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!

The only way is down?

I’m in decline. You may have noticed that my blog posts are getting fewer and farther between. I’m likewise entering fewer comps, or to be precise, I’m entering fewer interesting comps.

A competition to win a £5000 holiday is, of course, interesting. But that’s not the kind of interesting I’m talking about. Most big-ticket competitions are tediously straightforward to enter and consequently have thousands of entrants. In other words, the chances of winning are very, very small.

That’s not to say impossible - I once won an iPad Mini from a pool of about 2000 entries, but that kind of success has since eluded me, and goodness knows how many comps I’ve entered since then. Not as many as some hardcore compers, I’ll admit, but a healthily obscene number all the same.

As I’ve mentioned previously, I prefer competitions with smaller odds. It’s not just that the likelihood of winning is greater (like, duh!), but the ones that are more challenging tend also to be more interesting.

Unfortunately, my wit has gone somewhat out the window of late. The spike in my first-born’s challenging behaviour is presently celebrating its six-month anniversary and I am wiped out. I used to be smart. I’ve got certificates and stuff. These days, however, I can barely operate a spoon.

Me, when I still had brains. By which, I mean hair.

As a result, I’m failing to enter so many of the effort comps that I’ve bookmarked that I might as well not bother with them at all.

But that’s not to say I’m thinking of quitting this game. Rather, I’m cutting my crack to fit my clock, or however the saying goes.

In my case, that means sticking to Instagram. To be sure, tagging and following is a pretty mindless way to enter comps, but (a) you can do five-minute micro-sessions when you’re grabbing a breather between arguments; and (b) the random draws are less opaque than those for Twitter comps (see Di Coke's post on the subject).

That last point is particularly salient, as it puts Joe Average Comper with 100 followers on the same footing as a comping blogger with 5000 followers. Well, theoretically, anyway. As with any prize draw, there’s nothing to stop a promoter from pulling names out of the hat till they find one they like, but I can’t imagine there’s that many bad eggs out there to make that worth worrying about. And in any case, I’m still managing enough wins to keep it interesting.

The bottom line is that this hobby is fantastically scalable.

If you want a hardcore comping session, then go for it. Enter hundreds a night if that works for you - it’s a numbers game after all. But if all you want is a bit of fun, then go where the odds are smaller. There might not be as many tellies and games consoles, but everyone needs protein bars and gin, don’t they?

How do you change your comping game when life gets the better of you? Do you focus on the big stuff, the fun comps, or simply pull down the shutters? Let me know in the comments below!

Mindfulness for compers?

The Mayday Bank Holiday was the hottest day of the year, and while I was out basking in my mum’s garden, I noticed myself enjoying a warm, if slightly unfamiliar, fuzzy feeling. It wasn’t just the sun radiating positive vibes - although that always helps; the long overdue family reunion helped too. But the clincher, if I'm honest, was firing up the coals for the first barbie of the season.

I hate cooking. And yet I love to grill. It’s not just that there’s something primal about it, or that my life zenithed when my first-born was ten weeks old and we barbecued for 20 days solid. There’s also fact that I love reconnecting with my prizes - in this case, the cute little Weber barbecue that I won a couple years back.

Every time I set it up, I smile to recall how it was, until recently, the largest object I’d ever won, and how it arrived on the same day as the least physically imposing prize I’ve ever received: a font.

Sadly, I must confess that said font (Thistle Creek) has had precious little impact on my life. Unlike, for example, the swanky watch I won from a 2015 Warner Bros promotion, which I was using to time the cooking, while sipping my prize lager from the last advent season, and wearing one of the brand-spanking shirts I won less than a fortnight prior.

And while I watched the children guzzle the fizzy drinks we’d fixed with the strawberry purée I’d also won over Christmas, I thought to myself: I’m so glad I decided to be lucky.

In the same vein, when I first started writing this post, I was wearing the sweater I won at Christmas, having just packed away the football shirt I won during the last World Cup and boxed up the night’s leftovers in the Happy Jackson pots I won that same year. This was after making my first-born stop reading his Roald Dahl book and put away his X-Men headphones, both of which I won in 2016, and washing up my wife's flask (won 2017). I’ve also just finished off the chocolate I won last month, and before I pass out tonight, will be applying the fancy eye serum I mentioned a couple of weeks back.

