2019: A year in numbers

1017: Estimated prize value (£). What a difference a year makes: 2018 was my most successful year by some margin; 2019, the least. There are reasons for this, of course - building works, for example, are always highly disruptive - but the main issue was a lack of focus. The year didn’t start well and I ended up taking my foot off the pedal. In fact, the only reason my score tipped over a grand was due to an administrative error in my favour. That’s not to say I had a bad year - how can something be bad when you’re enjoying yourself?!

300: Highest-value prize (£). Prize of the year has to be my PS4. A quick look online suggests that I’ve over-valued it here, but prices have a tendency to yo-yo, and I’m pretty sure Amazon was listing the bundle at £300 when I got the winning notification. RRP is just a number - what counts is the quality time I plan to have with this little sucker!

70: Value of vouchers won (£). Amazon (£50); bar tab (£20). Just as that Amazon voucher eased the pain of Christmas shopping, that bar tab is going to ease the pain of Christmas school holidays…

39: Number of wins. Not even a win a week - must do better!

18: Number of Instagram wins. While Insta is still my most fertile source of wins, the luck is drying up. The problem isn’t fewer comps - if anything, that number is on the rise. The real problem is the number of entries. Note: that’s not necessarily the same as the number of entrants, although I suspect this number is on the rise too; rather, it’s the number of comps permitting unlimited entries. Sure, I might chuck in a token tag for a bottle of scotch, but some people are tagging twenty friends for a share-bag of lentils, and that makes no sense at all.

15: Cash won (£). 15. Blew it all on my Mastercard bill.

4: T-shirts. I’ve outgrown the best one too. Lay off the pies, Neill!

3.3: Prizes still to arrive. To be fair, one of these prizes was a Christmas Day win (a Shreddies stormtrooper cereal bowl - woo!), so it’s unrealistic to expect that to have arrived already. By contrast, my box of Walker’s Crisps and Cadbury’s beanie are, for shame, overdue, but the fulfilment logistics for huge giveaways seldom run smoothly, so I’ll worry about those when I get round to it. As for that errant one-third of a prize, well, I guess we’ll see what we’ll see…

1: Comping son. It took a whole bunch of nagging to get him to knuckle down, but no one unboxes like my second-born!

How did your year go? Let me know in the comments below!

The wider world in 2019

After the bedlam of the advent season, I enjoy the relative calm of January, when the promotional calendar doesn’t so much expire as get a bit of a stitch, and anyone who wants to beg off for a month doesn’t really have to worry about missing out, because the big prizes are done for the next few weeks, right?

Well, that would normally be the case, but this year was different. This was the year that a non-conventional promoter disrupted things by promising to make one hundred retweeters into yen millionaires. OK, so a million yen is a fraction as exciting as a million dollars (less than one-hundredth, if we’re splitting hairs), but it’s a sweet prize pool by any measure. Shame the odds didn’t work out so well - the original tweet hit 4.5 million retweets, making it the most retweeted tweet ever.

Still, with odds like that, no one really expects to win, so no one’s really disappointed. It’s not like being told you’ve won a VIP trip for two to attend the Champions League Final, only to find the promoter has inadvertently told every man and his dog that they’re winners too. As Zavvi will testify, mistakes happen. 

In their defence, Zavvi did at least want someone to win their comp. Contrast this with Numatic, who ran a comp soliciting selfies from anyone attending Glastonbury with their Henry vacuum cleaner. Number of entries meeting the entry criteria: nil. That I won some colouring books for my ostentatiously Photoshopped effort was a complete bonus as I’d have been hard-pushed to find a legitimate use for a two-metre FloMax hose, crevice tool and tapered adaptor.

When bad photoshopping wins also-ran prizes

Of course, where there’s yin there’s yang. While one company is rolling out comps with nigh-impossible entry criteria, another is making ones so easy a baby could win. At least, that’s what one Edmonton couple found when they left their toddler unattended with the TV remote and ended up with an expenses-paid holiday to Tokyo. Fat chance me enjoying similar luck - last time I left children in the same room as my consumer durables, their primal grunting landed me with an Amazon Prime account.

