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| Me, my goofy mug, and 1x bona fide legend |
But even the sunniest days have to throw shade somewhere. And now that my laptop’s out of the glare, I can see my virtual peoples all the more clearly. Hello all you SuperLuckyLovelies! Don't be strangers!
Tuesday 29 October 2019
Where my peoples at?
Asgard has fallen! Well, perhaps that’s a little overwrought, but #SuperluckyLive is definitely over. On Saturday I was surrounded by my spiritual brethren and hugging it out with legends. Today, by contrast, I am huddled alone in a cold box-room, scowling at my in-tray.
Spending all that time team-comping and chin-wagging about stories both winning and otherwise was one long sugar rush … Monday, however, was the drop. That feeling of belonging dissolved into one of isolation, of PUT ME BACK! TAKE ME HOME!
But even the sunniest days have to throw shade somewhere. And now that my laptop’s out of the glare, I can see my virtual peoples all the more clearly. Hello all you SuperLuckyLovelies! Don't be strangers!
But even the sunniest days have to throw shade somewhere. And now that my laptop’s out of the glare, I can see my virtual peoples all the more clearly. Hello all you SuperLuckyLovelies! Don't be strangers!
Monday 28 October 2019
Double down
Things don’t always go according to plan. That’s not to say they’ve gone wrong, of course; it’s just that the outcome, the journey, or possibly both, have diverged from expectation. Parenthood is a case in point. Well, sort of: parenthood is a largely thankless travail where anything and everything you do will be criticised by someone at some point, and the only way your predictions will pan out is if you expect to balls up everything in the first place. But still, just because you’re permanently in the wrong, that doesn’t mean that the whole thing has been a catastrophe. (It’ll still feel like it, sure, but legally speaking, only a small minority of cases are unequivocally catastrophic.)
In terms of prizes, for example, it was barely a fortnight ago that my coffee turned up a few months late, but buddied up with another half-pound friend. Likewise, today, my biggest win of the year pretty much doubled in size thanks to an admin error.
How so? Well, just before Instagram called time on its ‘following’ tab, I found a small-odds competition to win a case of reds from the Sunday Times Wine Club. Within a week of pulling my name from the hat, a dozen bottles turned up at my house. The only problem - and let’s be quite clear, this really wasn’t a problem - was that these weren’t the bottles I was supposed to have won.
Mindful of the fact that someone had kindly just given me a hundred quid’s worth of wine, I most definitely did not complain.
What I did do, however, was thank the promoter, but point out that the bottles weren’t the ones I was expecting, and that while this was absolutely not an issue for me, I didn’t want one of their paying customers to be upset because they were waiting for the box on my hallway floor.
The thing is, while I did prefer the look of the original prize, most promoters reserve the right to substitute prizes, in part or whole, with an alternative of equal or greater value - and I’m cool with that. Had the promoter offered to replace the wine, I would have been happy; had they not, I would still have been happy.
What I was not expecting, however, was for the promoter to say, hold up, that ain’t right - tell you what, hang on to that box and we’ll send you the proper one right away. Truthfully, I’m still rather taken aback. I mean, if things had gone to plan, I’d have been able to stick all the booze in the cupboard under the stairs. As it happens, I now have a dozen bottles of sauce obstructing the passage through my kitchen. But then, some problems are nice to have, aren’t they?
In terms of prizes, for example, it was barely a fortnight ago that my coffee turned up a few months late, but buddied up with another half-pound friend. Likewise, today, my biggest win of the year pretty much doubled in size thanks to an admin error.
How so? Well, just before Instagram called time on its ‘following’ tab, I found a small-odds competition to win a case of reds from the Sunday Times Wine Club. Within a week of pulling my name from the hat, a dozen bottles turned up at my house. The only problem - and let’s be quite clear, this really wasn’t a problem - was that these weren’t the bottles I was supposed to have won.
Mindful of the fact that someone had kindly just given me a hundred quid’s worth of wine, I most definitely did not complain.