Am I a premier league comper? I doubt it. On the off-chance that I do somehow qualify for the top-flight, I’m very much a Huddersfield - standing under the armpits of giants.

Indeed, I’m in perpetual awe of the many fantastic - and more importantly - dedicated compers out there, whose drive to win the big-ticket prizes is plainly inspirational. People like Di Coke and Nikki Hunter-Pike, for example, spring to mind - and not just because of their success, but also because of all the work they do to support the wider comping community.

Next to these guys, I’m a blatant also-ran. But that's also cool. Comping isn't a sprint race; if anything, it's a marathon. I’ve been in the game for about four years now, and despite a few episodes of mojo fatigue keeping me on the sidelines, the wins have slowly but surely stacked up, and I can confidently say that my “winner’s luck” has manifestly embedded itself into my life. That translates to a constant reminder of what it feels like to be lucky. It also translates to feeling good about myself.

Some might call my win rate unremarkable, but that’s no bad thing! Unremarkable, means replicable. It means that anyone with half a mind to “be lucky” can make it happen! And once you've made it happen, soak it up as much as you can. Every prize is a happy moment made concrete.

To be sure, this isn't mindfulness per se. Nevertheless, if you take time to contemplate each episode of joy that literally passes through your hands each day, then you'll find an awful lot of cheer coursing through your brain. And that's definitely good for your stress!

Does comping make you feel like a lucky person? Do your past wins blend into the wallpaper or do you keep an active eye out for how they weave their way into your everyday life? How does that make you feel?

Blurred lines

Obsession. Compulsion. There are times when the difference between the two isn’t so clear. The Great Oreo Cookie Quest is one of those times.

For the uninitiated, this app-based promotion is basically a scavenger hunt where you have no idea what you’re looking for. Actually, that’s unfair - there are daily clues, but in many respects it’s quicker simply to point your phone at anything and everything and hope for the best. (For a better description, see Di Coke's post.)

What’s up for grabs? Well, if you’ve time on tap, it’s easy enough to win yourself £15 of vouchers for the Google Play store. There’s also the star prize - a Galaxy J7 phone - for the first person to find all 390 items.

SPOILER! That prize has already been claimed, so if you’re planning to take part, you might as well put your feet up once you’ve bagged the vouchers.

That is, unless you’re particularly fond of obsessive compulsive behaviour, in which case, the pleasure of collecting items grows exponentially the further you progress. This is in no small part down to the fact that some of the items are nigh impossible to scan.

Take milk, for example. It must have taken me an hour to scan this one.

At this point in the game, I had fewer than ten items to collect, while the player in pole position had only one. So … everything to play for, right?

It had taken a few hours to get this far, and was plainly going to take hours more. By all rights, I should have conducted some sort of cost-benefit exercise with my time, but logic had plainly gone out the window by this point. By hook or by crook, that milk was getting scanned.

Thankfully, a kind-hearted fellow comper put me out of my misery with the following recommendation: froth it up a little and snap from above.

Ker-ching! Item scanned!

I did it! I scanned the milk!

I must have spent just as long fumbling with Google Image Search, trying to find a hatchet that would scan - no easy task when the app thinks they’re all axes. My doggedness paid off eventually, but when I realised I now had to scan an ice axe as well, my heart sank. I must have pointed my phone at a hundred ice axes, only to have the app think they were hammers, nails or, on at least one occasion, a stethoscope.

By now, I’d reached seventh place on the national leaderboard - woohoo! Unfortunately, the player who had been leading the pack had managed to find the last item on the list. Game over, in other words. Except for the fact that I hadn’t checked the T&C at this point, and spent another couple of hours banging my head against the wall, trying to scan pliers and coconuts before having the common sense to check the small print.

By the time I downed tools, there were three items I’d failed to scan, and a further three I’d failed to identify at all. Which was more frustrating I couldn’t say; however, the sense of relief as I was released from my obligations was overwhelming. My shoulders buoyed as their invisible burden was lifted.

Now all that remains is to spend the vouchers - has anyone got any recommendations?

Have you been playing the Great Oreo Cookie Hunt? And if so, how have you got on? Let me know if you need any clues!