Finally then, let me leave you with 10,000 reminders about the importance of reading the terms and conditions. Most people wouldn’t expect to find a competition embedded in the small print of their travel insurance, but that’s exactly what one woman found, back in March, and she ended up $10,000 richer. Will this encourage me to study my documents more carefully next time I buy insurance? Absolutely. Will I read the Apple media terms and conditions next time I update iTunes? Are you insane?!

If I’ve missed any of this year’s big stories, do let me know in the comments below! Hope you had a lucky one!

Stay on target

Winning’s nice. Makes you feel all warm, doesn’t it? A few days ago, I won a Gleam comp. That’s not something that happens every day. To be honest, for me, it’s not even something that happens every year. But happen it did, and that's what's important.

It also happened to be my biggest prize of the year too - a PS4.

Thanks Geek Pride! 

Getting a winning notification like that is the kind of thing that makes you jump out of your seat and squeal, as indeed I would have, had the great dollop of offspring occupying my lap at that moment not cut off the blood-flow to my legs. But restraint has its own rewards: while a few muffled squarks might not be quite as cathartic as a squeal, they don't result in an hour of what-is-it-and-can-i-have-it earache from your weans. Which also is nice.

For some people, of course, a games console is a fundamental utility. My brother in law, for example, owns every major console produced since ever, and would rather have his water disconnected than be denied access to his tech-babies.

Me, less so. I’ve acclimatised. It’s about 15 years since I bought my last proper gaming device as I’ve frankly been unable to justify the outlay.

For this reason, I’ve had PlayStations, Xboxes and the like on my comping wishlist for, well, since first getting my act together and making a wishlist, actually. And as my children have been growing up, I’ve been thinking, gawsh … It won't be long before I’m going to have to spend actual folding money on one of these doohickeys or they - like me - will risk dropping out of the cultural loop. I know, first-world problems, right?

To be sure, dropping out of the cultural loop isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Case in point: I don’t think me banning them from watching the X-Factor is going to compromise their prospects in life. That said, I also suspect that the X-Factor does little to improve reaction time, problem-solving skills, multi-tasking or hand-eye co-ordination.

There’s also the fact that the video games sector now accounts for more than half of the UK’s entire entertainment market, so there’s worse career options out there.

The thing is though, for all I’ve been wanting to immerse my kids in this world of infinite exciting possibilities, my understanding of the field has shrivelled to the point of imbecility. The winning notification didn’t tell that I’d won a PS4; rather, it told me I’d won a PS4 Pro or an Xbox One something or other, and then asked which I wanted. They may as well have asked my cat whether it preferred Visa or Mastercard.

Fortunately, the extremely well informed Nikki Hunter-Pike stepped up to the plate at short notice and made my decision for me (Thank you Nikki!).

I thought that was it, and spent a minute feeling all smug about my win, but then the promoter pinged back, asking what game I wanted, which - to revert to the previous analogy - was like asking my cat whether Facebook’s Libra is really a cryptocurrency or just a global digital currency based on blockchain technology. So, again, thank you Nikki for selecting something on my behalf - I look forward to playing once the advents are out of the way!

Until then, however, I will be thrashing the guts out of my comping engine. That’s not just because of the base comping orgy that is December, but also because big wins are so emboldening. Or, to put it another way, they stop you being able to think straight.

The comps on Prizefinder and the Competition Database will have been entered by thousands of people. I know that. Yet what was the first thing I did, after winning the console? Enter every damn holiday and big tech comp listed. Because you got to be in it to win it, right?

Well, yes. In a sense. But wouldn’t time be better spent hunting for better leads and smaller odds?

Whether it’s comping or poker or playing the horses, there’s a reason why the wiseguys do so well - they maintain their game and don’t turn into headless chickens at the first whiff of success. There’s also a reason why I’m not a wiseguy…

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.

Me, my goofy mug, and 1x bona fide legend

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!

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.

12 of the best

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?

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!

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

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.”

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]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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:

“What starts with Tea and ends with Tea?”
“A wonderful day,” I replied.
“Six letters long, fourth letter P …
Teapot, of course,” he sighed.

The whole point

This is why we do it, isn't it?!

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.

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...

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!

