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?

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!

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!

Game, Set & Match

There are money-can’t-buy prizes and there are my-money-can’t-buy prizes. For example, I never realised how beyond my means Wimbledon was until I checked just the other day. On the final Saturday, it costs £30 just to walk around the grounds. Sure, you might get lucky and see someone warming up on the outside courts, but if you want to see the ladies’ final, a Centre Court ticket is £170 for the day. And, yes, tickets for the men’s final cost even more. So, assuming I’d managed to get through the ballot system and procure tickets for me and my wife, I’d be £400 down before so much as sniffing a strawberry.

It also stands to reason that if you want to eat there, you’re going to be forking out a small wedge. Sure, ‘tis but £2.50 for a bowl of the aforementioned strawberries, but man cannot live on fruit alone - not when there’s all that cucumber to consider, although at £8.50 a glass, sourcing your five-a-day solely from Pimms’ garnish is unwise in more ways than one.

You can therefore imagine how I felt when Robinsons (yes, the squash people) told me I’d won VIP tickets to this year’s ladies’ final. You can also imagine my strangled squeals of drawn-out frustration that the only person I was able to share this news with for the next hour had no concept of SW19, never mind corporate hospitality, on account of being only four years old.

If you’re thinking that this is unusually good fortune for me, you’d be right. I couldn’t possibly say what something like this is worth, but if it’s not the fanciest prize of my life, then it’s surely a close second, and certainly the most amazing thing I’ve ever won from a tie-break comp.

A tie-breaker? No, I couldn’t believe it either. In five years of comping, my track record with writing tie-breaks can be summarised as follows:

• a nice cake (I was the only entrant); and
• a hoodie from an online smut site (four entrants; three of whom failed to read the brief).

In the latter case, I was actually hoping to win the dressing gown, so even here I was wide of the mark.

Missing the mark is of course an area where it is incredibly easy to excel. In the present instance, for example, I drew a blank for three consecutive weeks before Robinsons took a shine to my suggestion for a new flavour for its Fruit Creations range.

Truthfully, I was never going to win in the first week - there were over a thousand entrants and regardless of how tasty my idea might have been, I always knew that it lacked the mustard to stand out from such numbers. In Week 2, however, I pulled my socks up and tossed in a tennis pun or two.
Nevertheless, despite a massive drop in the number of entrants, it wasn’t my week. In Week 3, I tried putting my recipe in verse form. Still no luck.

By Week 4, then, it was time to go all in. That my recipe was going to have strawberries was a given, but I was also going to saddle it with more tennis puns than would be remotely decent. Thus:

LET me take ADVANTAGE of this opportunity to KNOCK UP something with strawberries - surely you can’t FAULT me there?! It’d be ACE to LOB in some rhubarb PULP too - a MIXED DOUBLE of classic British flavours. But HOLD on a sec - if you really want a SMASH hit of a drink, I’d LOVE to add a little ginger and SERVE with a smile! (Trust me - folks will be making a RACKET about this juice for years!)

Fortunately, it was one of those weeks where nothing succeeds like excess - helped by the fact that the drop-off in entries had continued, and fewer than 350 people had thrown their hat in the ring.

At this point, all that remained was to get a babysitter, book train tickets, buy trousers and, oh, tell my wife!

Procuring rail tickets at short notice is seldom cheap, and this occasion was no exception. What I did not expect was that the most economical way to arrive in London would be to travel first-class. I was also not expecting the coffee to be quite as dreadful as that served in prole class, but there you go.

That a first-class ticket entitles the holder to a free packed lunch along the lines of the Boots Meal Deal is nice, but whether that makes it worth five times the basic apex fare is up for debate. Such digression, however, is moot: any pleasure gleaned from this brief insight into how the other half lives dissolves into grimy dust the moment you board whatever hot, stinking Tube train connects you to Southfields.

On the plus side, the walk to the grounds is straightforward and our conga line down Wimbledon Park Road was refreshingly genteel.