About those resolutions…

Back in January 2017, I set myself three comping goals: get organised, run a giveaway, and lay off the protein comps.

One of these was an unqualified success, the other two not so good.

The success was of course my little collaboration with Brush Baby. This opportunity came out of the blue, after my son’s letter from the tooth fairy went viral, and if there’s one thing I like to do with opportunities, it’s bite their hands off. Several hundred people passed through here while the comp was live, and some of you even stuck around, so come here and let me give you all a great big thank you hug (or firm handshake if you’re not so touchy-feely) - you guys are the tops!

My relationship with protein comps meanwhile blew hot and cold. Mainly cold: for the bulk of the year, I managed to stay clean … but then December struck. Due to time restrictions, my Advent season didn’t stray far beyond the confines of Instagram, at which point I became overwhelmed by a tsunami of competitions to win hairbrushes and energy bars. Well, let’s just say I didn’t win any hairbrushes.

Finally, the organisation. This was calamitous. I tried a hard-copy diary, a list on my desktop, bookmarks on Chrome, and even emailing myself, but could I keep a handle on what comps to enter and when? NOPE! I suspect part of the problem is that my work patterns changed this year, leaving me with less free time (or at least, less brain energy). Then again, maybe I’m just getting old. Whatever the reason, my line manager is stamping a great big black FAIL on this bit of my annual review, and I’m under strict orders to get my teeth into this “development opportunity” before it bites me.

So what’s it to be this year?

My counsellor tells me I should make my goals more realistic, so I’m tempted to knock organisation on the head this year … but then again, I do so hate to be a quitter!

My counsellor also tells me to be kinder to myself, so I’m going to keep doing this for the craic. That means enjoying every win, no matter how small, and not beating myself up about days off or missing closing dates - there will always be more giveaways!

As a more formal goal, I’m going to see how well this blog can extend onto Instagram. Possibly it won’t translate at all, but you’re welcome to follow me @garywasabi during my awkward early stages. (Here, I should add that the plan is to use the account for comping natter rather than comping per se, as I’ve neither the time nor the inclination for the moral murk of comping with multiple accounts!)


What about you guys? Did things work out to plan? Let me know in the comments below! Oh, and if you’ve got any tips on organising me - just let me know!

The message

Don't push me 'cause I'm close to the edge
I'm trying not to lose my head
It's like a jungle sometimes
It makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under
(Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, 1982)

I’m not usually one for prefacing my posts with hip hop lyrics, but in this instance I really couldn’t not.

For starters, you may have noticed the absence of posts these last few weeks. That’s because I haven’t been well. I’m not talking about the stomach bug that my youngest brought home from school (although, to be fair, it wasn’t a net contributor to my mojo), but rather the clashing episodes of exhaustion, stress and depression. I also developed a corn.

I hope you’ll forgive the lack of further detail here. I’m perfectly happy to discuss my mental health (or my corn) with anyone with a vaguely passing interest, but as this blog is supposed to be a permanent record of the positive things in my life, I’d prefer to take that offline. For the sake of this post, however, it's quite sufficient to know that November was rotten.

Generally speaking, I find prize-winning to be a great way to kick-start the endorphins. Of course, the fly in that ointment was that my comping flatlined in October, meaning that the number of treats heading my way could be counted on the fingers of one tennis ball.

On the plus side, however, there was always my corn to contend with.

Two years of wearing the same footwear around the house, day in, day out, had taken its toll. My left foot cried ‘Hold, Enough!’, giving me no option but to re-shoe it.

Normally, that would mean one more chore to add to the list. Happily though, I had in anticipation of such drama stashed away a pair of suede Pumas that I won back in 2015. The promoter? One Grandmaster Flash.

I’ve no idea how I stumbled upon this competition, but it was great and bad in equal measure: great because there weren’t many entrants, but bad because the entry mechanic was highly flawed.

To enter, you had to guess Flash’s five favourite hip hop records. The answers weren’t hard to find - everything you needed to know was in his recent Twitter feed; the problem was that most of the songs weren’t hip hop!

I figured that this wasn’t the time to split hairs, so I fed the promoter the songs listed on Twitter and crossed my fingers. Happily it was the right call.