Peaks and troughs

Children and noise go hand in hand - everyone knows that. Likewise, it’s hardly a secret that said noise increases exponentially, the more children you add to the mix. Some people are blessed – it washes over them. Not me, however – I’m literally allergic. The consecutive (and indeed concurrent) episodes of shrieking from one child or the other have overexcited my senses such that I’m now clinically intolerant of even their tiniest squawk.

Being unable to abide the incessant clanking and slurping of children at mealtimes is nothing unusual; however, the fact that I now have a doctor’s note to excuse me from the table, does rather set me apart.

These days, my happy place would be inside an immersion tank guarded by Benedictine librarian mice. And yet it was not ever thus. Indeed, there was a time when all my spare time and pennies were devoted to music. Once the small things found their lungs, however, things changed.

At first, I didn’t notice how much I was cowering from their hullaballoo. It started with simply switching off the radio so I didn’t have to suffer the blather, and before long, not playing anything during the day as I knew I’d only be hauled out of the room to wipe another backside or resolve another fight. Eventually, it got to the point that I’d simply forget to turn on my music at all. Night after night, I’d sit in unnecessary silence – not even noticing the peace, never mind enjoying it. Come birthdays and Christmas, people would give me new CDs that I’d rinse for a couple of weeks, but somehow, it was never enough to relight my fire. The silence would always prevail.

The solution was of course simple: if you want mobile music, plug in your headphones. If you want to block out the noise of your issue, plug in your headphones. If you want to listen to music uninterrupted, plug in your headphones.

Unfortunately, I’ve not been blessed with smarts these last few years and it took me a while to work this out. Don’t all judge me at once.

The real clincher in this regard was winning a pair of wireless headphones. That they were officially noise-cancelling too got me extra excited. To be fair, so “noise-cancelling” doesn’t mute children quite as much as I’d like, but at least I can no longer hear them from the other side of the county.

More to the point, thanks to these cans, I’m finally able to offer my ears shelter-in-place without leaving the auditory blast area. This means I’ve started listening – actually listening – to music again. It’s like finding a nugget of my soul down the back of the sofa.

Or it was. Last night they went Pop. Sproing. Or whatever noise you might imagine a piece of tech might make when it bursts open FOR NO GOOD REASON.

I mentioned this to the promoter. They oohhed and they ahhed and they said it was definitely odd.
But no replacement will be forthcoming. Their best offer was 25% off a new pair.

It’s a nice discount, to be sure, but when your experience with a product is that it self-combusts before you’ve even used it a dozen times, you feel a little reticent to renew it. Or is that just me?

Thankfully, I do have some other headphones that I can plug in and please my ears - a gift from someone I met because of our shared interest in this deliciously niche hobby. And for this reason I say Thank You Davina - My sanity is in your hands!

I’m regularly touched by the generosity I see in this community and can’t wait to meet more of you later this year!

RTFM

I just entered the biggest competition of my life. Well, technically it wasn’t a competition - every now and then, the BBC scouts for fresh talent by opening its inbox for the submission of speculative scripts. The BBC makes it quite clear that this isn’t actually a competition and there aren’t prizes per se; however, those writers with the strongest potential to be developed and produced are invited on to a six-month development scheme for writers. Personally, I can’t see how such a life-changing opportunity isn’t a prize, but then semantics isn’t my strong point.

So, yes, I’ve been quiet of late because I’ve been putting an indescribable amount of effort into writing a sitcom about superheroes that contains no superheroes. A disproportionate amount of that effort was made in the last few days. Not because I care to be a last-minuter (I really don’t), but because I only scrutinised the instructions for authors four days before the deadline.

I’ve a degree in literature and a career in publishing. I’ve spent more hours reworking other people’s manuscripts than I’ve slept in the last ten years. But can I actually read instructions? (Clue: no).

Things I’d missed on the first pass included (a) how to format the screenplay; (b) the minimum length of the screenplay; and (c) all that extra stuff you have to include, such as outlines for the next two episodes.

