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.

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…

Comping on fumes

The last few months have been lean. A perfect storm of distracting obligations and disobliging extractions (to say nothing of the distracting ablutions and obligatory excretions) has left me with little time for comping, and - inevitably - even less time for winning.

In many respects, that’s cool - me and comping enjoy an open relationship these days, so we know we’ll always be there for each other, even if only to pick up the pieces after one of us (ie me) has an extended but ultimately unsatisfying fling with, say, work or school holidays. But on the other hand: prizes.

To be sure, this blog has never been based on winning stories alone. Until this year, however, that was an editorial decision. This year is three-quartes done, and so far my biggest wins have been a set of imploding headphones and a football shirt that I’m currently too fat for.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale, there was a Peperami Fanimal, which lost its arm after five minutes with my youngest, and tickets to one of the pre-season friendlies at Carrow Road, where my view of the pitch was perfectly impeded by one of the scant few barriers in the stadium and the aforementioned child dragged me to the lav at the exact moment of the only goal.

For this reason, I’ve had to dig deep this summer - which is to say, deep into the pot of prizes past
(it’s not literally a pot, of course; it’s a punched pocket full of unredeemed gift cards and vouchers, but you get the point).

As you may have picked up from previous posts, we’ve blown our every last penny on a loft conversion. We’re now in the process of blowing other people’s pennies on it as well. Financially speaking, this kind of thing doesn’t pair well with having a family holiday, and for this reason we’ve foregone that pleasure this summer.  Well, the kids have gone without; I redeemed one of last year’s prizes so the grownups could enjoy a night in the Sheffield Jury’s Inn. I’m well aware that’s not everyone’s idea of the vida loca, but as any parent will tell you, a night sans enfants is a night sans enfants.

For a minute, it looked like it might be sans enfants but avec leaky aircon, but the staff were having none of that, and upgraded us to an executive room, complete with biscuits and fizzy water. There was also a mini-fridge, but my wife forbade me to touch within, just in case of punitive minibar sensors. For the record, I don’t think two Coke cans and a couple of Kit-Kats constitutes a minibar, but I am an obedient spouse and this bridge remained uncrossed. I did, however, pocket the stationery while she wasn’t looking.

Yeah, you read it right: Executive Room!

Sadly, all good things must come to an end, and we were repatriated with our issue the next morning, although not before I breakfasted with admirable restraint, in the hope that I might somehow squeeze back into the aforementioned football shirt before the start of the 2023 season.

So, that was our summer treat, but what about the kids? Well, let’s not beat around the bush: I was never going to waste a night out on them - I’m yet to recover from their last hotel experience. But equally, I wasn’t going to see them go without either. To that end, I dug up the two Go Ape vouchers I won from Cadbury last summer, and took the lads up to Temple Newsam.

For the uninitiated, the whole point of Go Ape is to take a nice walk in the woods and inject it with a suggestion of peril by elevating it 20 feet above the ground. It’s the sort of thing I would have loved as a boy, back before I learned that being scared of heights is actually one of the more sensible phobias out there. In this respect, it turns out that my youngest is rather precocious with his fears, and after beginning the course in a state of abject dread, managed to get three-quarters of the way round before being over-faced, breaking down into freakin’ shriekin’ nuts-off wails, and having to be rescued by one of the staff. Thankfully children have short memories and he appears to have forgiven me.

Making the little one eat peril for breakfast ... or afternoon tea at any rate

As for my own wire-fu technique, I fluffed my first two attempts with the zip-line, resulting in a puffy pinkie and intermittent musculoskeletal chest pain, but that aside, I was blazing aces.

You see, the great thing about a being a comper is that you can be a winner even when you’re not winning. This year might well have been my worst ever for wins, but it hasn’t been at all bad for prizes!

How has your year been going, and how do you cope with the dry season? Let me know in the comments below!

Prize Unboxing July/August 2019

High in errors and interruptions and low on prizes - it's my roundup of the last two months!

Hope you're having a lucky summer!

Losers who don't give up...

Finally … it’s time to go large! The moment you’ve all been waiting for, by which I mean the moment I’ve been waiting for: my book is finished. Or, more precisely, I’ve simply stopped working on it and have uploaded it for all to see on Amazon.

So what’s it about, you may well ask. To which the most obvious answer is comping. More specifically, it’s about my comping journey, from Johnny No-wins to Johnny Some-Wins. It’s a mix of winning stories, familiar frustrations, and meandering digressions on comping, and while the book won’t make anyone smarter, it does serve as a reminder that that anyone with half a mind to ‘be lucky’ can do just that.

This is my love letter to comping, and it’s dedicated to all the lovely people in the comping community who have helped me find a happier me.

Hope you enjoy it!

[EDIT] The e-book is nominally priced at £1.99, which is the cheapest Amazon will list it for, while the hard-copy is listed for £7.99. If you'd like the print version, but are prepared to wait a little, then please message me, as I can put in a bulk order and save you some pennies on the unit cost!

Where we're at

You may have been thinking that you’ve not heard much from me of late. Well you’d be right. The truth of the matter is that all my birthdays recently came at once. By ‘birthdays’ I mean of course ‘nightmares’: concurrent work projects colliding with a brief sojourn to America, combined with the matter of the loft. Oh boy, the loft.

We’ve all seen The Money Pit. We all know that when a builder says something will take two weeks, it’s a euphemism for something far more ugly. In my case, it’s now six weeks since they asked me to vacate my property for a fortnight “or so”, and I’m getting that awkward feeling that what they actually want with my gaff is squatters’ rights.

On top of this is the tedium that comes with fitting out. Last week I spent six hours looking at radiators and another hour and a half looking at radiator valves. That’s a day’s work lost to two poxy square metres of wall, and we haven’t even got to the bathroom suite yet. And don't start me on the wardrobe.

There's also the matter of my comping book, which I have been going back to in any spare moment I can grab. If I can manage to get the e-book out in the world by the end of this month, you guys will have witnessed a bona fide miracle, but more on that in due course. The short of the matter is that I have had almost no time for comping, full stop, and given the rate that I’m haemorrhaging cash, I really need to start winning stuff pronto. So if you see any comps for 96 litres of paint and an experienced decorator, do let me know.

Be lucky!

Prize unboxing May/June 2019

May wasn't a time of abundance so I rolled it into June ... which wasn't really a time of abundance either ... Must try harder!

Hope you had a great month! Be lucky!