What I did do, however, was thank the promoter, but point out that the bottles weren’t the ones I was expecting, and that while this was absolutely not an issue for me, I didn’t want one of their paying customers to be upset because they were waiting for the box on my hallway floor.
The thing is, while I did prefer the look of the original prize, most promoters reserve the right to substitute prizes, in part or whole, with an alternative of equal or greater value - and I’m cool with that. Had the promoter offered to replace the wine, I would have been happy; had they not, I would still have been happy.
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| 12 of the best |
Sunday 27 October 2019
Hard copy light reading
I was humbled at #SuperLuckyLive yesterday when the little box of books I'd taken along sold out in minutes! If you were hoping to buying one, I'm SO sorry I didn't bring enough - I really thought that anyone who was interested would have downloaded it already!
If anyone is still hungering for a genuine paper copy, send me a PM, and if there's enough interest, I'll be able to make a bulk order and get you one for less than the Amazon price! If you really want, I'll get the unboxing king (aka my son) to sign it too 😂🤣
And in case you're wondering what on earth I'm talking about, you can read all about the book here!
Friday 25 October 2019
Forever Chasing Supernovas
Some competition entries take seconds; others take hours - but if you're getting into the zen of the endeavour, that's no bad thing. Well, it might be a bad thing if you're in the middle of your manager's PowerPoint presentation, but you get the point.
By way of example, Fortnum & Mason have recently been running a short story competition, with a shedload of gourmet chocolate being awarded to the winner. By any measure, that's a nice prize. It's also a nice challenge.
The brief? Write a 500-word story for their chocolate library. Said story must be inspired by one of three starting points vaguely related to a specific F&M chocolate bar.
I've gone for the Forever Chasing Supernovas (milk chocolate and passionfruit) bar - based on the brief that "for the last 1707 years, four passionate astronauts have hurtled through space, on the hunt for a peculiar portal to a spell-binding dimension".
Science fiction is not my forte, however, so I'm really hoping the stories are being judged by a Beatles fan. Not that the Beatles are my forte either... Anyway, here's my effort - let me know how many songs can you identify therein!
Forever Chasing Supernovas
By way of example, Fortnum & Mason have recently been running a short story competition, with a shedload of gourmet chocolate being awarded to the winner. By any measure, that's a nice prize. It's also a nice challenge.
The brief? Write a 500-word story for their chocolate library. Said story must be inspired by one of three starting points vaguely related to a specific F&M chocolate bar.
I've gone for the Forever Chasing Supernovas (milk chocolate and passionfruit) bar - based on the brief that "for the last 1707 years, four passionate astronauts have hurtled through space, on the hunt for a peculiar portal to a spell-binding dimension".
Science fiction is not my forte, however, so I'm really hoping the stories are being judged by a Beatles fan. Not that the Beatles are my forte either... Anyway, here's my effort - let me know how many songs can you identify therein!
Forever Chasing Supernovas
Happy
birthday, Captain! You’re 1,740 today, but you don’t look a day over 64!
“I’d not look a day over 33 if you’d
only leave me in stasis.”
Lieutenant
Harrison’s baked a cake!
“I sincerely doubt that.”
OK.
I baked the cake. But Lieutenant Harrison gave me the recipe.
“You woke up Lieutenant Harrison just
to bake a cake?!”
Well,
technically, she was already awake…
“You’re saying she disabled the
hibernation protocol from the bridge while cryogenically frozen inside a locked
stasis pod?”
Yes.
I mean no. Um. It was an accident.
“You brought her out of stasis by
accident?”
Yes.
An accident. I was lonely so I accidentally pressed the off button.
“Ringo, you’re a robot.”
Android.
“Whatever. You’re programmed aren’t
you?”
Correct.
“And what is your prime directive?”
To
safeguard the crew as we traverse the Kanaloa nebula and pass through the Māla
wormhole.
“So, why are we having this conversation?”
Because
it’s your birthday!
