e

egg heads
People often ask what the teams get up to when they are not doing the show. Well they all keep busy doing something. You may have heard Tim on last week’s Money Box Phone-in Recession Special giving benefits advice to the unemployed. The lines were really busy that day so Tim was lucky to get through. This round is the show's version of the TV quiz that has boasted that it has the greatest team in Britain. The teams are asked egg related questions.

election fever
The entire nation has been gripped by election fever ever since Mr. Blair decided to go to the country - and found it was still shut. The teams put their questions to those who hope to be our next Prime Minister. Broadcasting rules dictate that during an election campaign equal air time has to be given to each possible contender so this will be divided into three sections - the Labour interview, the Conservative interview, and tea and biscuits. Actually, that is a little harsh on Charles Kennedy whose speeches remind us of the powers of fine oratory displayed by that other famous Kennedy - Nigel. Obviously Mr. Blair and Mr. Hague could not be present, so instead several of their favourite words and expressions have been captured on an electronic sampler for each team to use in answer to various questions.

estate agents
House buying is all the rage on television these days, and never ones to miss a trend the teams are now going to bring it to radio. In this round the teams take it in turns to be estate agents like Phil and Kirstie off the telly. The estate agents’ job is to take a couple of prospective buyers around a property and convince them that it meets all their requirements.

etiquette
This next round celebrates something given to the world by the French - etiquette. The French have given us fine wines, fine cuisine, and what would the E.U. be like if France hadn’t joined in? Well it would be like World War II. Etiquette in this country was at its height in the 19th Century. The Chairman has some snippets of advice from genuine Victorian books of etiquette from which certain key words or phrases have been removed. The teams job is to complete the missing sections.

euro nursery rhymes
This round takes us overseas to see what we can adapt from Briatin to suit our European neighbours. The Chairman is fascinated by European culture - for example in the French language they have a word rien which means nothing. And yet as the Prime Minister discovered recently the French have more than 20 different ways to say both up and yours. In an effort to restore our crumbling political and economic links the teams are asked to help solve the terrible European Nursery Rhyme shortage by adapting some to suit our neighbours, or for any other deserving nations farther afield.

euro scrabble
As we move ever closer to European unity, many British games have been adapted to suit our new partners. In Madrid they are playing Spanish Cluedo, the winner being the first to guess whether it was Colonel Mustard in the Drawing Room with the candlestick, or General Pinochet in the basement with the cattle prod. And for Brussels, Shove Ha penny is revived as Shove Euro a simple pleasure involving telling them where to put their new currency. The teams play a couple of rounds of Scrabble with words from European countries.

euro tv and radio guide
Since we are forging closer links with our European neighbours, the panellists are asked to suggest continental versions of some of our broadcasting favourites.

exam or bedroom
We all know the secret to exam success is intensive preparation being a driving test or a maths exam. Our own Rory Bremner was telling us that only last week how he sailed through a recent test. He emerged exhausted but triumphant from his rigorous prostate exam, albeit after 24 hours of intensive cramming. The teams are asked to come up with phrases that might be suitable to be used both in the bedroom and during an exam.

exam questions
Evidence of education standards falling are everywhere, even at the BBC. Exams in English are so much easier now that plural words may be used in the singular, split infinitives are acceptable, and some examiners even tolerate smelling pistakes. The panellists are given a selection of exam questions to answer. Two As and a B will get them a place at Oxbridge, two Cs and D will get them one at De Montfort Leicester, while an E, an O, and an R will get them a part in the Archers. To compare whether education standards really have fallen since their day, the panellists are tested with GCSE General Knowledge exam paper. To make it even more of a test it is done in reverse, with the Chairman reading out the answers and the panellists have to come up with the questions.

expert advice
It has come to the Chairman’s notice that quite a lot of what purports to be expert advice these days is in fact nothing of the sort. Last week when he was struggling through Jamie Oliver’s recipe for Pukka Pesto he was instructed to whizz in a blender which he did and fell of the worktop. In this game the teams will be concerning themselves with examples of expert advice. However, like a Chubby Checker concert there is an inevitable twist - the game is played backwards. The chairman supplies an answer to a number of genuine problems supplied by various experts and then the teams of agonising uncles will have to work out what the original question might have been.

extra word ruined products
This round is all about shopping. Manufacturers will try anything to give their product an edge over the competition, and a popular means of achieving this is to get a celebrity to lend their name to it. But roping in a famous name is no guarantee of success; for every George Foreman grill there is a Noel Gallagher eyebrow trimmer, Greg Wallace shampoo and conditioner, or a Prince Andrew white wash.

In this round the teams are asked for examples of popular product names ruined by the simple addition of an extra word.

extra word ruined strapline
A misplaced letter on it’s packaging can be ruinous to the success of a product. Just think of the disastrous sales figures for Waitrose Essential Full Fat Milk. Likewise the addition of a single word to a product advertising strapline can spell disaster for the manufacturers. The teams are asked to suggest advertising slogans ruined by the addition of a single word.

www.isihac.co.uk Copyright© 1999-2025. Mike Williams. All rights reserved.