For the uninitiated, screenplays are generally typeset in 12pt Courier, with all manner of prescriptions for where to lay out (i) this; (ii) that; and (iii) the other. Do it wrong, and your script goes straight for recycling. It’s basically combat school for writers. I’d researched elsewhere how to format a script, so my formatting wasn’t awful; on the other hand it wasn’t perfect, so it had to be fixed. Really though, that was the least of my worries.

The big problems were the fact that my screenplay was timed to accommodate an ad break - not something there’s much call for at the BBC, and that I hadn’t even thought about outlining further episodes.

In other words, I went from thinking I was an hour or two away from submission to finding about one-third of the labour still lay ahead. Oops.

On top of that, my eyes were bubbling from my heinous week of work, and my blood was boiling from my heinous week of parenting.

Blessed was I then that my incredibly supportive wife effectively locked me into my office, acted as a human shield, and sent in food as and when I sent out words.

Realistically, the odds of getting through to the final stages are punitively long. Last year, there were over 2600 submissions, most of which were likely discarded after the first ten pages were read. For this reason, if twenty pages of my work get read, I’m doing well.

I’m not sure they let you know how far you make through the process, but rest assured, if I find out someone has read the whole thing, I’ll be popping fizz.

The fact is, it’s a learning experience. And already I’m better prepared for my next effort-based competition as I’ve learned the hard way that instructions are designed to be read at the outset, not retrospectively!

Wish me luck!

Prize Unboxing April 2019

Due to other commitments (more on which anon), I've taken my foot off the pedal these last couple of months. As a result, the wins have tended to be more modest. This month, however, has enjoyed a little uptick. That and a minor injury to my little helper - but don't worry, it grew back!

Be lucky!

When luck comes out of the blue

Some wins come out of nowhere. Literally nowhere. Like not even from a competition nowhere. You’re busy minding your own business, and then all of a sudden, a message slides in and you can't help but crack a grin.

Of course, mostly when this happens it’s spam. That much is obvious from the sender’s weird email address or the dodgy link you’re supposed to follow in order to claim your prize.

When this happened to me the other day, however, everything was above board.

I’d uploaded my son’s latest mad birthday list to Instagram and somehow it managed to end up getting seen by the sweet-hearted folks of Gentlemen’s Practice.

Just your average boy's birthday list, right?

As vendors of gentlemen’s accessories, they loved the idea that a wee lad was so keen to dapper up for his ninth birthday. The fact that he also wanted a “monk costume”, however, just made their day, and they asked if they could send him a little birthday treat.

A couple of days later the parcel arrived, and what a treat it was! It was so cool, that it took all my willpower not to hand it over there and then.

Four long weeks later, his birthday finally arrived, and at last I was able to tell him the story behind this extraordinary birthday treat. This got him even more excited - so much so that he decided to do a little unboxing video...

As if this generous treat wasn't bounty enough, it turns out that GP also sell very reasonably-priced pocket watches. Given that the little man has been begging for one since he was six (six!) and that for only a fiver more, you can get them engraved - how could we possibly resist?! When he saw his name on the watch, he was lost for words, which as anyone who knows him will tell you, is unprecedented!

Today we're sporting the matching bowtie & pocket square, which he's accessorising with a personalised pocket watch from the Gentleman's Practice store. Not shown here is the coordinating lapel pin (or the other tie and lapel pin)

Since then, his grandmother has given him a new suit, so all that remains to do is create a buttonhole in it so that he can wear his lapel pins (although, knowing him, he'll probably want a pocket in that monk’s habit so he can carry on wearing the watch, of course!).

I mention all this because even on the best of days, I'm terrible at remembering to water the flowers, much less stopping to smell them. Indeed, now that I'm coming off my pills, there are times when I'd cheerfully pave the whole front yard to put up that parking lot. I'm not alone in that. For this reason, when a complete stranger stops a moment not just to admire my hanging baskets, but also, through their green-fingered magic, make them bloom brighter and smell sweeter, I couldn't possibly feel more blessed. Thanks just aren't enough!

Prize Unboxing March 2019

It's short. It's sweet. And it's right here - enjoy!

