Nintendo's DS Lite device is already assured a top spot in the popularity stakes.

All Whites succeed in toppling All Blacks in popularity stakes among Kiwis.

It is safe to say that there is so little not to oppose that you are taking no further risks in the popularity stakes or the well-being of the country.

In the popularity stakes we're almost up there with members of the Vichy government in 1944.

Even parsley has entered the popularity stakes: the flat Continental parsley has ousted the curly English parsley in cookbooks.

Pan-Arabism has been overtaken by Pan-Islamism (Sunni Branch) in the popularity stakes.

Sand-storming up in the popularity stakes across the Emirates is this age-old sport, enjoying a renaissance thanks to the bizarre intervention of robots (no, you didn't misread that).

Will existing television and radio stations, or satellite and cable TV win out in the popularity stakes?

I see the King's Speech as not necessarily a great film, but it does have an awful lot going for it in the popularity stakes.