Before I go any further, I must come clean about my ticket kink: I love the physical experience of slapping my ticket on the counter and swanning inside ahead of the Johnny-come-hopefuls. It might sound like mild schadenfreude, but it’s actually far simpler: I just dig on tangible credentials.

For this very reason, being on a guest list stresses me right out. I daren’t look behind me as I’m convinced I’m being shadowed by some fat-pawed security gorilla who’s got me pegged as a cheap ligger.

In reality, of course, no one ever bats an eyelid. The woman at Gate 5 handed me the grounds passes and funny little cardboard buttons, and relieved me of the weight upon my shoulders. Not the whole weight of course, as there was still the matter of locating the hospitality suite - but given the unambiguous guidance in my invitation (literally: it’s just opposite Gate 5) how hard could that be?

In case you’re unfamiliar with the grounds of the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club, what’s opposite Gate 5 is Centre Court itself. So, in the absence of any obvious signposting, we found a chap in an official blazer loitering outside Centre Court and begged directions. And what glorious directions they were - taking us right to the far end of the grounds where the various corporate partners had their marquees - major corporate partners like Jaguar and HSBC, but not Robinsons.

Three further members of staff later and we were exactly where we started - except this time, we noticed the wee notice directing guests to the Robinsons Suite.

And oh, what a suite it was! As I stood there, just a flight of stairs away from the action, I suddenly felt sorry for those poor schmoes slumming it in the suburbs with Ralph Lauren. Inside was air-conditioned and spacious; outside on the balcony, meanwhile, was pleasantly shaded with a birds-eye view of Joe Public and the exquisite flower arrangements. A more perfect spot to sip our first Pimms of the day I couldn’t have imagined.

How's this for a chunky VIP pass?!

As we topped up our vim, two further fantastic things became clear: first, the guests in the room were all compers, so the atmosphere was one of genuine over-the-moon excitement; and second, the spectacle was set to exceed everyone’s expectations, as the second men’s semi was yet to be resolved. To this end, our lunch was brought forward so we could watch two sets of Nadal v Djokovic.

It didn’t take an expert to see that this was tennis of the highest calibre. These guys were so evenly matched that on any other day I’d have described the next couple of hours as epic. However, as the preceding semi ended 24 v 26 and lasted six and a half hours, the rivers of hyperbole were running dry.

Thanks to this unscheduled bonus, our afternoon tea was a bit of a frantic affair. I can’t imagine I will ever neck champagne at such a dangerous pace again, but rest assured plans are afoot for us to get a similar wodge of strawberries and cream next year.

Finally, then, it was time for the headline event.

Mrs Wasabi enjoying the hospitality ...
and if you squint hard enough, you might be able to see the Meghan Markle's barnet

The ins and outs of the match have inevitably been documented by writers far finer than I, so I’ll forgo the details, suffice to say that we were really rooting for Serena, but sadly it was not to be. What we did witness, however, was the climax of a legend’s year-long journey from intensive care to a grand-slam final, followed by one of the most wonderful examples of grace in defeat that anyone could hope to see.

Miss Williams didn’t simply congratulate her opponent for winning her first title, but shared her pleasure in that moment, while praising her for being an incredible person and a really good friend.

As for being the “super-human supermum" that the interviewer suggested she was, she replied, "No, I'm just me and that's all I can be … I look forward to just continuing to be back out here and doing what I do best … It was such an amazing tournament for me. I was really happy to get this far … I can't be disappointed. I have so much to look forward to - I'm literally just getting started".

The fact that one of the greatest winners of all time doesn’t take winning for granted is a massive takeaway, not just for athletes and sports fans, but for compers too. Like any seasoned comper, I have failed to win thousands of times. What’s more, I have every intention of continuing to do so. Indeed, I similarly refuse to be disappointed when things don’t go my way: if I’m looking back, it’s not because I’m lingering on what might have been; it’s because I’m enjoying past successes or learning from previous fails. Mostly, however, I’m looking forward, because I’m just getting started too.