#MeatMatters

I love red meat. I really love it. In an ideal world, I'd eat plates full of it every day. I don’t, of course, for reasons too numerous to list. That said, three key ones do spring to mind:

• Balanced diet: Beef and lamb may be naturally rich in protein, but they can’t compete with oily fish when it comes to omega-3 fatty acids. So yeah, I also eat fish.
• Environmental impact: While the extent to which livestock farming contributes to human produced greenhouse gas emissions may be disputed, my gut feels that it’s probably best to serve smaller portions of meat, augmented with pulses - something that also makes financial sense.
• Meat sweats: Had them once. Didn’t like them.

Nevertheless, even if I take the above into consideration, my initial point stands: I love red meat. It perks me up - literally.

Lamb, for example, is a natural source of niacin, pantothenic acid and Vitamins B6 and B12, all of which help reduce tiredness and fatigue, and goodness knows I have fatigue aplenty.

With this in mind, I was well chuffed when BritMums offered to buy me dinner on the proviso that I shared the recipe with y’all.

So here we go… Lamb chops a l’orange

Ingredients
6 lamb chops
200 g chantenay (or baby) carrots
1 bulb of garlic
3 oranges
15g fresh thyme

Method
1) Score the meat fat and season the chops with salt and pepper. Balance the chops on their fatty edges (imagine a rack of toast, but meaty) in a shallow pan on a medium-high heat and leave to go crispy (probably about 5 mins).

2) Top, tail & peel carrots and bung them in the pan, along with the unpeeled garlic cloves. Keep moving the veg around so it cooks evenly

3) Turn the chops on their sides and fry till golden (on both sides, obvs).

4) Bung in the zest from one orange, along with thyme, and stir for half a minute or so.

5) Remove the chops and set them to rest. Squeeze the juice from all three oranges into the pan and reduce until sticky. Bung the lamb & its resting juices back in the pan for a couple of minutes, and rattle it all around the pan.

6) Serve with roast potatoes. Oh, I forgot to mention them, didn’t I? Oops! You might want to start over then. Except with the spuds this time. Sorry!

So … what did it taste like?

In a word, nice - although if you use a vegetable peeler for zesting, do be aware that you're going to end up with big strips of orange peel that look like extremely finely sliced carrot. With this in mind, do advise your fellow diners not to eat these bits as fried orange peel isn't for everyone. Yes, that is the voice of experience...

My dinner... Apologies for the terrible photography. And presentation. My wife doesn’t plate up too well, and I'm rubbish at snapping food!

This post is an entry for the #MeatMatters Challenge, sponsored by Simply Beef and Lamb. Learn more about the benefits of eating beef and lamb along with recipes and inspiration here: https://www.simplybeefandlamb.co.uk.

Happy (professional) hunting!

'Job vacancies have opened for professional Crème Egg hunters with an hourly wage starting at £45 an hour.'

This from the same people that reckoned if you could ‘find at least five competitions an hour and, if possible, enter them’, then you could make £20 an hour as a ‘professional competition enterer’.

Where to begin? The idea of taking just over ten minutes to complete an entry form sets the bar so low as to make it a trip hazard. With a work rate like that, you wouldn’t get return on investment even if you paid minimum wage. Given also that third-party entries are generally forbidden, this hypothetical employer would also be disqualified for breaching terms and conditions.

‘The service launches thanks to increased demand for professional “compers”, as it’s revealed many can quit their jobs thanks to competition success.’

Who exactly are these 'many' people - and who is revealing them? Yes, there are people without conventional salaried employment who devote a lot of time to comping, and who may even be really successful, but you can’t pay the mortgage with nut butter and Nutribullets. Lottery winners might quit their jobs. Compers, not so much.

Around this time last year, the same company suggested it was possible to earn upwards of £45ph plus expenses as a professional McDonald’s Monopoly player. It’s a sorry sign of the times that even fictional jobs are losing their perks.

Prize Unboxing January/February 2019

January didn't make for exciting viewing, so this month's upload is an unboxing rollover - but don't get too excited! As ever, I'm outgunned by the little one, and in case you're wondering - it's a cough sweet in my mouth :D

Thanks also to Laura for being my biscuit tag-buddy and Davina for tote-tagging!

Be lucky!