“This isn’t about me is it? Last
week you thawed me out for World Stationery Day.”
But
you love pens!
“I’ve not seen a pen in 1,700 years!”
But
everyone loves pens!
“Who’s ‘everyone’, Ringo?! Everyone
we ever knew died centuries ago! Heck, for all we know, civilisation itself died
centuries ago. It’s not like Earth’s been in contact for, I dunno, the last
thousand years or so!”
You
know what you need? A proper blowout. You know, sit back … let the evening go.
Live for the moment. Enjoy the show.
“What I need is to be put back into
cryostasis.”
I’m
sorry Jean-Paul, I’m afraid I can’t do that.
“What do you mean you can’t do
that?! Your prime directive…”
…is
to look after you, yes, and that includes not letting you sleep through
dangerous astronomical phenomena, such as Phi Mu 217-9300 going supernova.
“I’m sorry, what?”
In
approximately 90 seconds, Phi Mu 217-9300 will go supernova.
“What?! Where’s Georgia?! Where’s Mack?!”
Lieutenant
Harrison is on the bridge, transmitting data back to Earth. Mr McKenzie is …
not at his post. I think he’s unwell.
“Why didn’t you wake me earlier?! We’ve
got less than five minutes before we’re toast – I should be on deck with my
crew!”
So,
I’m not crew any more? How’s that supposed to make me feel? I thought we were
friends…
“You know full well what I mean! I
can’t leave Georgia up there all alone!”
I
brought chocolate.
“You did what?”
Milk
chocolate. Filled with passion fruit. I thought you might like it. Just a
little token of appreciation, you know, from me, to you.
“I haven’t tasted chocolate for 900
years. I thought we’d run out?”
I
was saving it for a special occasion.
“Like my 1,740th birthday?”
Or
the end of a long cold lonely winter, perhaps.
“1,707 years is a long winter.”
Yes,
but the sun’s here now.
“Yep, here it comes.”
And
how’s the chocolate?
“It’s all right, Ringo – everything
is. It’s all right.”
Thursday 17 October 2019
My party piece
As much as I love a novel entry mechanic, especially a collaborative one, the absurdity of Twitter parties is something I just can’t escape.
Semantics, of course, is a classic stumbling block: I’m not a “party” person. For a start, I get nervous when backed into social situations and am expected to maintain fluid conversation under pressure; for a second, I’m still processing the trauma of being forced to play postman’s knock at my sister’s sixth birthday.
I’m also unclear about terminology. Are Twitter parties something one attends, partakes in or just does? Am I an invitee, a delegate or just a passer-by?
But these are just personal hang-ups that I need to work through. The really absurd part is the party itself. In real-life, the closest approximation would be a launch party for some intricate widget, where the host is up on stage, elaborating on the finer points of said widget’s exquisite filigree detail, while the guests are all tangentially gibbering among themselves, hashtagging their every burp. Case in point: I’ve just sat through a Twitter party about temperance, and before you could say virgin martini, the secondary conversation had slurred into a bonding session for milk-loathers.
Half an hour of gratuitously hashtagging jibber jabber is normally quite enough to get a hashtag to trend. For the promoter’s marketing team, this ticks a very important box; unfortunately, it also leads to gatecrashers hijacking said hashtag in an attempt to hawk snake oil and penis pumps. That’s when you know the show is over. That’s when the promoter pulls down the shutters and literally starts paying people to leave. To be sure, I’ve been to worse parties - I’ve hosted worse parties - but not ones planned to pan out thus.
But comping isn’t real-life; it makes you do things you wouldn’t normally do. And in that respect, it’s not unlike Special Brew - albeit Special Brew with prizes. For example, in this instance, moving outside my comfort zone won me a £50 Amazon voucher - my biggest prize this year, and exactly what I need now that the Christmas shopping season beckons.
[16/10 filed late]
Semantics, of course, is a classic stumbling block: I’m not a “party” person. For a start, I get nervous when backed into social situations and am expected to maintain fluid conversation under pressure; for a second, I’m still processing the trauma of being forced to play postman’s knock at my sister’s sixth birthday.