Somewhat satisfyingly, the wise words of Wimbledon don’t end here either. As everyone trickled back into the hospitality lounge, the bartender leaned over to my comping buddy and whispered, “We’re closing the bar in ten minutes, so if I were you, I’d rack them up while you still can.”

For me, this is the best kind of advice as I can process it in a fraction of a millisecond, because, well, I'm just me and that's all I can be.

Football coming home...

The FIFA World Cup used to be the cornerstone of my life. I got together with my other half during the 1998 tournament, and exactly four years later, we were married. Another four years on and we were still gorging on as many matches as we could fit around full-time work. Come 2010, however, our first-born was three months old and did not care for international football - not one little bit.

I was on the afternoon shift at that point, but every time I sat down, he’d wail. Watching Germany dissect England is excruciating at best, but there’s nothing like doing it while you slow dance with a mardy bairn to really put the boot in. It was at this point that I stopped watching football.

That’s not to say I stopped taking an interest, however, as I’d just learned about matched betting - the clever-dick form of gambling where you don’t end up out of pocket as the bookies kindly pony up the stakes for you. Now’s not the time for the full ins and outs of the hustle as they’re way too complicated to explain in a glib aside (though if you are interested, see Nikki Hunter-Pike's post), suffice to say that it was a boom-time for bookmakers running promotions to expand their social media reach.

888Sport, in particular, was on a mission to own the market, and was giving away free bets and branded merchandise left, right and centre - in the space of a year, its various score prediction and caption competitions had provided me with a branded polo shirt, rugby ball, laptop sleeve, three hoodies, two packs of cards and a set of poker chips, not to mention countless free bets and a £60 sportswear voucher.

Then came the big one - the World Cup score-prediction comp. At this point, they really lost their marbles, because in addition to prizes for the overall competition winners, they also encouraged entrants to set up their own mini leagues, and gave these players prizes too. How they worked out a scoring system for the mini leagues I’ve no idea. Truthfully, I wasn’t paying attention. All I knew was that I hadn’t made the top three in the main league, so I didn’t give it another minute’s thought. So, you can imagine my surprise when, a few weeks later, a £120 voucher to spend on sportswear turned up out of the blue.

Sadly, it wasn’t long after this that the penny dropped at 888 HQ and I was barred for being - quite literally -  a liability, as 888’s computers twigged that I was taking more money out of the company than I was putting in, so banned me from making any further wagers.

Disappointing as it was to call time on our relationship, lessons were learned and we both moved on: I stopped messing around and committed myself to comping properly, while 888 approached the next World Cup in a far more austere manner, with any suggestion of a re-run knocked squarely on the head.

Nonetheless, it is a truth universally acknowledged that where there’s a World Cup, there’s a prediction competition, and Brazil 2014 was no different. Filling the void left by 888 was a competition of even greater magnitude and generosity, which the Brazil Tourism Board had opened up to pretty much anyone, anywhere. This giveaway had over a hundred prizes, from vouchers to cameras to various Apple products. I didn’t make the top twenty, but still copped an iPod Nano, which was awesome - well, apart from the £30 of import duty I had to pay to receive it.

As this was my first year of comping during a World Cup tournament, I was only just starting to become aware of the sheer volume of competitions that spring up around it - not just the big-ticket giveaways from the official partners and sponsors, but also the numerous unofficial comps from companies that want to join in the excitement, but lack the deep pockets of companies like MasterCard or McDonald’s. For example, thanks to Carpetright, I walked away with an official England shirt; concurrent with this, I also won a tee-shirt of Archie Gemmill scoring against Holland in 1978 - which rounds out my heritage neatly.

The England shirt has served me well - not because I enjoy sartorial statements of nationalism, but rather because it’s super light-weight and doesn’t cling to my sweaty body when I play badminton. It’s also handy for entering football-related competitions, and to this end finally paid dividends this year when I won a giftcard and football from Screwfix for posting a picture of my best football cheer to Instagram. Considering that Screwfix was an official sponsor of the ITV coverage this year, surprisingly few people were entering its comps. Its daily Facebook giveaways were (as I discovered too late) getting fewer than 200 entrants, while this Instagram comp had barely a dozen. So, a lesson learned for next time is to check out all the TV partners too!