The story didn’t end there, however. I knew the prize comprised a Puma track-top and trainers; I also knew that (for reasons not shared with me) it was going to take considerably longer than the average four weeks for the prize to arrive. Eventually, all became clear: the prize was not being handled by the Puma marketing team, but rather by Flash’s wardrobe crew! The jacket and shoes arrived in the UK with the rest of his tour gear. I'd won an official (and I’m pretty sure money-can’t-buy) Grandmaster Flash track-top!

Flash's back

To add to the craziness, they didn’t courier the prize to me. Rather, they hired a despatch driver to bring it from central London up to Norwich! I can’t imagine how much that cost, but I’m pretty sure it was more than the monetary value of the prize.

Two years have passed since then, and while trying not to lose my head has a more regular position on my to-do list, being physically able to enjoy the fruits of this hobby, even when I’m barely working at it, definitely helps me keep from going under.

How long have you waited for the right moment to appreciate a prize? Let me know in the comments below!

Comping on #WorldMentalHealthDay

I’m not a hardcore comper: I can’t do forms. Any sort of forms really, although application forms are the worst. Possibly it’s because I don’t see things so black and white; possibly my thinking is too lateral for silos; possibly I’m just an overthinker. Case in point.

The short of it is that I suck at forms - including web entry forms. At best they bore me; at worst they depress me. Even with Roboform, Fillr or any magic wand of wondrousness, entering and re-entering my address into a hundred-odd forms in a single sitting is like putting my mojo through the mangle.  It takes a special kind of focus that I simply lack.

And so I quit them. Why, after all, pursue something that makes you unhappy? Surely, that’s the very definition of madness?

And yet … Here I am. Staring down the 50th web form of the night. Telling myself that I WILL win that holiday.

I’ve gone months without a web-form bender and suddenly the wagon is rumbling off without me. How did it get to this?!

I’ve written elsewhere about my need for validation. But this is different. This is big-game hunting. Holidays - strictly holidays. This isn’t about savouring the fleeting high notes of a protein bar or a bit of milk, it’s about needing a break - needing light at the end of my tunnel.

That’s why these binges always focus on weekend breaks and holidays. As my dad used to say, sometimes it’s better to travel than to arrive.

That maybe so, but this kind of travelling always seems to be less about the dreaming and more about the bulk deletion of marketing emails.

There’s also the uncomfortable truth that despite completing hundreds of these web forms, I’ve won precisely nothing. Why? Because thousands of other people have entered them too! The odds of winning such comps are microscopically small, and if - like me - you have a limited tolerance for web forms, it’s worth remembering this.

Comping should be fun. If you’re not enjoying it, take a break. If you can’t handle the process, try something different. And if it feels like an obligation, stop.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dry Season

The last few weeks have been dry, which is to say I’ve had, six, maybe seven weeks without a wining notification of some kind. Some folks might call that bad luck. I say pish: there’s a world of difference between bad luck and the temporary absence of good luck.

Anyone who thinks it’s bad luck not to keep winning may as well jack it in right now because, as any comper will tell you, you’re always going to lose more than you win. Dry patches may not be fun, but they’re built into the game - as statistically inevitable as night following day.

Grumbling fixes nothing. Worse still, it’s a heinous waste of time and energy that could be better spent in so many ways!

Relying on the odds alone isn’t enough; success also requires a positive mental attitude. In other words, when you find yourself in the midst of a dry spell, see it as an opportunity to improve rather than waste it dwelling on the perceived failure.

For instance, if you’re not updating your spreadsheet or sending thank-you messages to promoters, you’ll have more time for other comping-related activities. For starters, you should be chatting with your comping buddies (if you’re shy, then just think of it as networking!). While you’re at it, invest in all those other comping groups you’re a member of: share comps, notify winners, discuss best practice - whatever's appropriate. This karma pays back!

More practically, learn a new skill to improve the technical side of your comping. If there’s a social media platform you don’t use (such as Snapchat, Instagram or even Twitter), now's the time to learn the ropes (see, for example, the guides by Lorna Beattie [Snapchat] and Di Coke [Instagram]). Alternatively, build on your existing knowledge to raise your game to the next level; for example, Nikki Hunter-Pike has a brilliant guide to Twitter lists.

