And, as the Minute Waltz fades away, it's time once again to play Just A Minute, the popular and long-running radio comedy panel game, invented by Ian Messiter and hosted by Nicholas Parsons, and aired on that purveyor of fine radio comedy to the discerning, BBC Radio 4.

The premise is simple. A panellist must speak on a given subject for sixty seconds without hesitating, devating from the subject, or repeating any word other than the words in the subject.

If a player infringes one of these rules, any other player can challenge. If the challenge is upheld they gain a point and the subject; they must go on speaking for the remaining balance of the sixty seconds. If the challenge is held to be incorrect the speaker gains an extra point and carries on. Whoever is speaking at the end of the minute (when a whistle is blown) gains an extra point, and there is a further bonus point if you speak for the whole minute without a correct challenge being mounted against you. Finally, the rule about repetition allies only to what you yourself have said; you may re-use words which another player has used in the same round.

Long-time players of the game have included Sir Clement Freud, the late Derek Nimmo, and Peter Jones of blessed memory. Yes, that Peter Jones.

The show is recorded with a live audience, and is in great demand from festivals and events around the UK. The annual broadcast from the Edinburgh Festival is eagerly anticipated by fans of the show. In recent years new players and a slightly more liberal interpretation of the rules has led to a renaissance in the game's popularity. In fact the audience has on occasion been known to exert mob rule and disallow legitimate challenges by the simple expedient of shouting them down. It has gone from being a festival of erudition to a comedy tour de force, with the likes of Tim Rice, Linda Smith, Stephen Fry, Paul Merton and Graham Norton bringing wit and atrocious puns to spice up the old formula.

Peter Jones merits a special mention, in that he would frequently be allowed to waffle on for ages, repeating himself and dithering, umming and erring (which is construed as hesitation) and meandering miles from the subject on the card, because he was quite simply brilliantly funny. He would tell long and improbable stories which would have the rest of the players laughing themselves silly, and far too caught up in the surreal web he was weaving to challenge. It is a duller game without him.

Chairman Nicholas Parsons and Sir Clement are about the only ones who care who wins these days, which is as it should be. It is, after all, a British programme, and there is something fundamentally un-British about overtly trying to win. Freud can be excused due to his Austrian ancestry.