I’m also unclear about terminology. Are Twitter parties something one attends, partakes in or just does? Am I an invitee, a delegate or just a passer-by?
But these are just personal hang-ups that I need to work through. The really absurd part is the party itself. In real-life, the closest approximation would be a launch party for some intricate widget, where the host is up on stage, elaborating on the finer points of said widget’s exquisite filigree detail, while the guests are all tangentially gibbering among themselves, hashtagging their every burp. Case in point: I’ve just sat through a Twitter party about temperance, and before you could say virgin martini, the secondary conversation had slurred into a bonding session for milk-loathers.
Half an hour of gratuitously hashtagging jibber jabber is normally quite enough to get a hashtag to trend. For the promoter’s marketing team, this ticks a very important box; unfortunately, it also leads to gatecrashers hijacking said hashtag in an attempt to hawk snake oil and penis pumps. That’s when you know the show is over. That’s when the promoter pulls down the shutters and literally starts paying people to leave. To be sure, I’ve been to worse parties - I’ve hosted worse parties - but not ones planned to pan out thus.
But comping isn’t real-life; it makes you do things you wouldn’t normally do. And in that respect, it’s not unlike Special Brew - albeit Special Brew with prizes. For example, in this instance, moving outside my comfort zone won me a £50 Amazon voucher - my biggest prize this year, and exactly what I need now that the Christmas shopping season beckons.
[16/10 filed late]
Tuesday 15 October 2019
Never too late
Setting a new record, a prize that I've been looking forward to receiving since March arrived today - that's a wait of seven months, give or take.
It's a bag of coffee, worth no more three pounds, so was it worth the chasing? The answer's in the question, ie: coffee.
I've weaned myself off coffee before; truth be told, I even spent a few weeks completely caffeine-free, but that's not something I'd recommend. At least, I'd not recommend doing it like I did, which is to say, cold turkey, as the experience is not unlike someone hammering your eyeballs with the heel of their boot.
But withdrawal symptoms aside, one thing that reducing my caffeine intake has taught me is that without coffee, I'm not actually human. I mean, obviously I'm unbearable, but that aside, I just like it too much. Between the children waking up and going to bed, my morning joe is invariably the high point of my day. I don't mean that to sound like I love coffee more than my children, but ... then, maybe I do ... you know, I've never really thought about it like that ... so let's just say it's less demanding than my children and leave it there.
Indeed, the whole point of this story is that today, I received gratis coffee. But the story doesn't stop there, as the promoter chucked in a second bag too - and a fancier spec of coffee at that. So forget better late than never; sometimes things can be better late than punctual too.
It's a bag of coffee, worth no more three pounds, so was it worth the chasing? The answer's in the question, ie: coffee.
I've weaned myself off coffee before; truth be told, I even spent a few weeks completely caffeine-free, but that's not something I'd recommend. At least, I'd not recommend doing it like I did, which is to say, cold turkey, as the experience is not unlike someone hammering your eyeballs with the heel of their boot.
But withdrawal symptoms aside, one thing that reducing my caffeine intake has taught me is that without coffee, I'm not actually human. I mean, obviously I'm unbearable, but that aside, I just like it too much. Between the children waking up and going to bed, my morning joe is invariably the high point of my day. I don't mean that to sound like I love coffee more than my children, but ... then, maybe I do ... you know, I've never really thought about it like that ... so let's just say it's less demanding than my children and leave it there.
Indeed, the whole point of this story is that today, I received gratis coffee. But the story doesn't stop there, as the promoter chucked in a second bag too - and a fancier spec of coffee at that. So forget better late than never; sometimes things can be better late than punctual too.
Sunday 13 October 2019
Match & Win
Kicking
myself because I failed to click that this year’s Cadbury’s Match & Win
promotion used the same mechanic as last year - in other words, the barcode and
batch code on one bar of chocolate are good for two entries a day, for every day
of the promotion. With one week left to get entries in, the chances of me
scoring Norwich tickets are looking wafer-thin. Especially if I’m going to need
Chelsea to lose 2-4 to Newcastle at home just to make it through to the prize
draw.