The little things in life

Never work with children or animals. I’ve tried both. Which is worse, I couldn’t say: cats by their very nature cannot, do not and will not cooperate; my first-born likewise.

That’s an exaggeration - he did cooperate once, when he was four. Since then, his behaviour has - as they say - explored boundaries. Combined with his extreme control-freakery, he’s not a natural at taking direction, generally only playing ball once you’ve tears in your eyes and are genuinely about to throw in the towel.

Exhibit A: Cooperating child

The net result is that every video comp I try to recruit him for turns into a complete ordeal with my wife asking why I keep putting myself though this. To be honest, I don’t really know. Time after time, I somehow manage to convince myself that if I chuck a kid or two into my video then the judges will love it. Sadly, and much to his frustration, the results don’t bear that out, making him even more reluctant to cooperate next time, meaning that the next video is even more likely to miss the mark. It’s a vicious circle. The cat, at least, is always consistently uncooperative.

There’s also the problem that having put in the effort, he feels the prize should be guaranteed. I get that. Failing to win an entry-form or like-RT comp is a statistical doddle; it’s also emotionally straightforward as there’s little to no investment. When you’ve spent hours on an entry but fail to make the podium, however, it’s disappointing, no matter how old you are. And more effort equals more disappointment.

He’s gutted that he’s not modelling for Gap, so I have to remind him how much he enjoyed doing his photo shoot. Likewise, he was disappointed not to win a heap of books when we spent the best part of a weekend turning a cardboard box into a Noddy car - but he was so proud of his work that he asked to do it again just a few weeks later. The video we made for an Oreo comp was an even greater success, although since that involved eating biscuits, perhaps there’s no surprise there.

There’s no point comping with children if they don’t enjoy the process. Of course, you could always say the same about adults.

If you have any tips for getting children to cooperate, PLEASE let me know in the comments below!

Going forward: 2019

Last year, my new year’s resolutions were simply to enjoy myself and to start extending this blog onto Instagram. How did that go? Well, my @garywasabi insta feed is proceeding at a rather pedestrian pace, averaging slightly over a post a week, which is less than I hoped for, but given the aforementioned pledge to be kinder to myself, I’m not going to beat myself up about it. I’ve also gone easy on myself in terms of trying not to overdo it (advents aside) and not worrying about missed deadlines. I stopped seeing my counsellor a few months back but I think she’d be pleased with my progress.

But what about this year then? Well, one of my plans is to have even more fun. To this end, I’ve started playing wishlist bingo with a bunch of other compers. So far this year I’m drawing a complete blank, but I'm hopeful of ticking off most of these things by December. A full house, however, might be wishful thinking!

I’m also planning to minimise time spent in my comfort zone. Instagram has been really good to me, but as it’s slowing down, I really need to diversify. Having updated my bookmarked searches to include everything on the bingo grid, I’m sure to be entering more web-based comps. I’ll also be entering purchase and effort comps where I can - although this will require more organisation on my part - even if that just means writing a shopping list!

Truthfully, I’m unlikely to stop being a fair-weather purchase-comper, but when it comes to promotions with hundreds of prizes, such as last year’s Bonne Maman Madeleine promotion and the Doritos & Pepsi Perfect Match giveaway, I’m sure I can make an exception.

As for those effort comps, I probably should update my photo library for those effort comps, but I fear that might be a step too far!

That’s probably enough to be going on with, but if you think I’ve missed anything, do let me know in the comments below!

Looking back: 2018

Last year was great in so many ways. Beating my personal best was obviously awesome, as was winning a tote bag advertising an oversized aubergine emoji, but more important was my growth as a comper. For example, I pulled off my first proper tie-break win; I made my first proper forays into purchase-necessary comping; and I made first contact with real-life compers!

Real-life compers?! The very idea! When I first started comping in 2014, I ploughed a lonely furrow. Ploughed it like a headless chicken, perhaps, but absolutely on my tod, if only because I was shy of barging in on other people’s conversations or tagging strangers on social media comps.

Fortunately, compers tend to be a lovely bunch, and my wall-flowering wasn’t tolerated for long. Even so, after years of online banter, I still found it hard to accept that behind the avatars, these people were bona-fide meat-based life-forms. Similarly, the likelihood of ever being unable to hide behind my online persona was sufficiently remote as to be academic.

