Nick Girdler is a freelance radio broadcaster who worked for BBC Radio Solent from 1972 until 2006 and again from 2009 until 2019. Following a short-lived retirement from 2006, on 3 June 2009, Radio Solent announced that he would be returning to the station on 14 June 2009, to host a Sunday morning (9am to noon) programme. Girdler presented his last programme on 24 February 2019 having purportedly been given just 10 days’ notice of termination of employment, as a result of changes to the Sunday morning line-up. Competitions The BBC doesn't favour competitions any more, so "The Top Ten" is not a competition but a BBQ. It lasts for the duration of the three hour show, ie: The Top Ten Runs Easy answer: Dexy's Midnight Runners More difficult answer: 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. Girdler 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, Girdler, 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. Catchphrases Over the years Girdler developed