Friday 11 October 2019
The Consolation Prize
Last
Saturday, Norwich City took - to use the vernacular - one hell of a beating.
About ten minutes from the end, however, they scored a consolation goal. As
second-born is currently keen as mustard to expand his football-related
vocabulary, he asked what ‘consolation’ meant. A friend explained, you know
when you don’t win but someone gives you a prize anyway… I had to stop him
right there. That’s second place mate. That’s runner-up. That’s on the podium
and in the prizes.
The idea that not winning outright is not winning is flat-out toxic. You see the same thing at the end of any football
cup final when the runners-up receive their medals. Those chaps are not happy
bunnies. Watch how many take off their medal rather than wear it for another
second. They’d rather carry it all screwed up in their sweaty palm than make
the zero effort required to wear it to the dressing room.
Sure,
they’ve had a gruelling day, and sure, there’s still room to do better next
time, but placing second isn’t losing! Losing isn't even getting knocked out in the
first round; losing is not getting up for more.
After
not winning the other week’s poetry competition on account of being a numpty, I
didn’t quit. I dusted myself down and made nice with the promoter. I didn’t
complain, and I certainly didn’t ask for a prize, and yet here we are: my
‘consolation prize’ of a couple of paperbacks arrived today - a treat better than I deserved, better than I was expecting, and way better than many things I have acumulated
as a so-called ‘winner’.
A
consolation goal makes no never mind to the result. A consolation prize that is
a prize, is a prize, full stop. It’s all in the mindset.
Wednesday 9 October 2019
The fool or the fool who follows the fool
What?! How dare you remove the "Following" tab! How am I supposed to stalk now?! Instagram, you're dead to me.
Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes
Knee-deep in form-fillers today. The worst kind of comp - for me at least. I usually give these a wide berth, but you’re hard pushed to win a holiday off a basic like-tag on Instagram. Truth is, you’re hard pushed to win a holiday full-stop, but if you don’t try, you don’t prevail.
I nurture this fantasy that, with enough rest and recuperation, my brain might grow back. I don’t imagine I’ll ever be able to conjugate beautiful French or discuss with confidence - or failing that, bluster - the role of women in nineteenth-century opera, but the idea of being able to recall a three-item shopping list retains a certain allure.
There was a time I could manage a passable approximation of the above. That time, however, has passed. I can remember to get two children to school - usually on the right days, and sometimes even in their own clothes. I can remember to vacuum the carpet. And goodness knows I can remember to sob into the perpetually spewing laundry basket. But these are the squeaky wheels. Can I remember to touch up the wood-stain on the dining room floor or to dust absolutely anything? Not a chance.
So, that’s why I’m filling in forms today. Not because I’m hopeful of winning a holiday - no, I’m under no illusion about the likelihood of that - but rather because I’m imagining what it’d be like to have a week in Mauritius without children; without arguments; without people asking me questions then interrupting my answers with bullshit. I’m imagining what it’d be like to have informed opinions. I’m imagining what it’d be like to have a head inside which it wasn’t raining anvils. I’m imagining what it’d be like to have half a brain.
I imagine it’d be nice.
I nurture this fantasy that, with enough rest and recuperation, my brain might grow back. I don’t imagine I’ll ever be able to conjugate beautiful French or discuss with confidence - or failing that, bluster - the role of women in nineteenth-century opera, but the idea of being able to recall a three-item shopping list retains a certain allure.
There was a time I could manage a passable approximation of the above. That time, however, has passed. I can remember to get two children to school - usually on the right days, and sometimes even in their own clothes. I can remember to vacuum the carpet. And goodness knows I can remember to sob into the perpetually spewing laundry basket. But these are the squeaky wheels. Can I remember to touch up the wood-stain on the dining room floor or to dust absolutely anything? Not a chance.