Remember also that being lucky isn’t confined to your track record with giveaways - celebrate any and all luck as it finds you, and if that includes being reunited with your lost luggage, then so be it!

Finally, while there’s naught to gain from mourning what might have been; there is everything to gain from reflecting and persevering. For example, if you haven't won a creative competition, ask yourself: What went well? What could have gone better? Is there anything you can learn from the winner? In short: keep calm & carry on!

How well does this advice work? Who can say? But since starting this post yesterday, I've had two winning e-mails! :D

How do you cope with the dry season? If you have any advice, let me know in the comments below!

Another voice: Hello Rebecca Beesley!

Now that you’ve met Nikki and Lorna, It’s my absolute pleasure to acquaint you with Rebecca Beesley, who you may know from her blog The Beesley Buzz. I’ll let Rebecca introduce herself…

I’m mum to 3 kids, aged from 5 to 13. I blog about family life, recipes, books, travel and life with JIA (Juvenile Arthritis). The blog started out as a way of documenting our home-schooling journey when the boys were younger. Even though they are back in school now, I’ve carried on blogging as it’s such a great way of recording family memories. With my daughter’s medical appointments making it impossible to hold down a conventional job, I turned to comping as a hobby to keep me sane.

Well, you’ve slightly pre-empted my first question there! I was going to ask why you comp…

I’ve always enjoyed comping - My earliest recollections go back to childhood and having the winning ticket in charity raffles and I’ll always remember my first ‘creative’ win being from a competition to design a poster for the railway link from London to Brighton for which I won the second prize of a twin-deck cassette player – a real ‘wow’ prize in those days - I still have it to this day!

There’s something special about those early wins isn’t there?! My first prize was a dictionary that still sits on my office shelf … The cover boasts that it includes the word ‘Glasnost’, which should give you an idea how old it is! Still, there’s a world of difference between comping as a kid and the first time you actually identify as a comper. When did that happen for you?

I started comping properly in 2012. It was during the last few months of pregnancy with my youngest child, and those uncomfortable sleepless nights when I would turn to Facebook in my boredom and I found that there were loads of comps out there. The habit continued during that year with the nighttime feeding.

After a few months of entering lots of comps (or what I thought was lots of comps), I discovered that there are people out there that do this thing properly! I discovered this weird hobby of mine had a name – comping – and I discovered comping legend Di Coke’s blog and Facebook page. That was when I started to realise that some people were actually entering hundreds of competitions.

I was both excited and disappointed. Excited because a whole new world had opened up to me of people who shared my interest, but disappointed too because every comp I entered for the next few months seemed to be won by the same few people and I felt I stood little chance against these ‘super compers’. I stuck with it though, seeking out my own competitions and finding ones that the kids could enter and the wins started rolling in.

One of my first big wins was an iPad - something I’d never normally treat myself to - and after that I was hooked.

Given my own history with addictive/compulsive behaviours, I wince slightly when I hear compers joke about getting “hooked” - comping addiction is every bit as real as gambling addiction, isn’t it?

Absolutely - when post-natal depression struck, I turned to comping as a crutch to get me through those dark months. My only joy seemed to come from winning and the rest of the time I was just a mess. In one way, I am glad that I had comping to turn to but on the other hand, I became properly addicted to it. It took over my life to the extent that I would sit at the computer until sometimes 2, 3, 4 am comping, knowing that the kids would be up again at 6 am and hating myself for getting so little sleep. I would skip having a shower just so I could fit more comps in. I was glued to Facebook, scrolling through my feed for at least four or five hours a day just to check I hadn’t missed a winning notification or missed entering any comps on there. I was winning a prize pretty much every day but I was the unhappiest I’d ever been in my life.

I knew things had to change and so after that my new year’s resolution each year has been to spend less time comping. I like to think that I have a reasonably good balance nowadays so that it is a fun hobby to dip in and out of without it totally taking over my life.

The line you see the bookies use comes to mind here: when the fun stops, stop. That’s why I tend to steer away from the form-filling comps. Sure, I could enter 200 a night, but it really wouldn’t be healthy for me. I might enter a few holiday comps but then I’ll start looking at the ones that demand more effort.

