possible.

corner shop
The panellists list things they can buy at various types of corner shop.

cost cutters
The teams are asked to suggest new titles for BBC TV programmes resulting from swingeing budget cuts.

countdown
Based on the Channel 4 show of the same name, but hard to match up to the feverish pace of the original.

cow, lake, bomb
A variation on the ancient playground game of Paper, Scissors, Stone where two players hold out a hand in one of three shapes; the premise being that paper wraps stone, stone blunts scissors, and scissors cuts paper. This is a grown up version of the game that follows the same principles as the original game but is specially adapted for the wireless. Each team is furnished with several sound effects including a cow, a lake, and a bomb. After the chairman counts to three, each team plays in one of the effects and he announces the winner. The rules are fairly self explanatory - obviously cow drinks lake, lake extinguishes bomb, and bomb blows up cow.

criminals
According to our sister programme, Money Box, our motor insurance premiums are going up because the company say “fraudulent claims cost them £800 million a year”, which makes you think they should stop paying out on the fraudulent claims. In fact our very own Tim Brooke-Taylor was recently a victim of identity theft; the Police are looking for a penniless fraudster who has never heard of himself. In the round, one team will be criminals while the other will be Police officers whose job it is to discover precisely what it is their opponents are guilty of.

critics forum and against em
Each team has to review a show and has to reverse their opinions each time the other team press their buzzer.

cross breeding
The panellists are asked to come up with suggestions for new hybrid creatures.

cryptic proverbs
Down the years proverbs have provided an essential life code, but today many leave something to be desired. For example whilst it is still true you can’t make a silk purse out of a pig’s ear, there is certainly nothing to stop you making a pork pie. And while we are on the subject, it’s not the broth but the TV schedule that is spoilt by too many cooks. Instead of the full proverb all the panellists get to go on are the first letter of each word and they have to say what the actual saying is from the letters alone.

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