Then, of course, came my Wimbledon win, and with it (to use the official collective noun), a great big hospitality suite of actual, physical, compers. This blew my mind.

I’ve never found social situations particularly easy, and the risk that I might have to respond to someone in real-time with no opportunity to hole up and craft my response with monk-like focus, made me extremely nervous. Fortunately, my wife was there to rescue me from social awkwardness and over-enthusiasm with the complimentary refreshments, while a brilliant comper I’ve admired for some time took me under her wing, and assured me that over-enthusiasm with the complimentary refreshments was actually my moral duty, and, moreover, next time I should bring Tupperware and pack a little something for the journey home.

A shared win, of course, is a wonderful day out, and it’s impossible not to have a good time. But what about a meet-up in everyday life - and one without free champagne at that?!

Still good, as it happens. A pilot group of four Norwich compers convened towards the end of last year, and to the best of my knowledge, we all survived. Certainly, I did anyway. Better still, plans are afoot for a larger meeting, though whether it’ll be large enough for me to do a little wall-flowering for old times' sake remains to be seen.

So, I’ve grown socially, but what about those purchase-necessary comps? For a number of reasons, I’ve historically steered clear of these, not least because I get most of my groceries delivered and I can’t trust Tony Tesco to pick the right products. I’m also not going to stuff my face with deep-fried calorie-dense junk on the off-chance of winning a keyring.

By the middle of 2018, however, I realised that I was comping myself into a corner. It’s easily done, of course. When your only opportunity to comp is the two minutes before school while the children are wrestling with their shoelaces and/or each other, you reach for the easiest option - in my case, Instagram.

And for a while, it was working. By the middle of the year, I had averaged one Insta win a week - better than the rest of my endeavours combined. But nothing lasts forever. As Instagram became a more fertile source of giveaways, so my fortune declined. Maybe that was due to the rise of the infinite-entry comp, or maybe more comps are being run across platforms. More likely, it’s that seagulls follow the trawler because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea.

The fact is, nobody can know for sure, but it’s more useful to do something about it than dwell on it. For this reason, I once more stepped out of my comfort zone, and had a good sniff of the purchase-necessary comps.

What I found here is that not all purchase comps are created equal. For a start, there’s a major difference between a comp that wants a unique code and one that wants a batch code and one that wants a barcode. Last year, my Anchor Butter barcode scored a lunch-bag on the second attempt, while my Dairylea Dunkers’ barcode got more play than Daniel Sturridge - and definitely won more. Likewise, the batch code on the Pepsi Max bottle I found while attending a mindfulness course back in July has probably had a greater impact on my long-term mental health than the course itself.

As for the unique codes … well, there’s the rub. It’s one thing to buy an alternative brand of loo roll when the competition packs are on special, but it’s quite another to sink a jerrycan of Powerthirst in the hope of scoring anything beyond Type 2 diabetes. But each to his own line in the sand. Personally, I’d love to win an Xbox from Lucozade, but since I can't bring myself to cough up more than fourpence a bottle, the eggs in my basket are strictly wombled.

As you will no doubt have surmised then, when it comes to unique code comps, my career track record is brief: two plushies. These were given away by Plenty in a promotion that its marketing agency promised would “really inject some fun and excitement into the Household Towel category, not only by adding value with every pack, but also through recruiting younger families into the category and ultimately driving incremental volume”.

So, I might not have won big, but when it comes to fun and excitement in the Household Towel category, you really can’t put a price on those memories.

How did you get out of your comfort zone last year? Does your local comping group ever meet up and if so, what do you get up to? Do you enter purchase-necessary comps? Let me know in the comments below!

Prize Unboxing December 2018

December's unboxing is a day late, but given all the seasonal distractions, I hope you'll forgive me!

The video excludes the £30 John Lewis voucher I won from Velux, as this was emailed to me, but it does include the heartwarming moment where - well, I won't spoil it, but Rebecca Beesley, you are an absolute poppet!

Finally, I've no idea why the last section filmed itself in mirror format, but you'll work it out!

Have a lucky new year!