Yes - I also love the creative comps best - and there’s always another one around the corner to be thinking about. I love how these can be family affairs. I tend to find the competitions and often come up with the creative idea, while my husband is the technical one, doing the video editing etc. So we make the perfect comping team really.

I absolutely adore blogger challenge competitions – Although my blog is not a comping blog – it was set up to record family memories – when the opportunity arises to take part in a blogger challenge I try to really understand what it is the brand is looking for and what message they are trying to get across. I then write my post accordingly and cross my fingers that it will stand out and they will like it.

I tend not to do many sponsored posts as I don’t have time to promote the blog properly to get the stats/readership that these companies want, so when I win a blogger challenge it’s like getting a little bit of income from my blog in a fun way that I’ve really enjoyed.

If anything, these creative comps are great for getting me out of my comfort zone and trying something new, whether that be attempting a slideshow with old family photographs or pretending to be Beyoncé. Even if I don’t win, at least I’ve enjoyed the endeavour. Comping may not have helped me find nirvana, but at least I can use it to improve my mental health!

Yes, it’s definitely got me out of my comfort zone – I’m sure a lot of compers will relate to dressing up in weird costumes, learning new skills and pulling funny faces to camera. Basically, it’s about having lots of fun and that’s one of the main reasons I keep going.

Enjoying the process is absolutely fundamental, but as with any hobby, comping has its tangible rewards - you’ve had some amazing experiences thanks to this hobby, so I hope you’ll come back soon and share some of your winning stories?

Of course - I’d love to!

Comping may not have the financial risk associated with gambling, but any kind of addiction (and winning can certainly be addictive) can be damaging to your health and your relationships. Please take a moment to read this useful guide to the signs of comping addiction. Your GP can offer support on addiction and dependency, and further information is available through Mind, the mental health charity.

Reasons to be cheerful

January is the worst. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating. It’s like the first few weeks of parenthood - an awful lot of grind without the slightest smile of validation.

Historically, January has been the straw that breaks the camel’s back for me. It doesn’t make me a good person to be around - sorry world!

This year, however, has been better - my best January for a few years, in fact - and that’s in no small part down to comping. That’s not to say comping is the panacea to poor mental health; this January is already less grim than the last few for the simple fact that it’s the first in some years that I’ve not had to watch my father dying by degrees. But I digress; my point is simply that when the balance is right, the hobby has rewards beyond the prizes themselves.

Most obviously, there’s the community (hey there, community!). As with any hobby, it’s good to mingle (if only virtually) with like-minded souls. But the comping community also contains so many helpful folks, who will share tips with newbies and comps with their competitors, who will point you in the right direction if you’re looking for a competition but can’t recall the promoter, and who will massage your mojo when it has taken a bruising. Friendships are out there just waiting to be made - and who doesn’t need friends?

But what has worked really well for me, particularly in recent weeks (or the lean season, as some might say), is the creative aspect of the hobby. I’m going to make a confession here: sometimes I enter competitions with absolutely no intention of winning. That’s not to say I enter comps for prizes I don’t want; rather, I like the brief so much that I enter for the joy of the challenge, without the slightest hope of winning or worrying what I could have done better to impress the judges.

My entry for the Malta competition last week is a case in point. I can’t imagine it ticked many boxes for the promoter, but it made my mum and my sister so happy to reminisce about those holidays - and about happier times with my dad. That’s a prize in itself.

I’ve likewise written entries for creative writing competitions that have veered so far from the brief that they’ve been quite unusable. I then end up saving my work in my own little creative writing folder, before butchering the text into something vaguely in line with what the promoter has asked for. The result is a blatant hack job, as by this point it’s invariably too late to do anything about it. But I can live with that - I’ve got the director’s cut on file, ready for me to use in a way that suits me, some time in the future.

My dad used to say that sometimes it’s better to travel than to arrive. To that end, I suppose, there is reward to be had in dedicating hour after hour to the completion of entry forms. But when the grind of that mindless toil is over, what’s left? God willing, there may be some prizes; the value of those prizes may even be vaguely proportional to the hours invested in winning them. But beyond the material goods? Again, I confess, none of my fondest memories relate to web forms or retweets.