So, that’s why I’m filling in forms today. Not because I’m hopeful of winning a holiday - no, I’m under no illusion about the likelihood of that - but rather because I’m imagining what it’d be like to have a week in Mauritius without children; without arguments; without people asking me questions then interrupting my answers with bullshit. I’m imagining what it’d be like to have informed opinions. I’m imagining what it’d be like to have a head inside which it wasn’t raining anvils. I’m imagining what it’d be like to have half a brain.
I imagine it’d be nice.
Tuesday 8 October 2019
Raincheck
Some days you enter 300 comps; some days you spend just as long on one. But when it combines with your other favourite hobby, it's way more than twice the fun, and even if you don't win, you've got something to show for your efforts - something far more interesting than a load of random tags and emojis, which is basically what 80% of my communication on Instagram entails.
So, after 20 mins of those random tags and emojis on Instagram today, I switched focus to a short story comp, and then spent hours, literally hours, writing about astronauts, in the hope of winning an obscene amount of fancy chocolate.
Theoretically the job is now done, but I've learned from experience not to hand in my homework the moment I've completed the first draft. With this in mind, I'm afraid you'll have to wait a few days to see what I've been up to. Sorry!
So, after 20 mins of those random tags and emojis on Instagram today, I switched focus to a short story comp, and then spent hours, literally hours, writing about astronauts, in the hope of winning an obscene amount of fancy chocolate.
Theoretically the job is now done, but I've learned from experience not to hand in my homework the moment I've completed the first draft. With this in mind, I'm afraid you'll have to wait a few days to see what I've been up to. Sorry!
Monday 7 October 2019
Dividends
At last, the winning feeling has returned! After weeks of nothing, followed by one win that self-destructed, one that wasn’t mine, and one that I’ll never see because, well, you know what they say about the road to Hull, two winning notifications arrived on the same day - both riding in on the crest of my (ahem) unique talent for verse..
I’m no laureate, let’s be clear about that. But comps on poetry-based hashtag days are so under-subscribed, that I can’t resist them. Well, I can resist the ones run by anyone who takes the poetic arts remotely seriously. Partly that's because my doggerel would wound their very souls, and partly because they’re unlikely to be giving away anything as mundane as pet food or shoe polish.
Yes, the comps do take a bit longer to enter, but the odds are usually so much shorter than standard RT comps that one ignores them at one’s peril. Especially as so many of them are either judged by whichever member of the marketing team pulled the short straw that day, or not judged at all.
I’m as yet unsure what my Typhoo “goodies” will entail, but I’m guessing teabags will be the centrepiece. And who doesn’t need more tea? Even people who don’t drink it have to buy it - have you ever tried fobbing off a plumber with camomile? Good luck with that.
And so, with this in mind, I leave you with the least bad of my efforts:
I’m no laureate, let’s be clear about that. But comps on poetry-based hashtag days are so under-subscribed, that I can’t resist them. Well, I can resist the ones run by anyone who takes the poetic arts remotely seriously. Partly that's because my doggerel would wound their very souls, and partly because they’re unlikely to be giving away anything as mundane as pet food or shoe polish.
Yes, the comps do take a bit longer to enter, but the odds are usually so much shorter than standard RT comps that one ignores them at one’s peril. Especially as so many of them are either judged by whichever member of the marketing team pulled the short straw that day, or not judged at all.
I’m as yet unsure what my Typhoo “goodies” will entail, but I’m guessing teabags will be the centrepiece. And who doesn’t need more tea? Even people who don’t drink it have to buy it - have you ever tried fobbing off a plumber with camomile? Good luck with that.
And so, with this in mind, I leave you with the least bad of my efforts:
“What starts with Tea and ends with Tea?”
“A wonderful day,” I replied.
“Six letters long, fourth letter P …
Teapot, of course,” he sighed.