Winning might be the most obvious benefit of this hobby, but it isn’t the only one. YOLO, as the youth say, so if this is your hobby of choice, don’t let a single drop of pleasure from it escape you.

The season to be jolly

Humbug.

The advents are coming.

I’m assuming you’ll want me to expand upon my earlier statement, so: “Bah!”; and a further “humbug” for good measure.

I don’t actually hate the advents. But I am wary of them.

It was 2014 when I first tackled the advents. Thanks to Di Coke’s tips, I was - for a newbie - relatively coordinated and pretty efficient, and as a result, I comped HARD.

‘Hard’ is of course relative: I comped much harder than I’d ever done before - not as hard as some folks, certainly - but well beyond my natural appetite.

I was putting so much effort into chasing that winning buzz that if I wasn’t comping, I was itching to get back to it, to tick off the ever-growing list of draws closing that day. Those comps were on my mind A LOT. And when the season came to an end, I was bereft. It was Christmas Day, and instead getting stuck into the festive cheer, I sat there all fidgetty, thinking, ‘Damn! What do I do now?!’ That hole lasted well into January, accompanied by the longest period of low mood that I’d ever experienced.

There were, of course, other factors contributing to my mood (not least the sleep deprivation associated with having small children!), but anyone who has seen gambling addiction first-hand will recognise that these are the signs of compulsive behaviour.

Now, let’s not over-egg the pudding. Comping is hardly a vice, and it’s undoubtedly more benign than gambling. All the same, it still feels great to win, and it’s understandable that people enjoy winning as often as possible.

The important thing, however, is to be aware of when this changes from a hobby to an obsession. So, if you find yourself starting to neglect your chores (or even your family) in order to squeeze in a few more entries, please take a break. To borrow the words from the Gamble Aware campaign – when the fun stops, stop.

I like to liken the advents to a bottomless pitcher of eggnog: novel in moderation but impossible to finish - and by God will you suffer if you try!

Hoe Hoe Hoe (Christmas Dad Joke #17)

So, let’s keep things merry this Christmas - here are my recommendations for keeping the fun flowing:

• Don’t enter everything! Focus on the prizes you really want.
• Set time limits not entry targets.
• Take regular breaks – look after your eyes as well as your mental health!
• Download a red-screen app such as f.lux or Twilight to protect your eyes from screen glare once the sun goes down (and help you sleep after a hard night of comping!) 
• Socialise – chat with fellow compers on Facebook (or whatever other forum you prefer).
• Be creative – break up the form filling with more challenging comps.

Now go out there, do your prep (see appendix!), and enjoy yourself!

How do you comp through December? Do you enjoy the advents? What are your tips for staying sane in this hectic period?

Appendix

I mentioned Di Coke’s tips - they’re available here

I also recommend Grant Robson’s post on surviving the advents

If you know of any other posts on the subject, please post a link in the comments!

Mojo-a-go-go

Compers’ mojo is a funny thing. I’ve lost it before, but last time it was different. Last time was in the deep midwinter. It was my first year of comping and I’d been overdosing on advent competitions. Come January there was a great big hole in my comping day and not enough other distractions to, er, distract me. Coupled with winter blues, I can’t say that I was a bundle of fun. But eventually, the days got brighter and I got sufficiently chirpier to summon some vim and get back in the saddle.

All went well for the next 18 months or so, but then I had the kind of week where business does not go as usual. I prefer to keep sob stories out my comping, so I’ll forgo the details, suffice to say there have been a lot of extraordinary demands on my time, on top of which my cat ran away too. (Sorry if that last bit sounds a bit sob storylike - I do actually sympathise with the mog - he dislikes my children and he dislikes the medicine I have to give him every day, but even so, I can’t help but feel peeved!)

I mention all this not as a cry for sympathy, but rather to illustrate that one can lose one’s mojo for a whole multitude of reasons - not just poor mental health or frustration with a dry spell. Life can broadside us all, and loss of mojo - in the grand scheme of things - is just a detail. A time-limited stain.

Things always settle down eventually. In the meantime, I’ll be looking for life-hacks to get my comping back up to fifth gear. If you have any, do let me know!

Worst. Competition. Ever.

There's a sad minority of promoters that hate compers and won’t stand for them entering their giveaways. I've even seen some cheerfully slander the whole community with the same tar-brush, accusing them of entering any old comp for any old tat. I say, screw that, I really needed that toothpick.

OK, so that last bit's a porkie - I've never tried to win any quantity of toothpicks - but I will admit that when I first started comping, I followed the common rookie path of favouring competition quantity over competition quality. Naturally, it wasn't long before the prizes didn't start rolling in and I decided to change tack.

But comping for any old tat? Don't be daft. Obviously, some promotions are more exciting than others - we'd all rather win an iPad than a pint glass - but if it's neither use nor ornament, why waste time trying to win it?

Perhaps the accusation is directed at folks who enter a lot of low-value comps. Well, my dad always said never to judge a man till you've walked a mile in his moccasins. (Or was it was Michael Jackson? I always get them muddled...) In any case, the argument still stands. I offer myself as a case in point. I don't have depression per se, but in winter especially I do suffer some stinking long funks. The rush of endorphins associated with winning sometimes does more for me than the prize itself. In other words, prizewinning is a crutch for mental health; that it happens to come with a souvenir is a fantastic bonus.

I've also had enough addiction issues to recognise compulsive behaviour on my own part, so I will come clean: I had no immediate need of the Popeye hat I won last year, but given the 50/50 odds, I couldn't resist the punt. In short, I am what I am, and that's all that I am.

Confession, they say, is the road to healing, so I hope you won't judge me too harshly. Cast the first stone in the comments below, if you must. However, I suspect I'm not the only person who has, at some point in their life, entered a giveaway more for the hit than the prize - after all, who doesn't want to be a winner? In the name of group therapy then, might I suggest a session of competitive confession?

In return, I offer you what I hope will be the most amazingly mediocre prize that you have ever contemplated: 20 drains* from around the fine city of Norwich. A perfect gift for any drainspotter! Oh, and more importantly, the warm glow of being a winner too.

One of the drains included in this prize ... I call it "Gotham"

(For the purpose of clarity, that's 20 photographs, taken by me, of different drains in walking distance of my house.)

But what do I have to do to get my hands on this unique collection, you ask?

I'm not going to ask you to jump through 43 Rafflecopter hoops. In fact, you're under no obligation to return to this blog, EVER (sure, I'd love to see you again, but you're busy people and I respect that).

All I ask is that you leave a comment below, telling me the most underwhelming thing you've ever won or tried to win (apart from a load of drains).

I'll contact the winner via Twitter, so please leave your Twitter handle as well. If you're up for the sport but really don't want the pictures, then you're welcome to comment and not leave your handle - I'd love to hear from you anyway.

The closing date for entries is 23.59 30th June 2016.

One of the drains included in this prize ... This one is "Mothership"

Terms and conditions
1) The prize is 20 photographs of various drains located in the city of Norwich. The photographs are in jpg format and can be supplied zipped or unzipped. Images are individually available elsewhere, if you know where to look for them. There is no cash alternative.
2) The closing date for entries is 23.59 30th June 2016. No further entries will be accepted after this point. You can still comment if you like, but there has to be a line in the sand.
3) Each entrant's name will be written on separate pieces of paper and buttered. The winner will be the first name to be licked by my cat. Either that or I'll use a random number generator - whichever proves more practical.
4) I will announce the winner on this blog and on Twitter.
5) The winner has seven days to claim their prize. If the prize hasn’t been claimed in this period, I will redraw. If you think I'm going to butter any more paper, however, you've got another thing coming.
6) The winner will receive their images via e-mail and the bragging rights via mental projection.
7) Entry into the competition will be deemed as acceptance of these terms and conditions.
8) I will not use your information to sell you encyclopaedias, or to get anyone else to sell you encyclopaedias.
9) This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Twitter, Blogger or any other social network. Neither is it sponsored, endorsed or administered by Pukka Pie.
10) I reserve the right to cancel or amend the competition and these terms and conditions without notice in the event of a catastrophe, war, civil or military disturbance, act of God or any actual or anticipated breach of any applicable law or regulation or any other event outside of my control. Yes, that does include zombie apocalypse. Any changes to the competition will be clearly added to this blog post.
11) I think that’s it, but if I have forgotten anything fundamental that might void this endeavour, please let me know.

*not manhole covers