Sunday 6 October 2019
Saturday 5 October 2019
Back of the net
Number
two son’s prize arrived today already - that’s the kind of prize fulfilment
that most compers can only dream about. Case in point: I’ve been chasing one of
my prizes since March.
Unboxing
will be tomorrow’s treat. The longer he lets me sleep in, the sooner he gets
the parcel. I’m not being deliberately obtuse, but if my Sunday starts like my
Saturday, that is, with him shoving Match Attax cards into my grill before 7
am, when I plainly have scotch to sleep off, then tossing more cardboard footballers
into the mix is really not in anyone’s interest.
Friday 4 October 2019
Wading not leaping
Some
days the motivation is hard to come by. Today, we were looking at excuse #3:
ill health.
Nobody
likes a cold. I mean, I can cope with snot and sneezes, but those ones that
fill up your cavities with phlegm just make me feel slow and lead-headed, and
all I can focus on is the countdown to the next hit of pseudoephedrine.
I
flicked through Insta, Facebook and Twitter, and dropped each with a dirty
great portion of can’t be wazzed. So I thought I’d try work instead, and
couldn’t be wazzed with that either. Coffee, by contrast, I could definitely be
wazzed with. Likewise lunch. And another coffee. That gave me enough grist to
take some pictures of things to sell on eBay, but not enough to actually upload
them. But half-a-job is a more or less a family motto, so my conscience was
sufficiently clear for me to have no problems justifying another look on
Facebook, just in case there were any holidays out there waiting to be won.
There
were probably a whole bunch, but a couple of forms later the lack of wazzedness
overcame me once more, and that was me done.
Fortunately
a pair of pick-me-ups popped into my DMs in quick succession. First,
yesterday’s verse had won me some golf balls. So far so good, but sadly they
had to be collected from Hull, which is approximately 150 miles out of my way;
in other news, my father-in-law is not getting golf balls for Christmas. Still,
the validation was nice. Following this, my second-born scored third place in a
competition to net football cards. By the looks, there were only three
entrants, but I can’t imagine he’ll care. There will be football cards; anything
else is by the by.
I’m
also hoping that first-born will be sufficiently motivated by (read: be
sufficiently jealous of) his brother’s success that he will up his comping game
and start realising his potential. He’s an enigma that one, so whether this
will have the desired effect, I couldn’t possibly say. But if I can stumble
across any more kid comps with more prizes than entrants, it certainly wouldn’t
hurt the cause.
Moving on from yesterday's hashtag day, today is World Smile Day. A quick search of Twitter found a few themed competitions, including one exclusively for webcam girls. It's pretty niche so I'm guessing it won't have many entrants. On the other hand, it would appear to be a voting comp, so obviously I'm steering well clear...
Moving on from yesterday's hashtag day, today is World Smile Day. A quick search of Twitter found a few themed competitions, including one exclusively for webcam girls. It's pretty niche so I'm guessing it won't have many entrants. On the other hand, it would appear to be a voting comp, so obviously I'm steering well clear...
Thursday 3 October 2019
A good day
Today was a good day.
No, I didn’t win a wedge of cash or new laptop. In fact, it started with the same routine disappointment as ever - a quick look at the day’s Lucky Patch. I don’t expect to win on Lucky Patch, especially since having been so close a couple of years back, but having started, the only way I can stop now is if the site goes out of business; that or Russia knocks out this entire sceptred isle with a massive EMP strike, so that everyone is equally done over. Obviously, neither of these eventualities is remotely desirable - but there’s always a bright side, right?
Today, the bright side was literally waiting for me on the next app, as my first win in weeks, possibly months, popped up in my Instagram messages: some body scrub. Not everyone’s idea of a bonza cop, but considering that two nights this week I have been torn from my slumber by children in pisswet pyjamas, all things are relative.
As if a morning without urine-soaked bedding wasn’t exciting enough, there was also the Norwich comping cell micro-convention, which is to say, nine like-minded souls (and infant affiliates) grabbing one last coffee before Brighton. I should say ‘SuperLucky Live’, but since the event is the Woodstock of comping, every last delegate has unilaterally annexed the host city’s name - gotta love the hive mind!
The only downside to knocking work on the head was that the postman was unable to deliver the proof copies of my comping book, so it’s going to be another day before I can get my paws on them. Considering that my uptightness with paper is matched only by Queen Zabo, I can’t wait to see how disappointed I will be with Amazon’s production quality.
It’s also National Poetry Day today, of course. I say ‘of course’ but I didn’t know until I switched on Twitter, then tossed off a few couplets and recycled a verse I wrote a couple of years back. Whether any of it will pay dividends remains to be seen. However, these competitions are not only fun, but they also have fewer entrants, so the odds aren’t so bad, even if the poetry is.
In fact, for a few minutes, I did win a poetry competition I’d entered a few days prior. Unfortunately, the notification had barely pinged up in my Twitter messages when the promoter noticed I’d failed to use one of the five words I was supposed to have included as part of the challenge. What was especially gutting there - apart from the fact that it was a pretty decent prize - was that I *had* originally included the word, but had accidentally edited it out during the final read-through. So there’s a lesson right there - never write poetry after bedtime.
The promoter was, however, very sympathetic and promised to pop a little consolation prize in the post.
Like I said: today was a good day.
No, I didn’t win a wedge of cash or new laptop. In fact, it started with the same routine disappointment as ever - a quick look at the day’s Lucky Patch. I don’t expect to win on Lucky Patch, especially since having been so close a couple of years back, but having started, the only way I can stop now is if the site goes out of business; that or Russia knocks out this entire sceptred isle with a massive EMP strike, so that everyone is equally done over. Obviously, neither of these eventualities is remotely desirable - but there’s always a bright side, right?
Today, the bright side was literally waiting for me on the next app, as my first win in weeks, possibly months, popped up in my Instagram messages: some body scrub. Not everyone’s idea of a bonza cop, but considering that two nights this week I have been torn from my slumber by children in pisswet pyjamas, all things are relative.
As if a morning without urine-soaked bedding wasn’t exciting enough, there was also the Norwich comping cell micro-convention, which is to say, nine like-minded souls (and infant affiliates) grabbing one last coffee before Brighton. I should say ‘SuperLucky Live’, but since the event is the Woodstock of comping, every last delegate has unilaterally annexed the host city’s name - gotta love the hive mind!
The only downside to knocking work on the head was that the postman was unable to deliver the proof copies of my comping book, so it’s going to be another day before I can get my paws on them. Considering that my uptightness with paper is matched only by Queen Zabo, I can’t wait to see how disappointed I will be with Amazon’s production quality.
It’s also National Poetry Day today, of course. I say ‘of course’ but I didn’t know until I switched on Twitter, then tossed off a few couplets and recycled a verse I wrote a couple of years back. Whether any of it will pay dividends remains to be seen. However, these competitions are not only fun, but they also have fewer entrants, so the odds aren’t so bad, even if the poetry is.
In fact, for a few minutes, I did win a poetry competition I’d entered a few days prior. Unfortunately, the notification had barely pinged up in my Twitter messages when the promoter noticed I’d failed to use one of the five words I was supposed to have included as part of the challenge. What was especially gutting there - apart from the fact that it was a pretty decent prize - was that I *had* originally included the word, but had accidentally edited it out during the final read-through. So there’s a lesson right there - never write poetry after bedtime.
The promoter was, however, very sympathetic and promised to pop a little consolation prize in the post.
Like I said: today was a good day.
Regime change
Things are gonna have to change around here. The distinct lack of noise in these parts over the last few
months has been offending my flabby blabbermouth so I’m going to see if a fresh
tack can relight my fire. To put it another way, picture this blog as a
magazine … Well, I’ve just sacked the editor and given the reins to the 16-year-old copy-runner. Over the next few weeks, things will be curt and things will be
choppy, but on the other hand, there will at least be things. A diary of things,
you might say. The secret diary of a part-time winner…
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