This year, I also won prizes from two completely unaffiliated companies - three £30 Decathlon vouchers and my choice of football shirt from the FIFA store. The football shirt came from a simple tag-and-follow comp on Instagram - again with barely a dozen entries. Unfortunately FIFA had sold out of my first, second and third choice of kit, so if you were wondering why there’s a picture of me on Instagram wearing the Japanese away strip, now you know.

The first Decathlon voucher, meanwhile, came from a prediction comp I’d found via Google before the tournament began. What I hadn’t clocked, however, was that the score prediction aspect was purely for fun, and that the question you had to bat away before entering said predictions was actually the tie-breaker for that round. You can therefore imagine my surprise when the promoter mailed to let me know that my throwaway comment - “5.30” - was one of the most creative responses to the question, “At what point of the working day are you most on top of your game?”

Any criticism you may wish to throw at the weakness of that response is well deserved - I dread to imagine the quality of the rest of the field that week. Still, if ever there was an example of “got to be in it to win it”, this was it. And, since we’re looking for takeaways, it was also a reminder of the importance of reading instructions!

In any case, you can be sure that I upped my game for the last few rounds. And yes, my renewed efforts did pay off, as I made it into the top three for the final two rounds, giving me a grand total of £90 to spend at Decathlon.

The other great thing about this year’s World Cup was England’s progress. Notwithstanding their overreliance on set-pieces and their charmed avoidance of top-notch opposition, the fact that the team advanced as far as it did was a boon for flash comps. To be sure, I drew a complete blank here, but again, some of these comps had ridiculously few entrants, so I’ll definitely be getting my Tweetdeck house in order for 2022.

At this point, it bears repeating that 2022 will be FIFA's first Winter World Cup, and in case I need to spell it out - that means it’s going to clash with the advents. With this in mind, I’m going to get my first prediction in early: it’ll be carnage!

How did your World Cup season go? Or did you focus on Wimbledon or some other event? Let me know in the comments section!

My Harry Potter Win: Part 2

Of all the queues, the one to actually commence the tour was the largest and most densely packed. It would probably have been less stressful had my children been on reins, so I will bear that in mind for future reference. That said, as the numbers built up, the oppressive hubbub worked wonders for intimidating them into line, and it was only another twenty minutes or so before we were in the Great Hall.

Many words come to mind on entering this cavernous space, but I’ll settle for ‘Gosh’. The room is so big that I’d always assumed it was shot on location. Well, you know what they say about assumptions. I’d love illustrate the vastness of the set with an awesome photo, but sadly my camera was giving me lip and I was unable to diagnose the problem while my offspring ran pell-mell about the place. Also, we had only about five minutes to take it all in, so by the time the children were contained, everyone was being booted out. In short, you’ll just have to take my word for it: gosh, indeed.

Next was the hangar full of props. Oh my. I can’t remotely do this justice. It’s not just costumes and wands in here, but rooms - whole rooms - like Harry’s dorm, the Griffyndor common room, Professor Umbridge’s office, the Weasley kitchen, and the potions classroom, with the forbidden forest and Platform 9 3/4 just around the corner (along with the Hogwarts Express). You’ve also got a first-hand introduction to the special effects in here - and not some basic show and tell affair either. You want to sit at Hagrid’s table or summon a broomstick? No problem. Heck, you can even buy a video of yourself riding that broomstick or sitting on the Hogwarts Express as it gets attacked by dementors - though you might want a word with your bank manager first, given that photos are (as I recall) £14 each and video footage £25 a clip.

Sitting at Hagrid's table - my eldest is a giant!

I didn’t mention the wand fighting lessons did I? Well, you’ll need them later on when you’re duelling with death eaters on the Hogwarts Bridge. In my case though, my kids were more interested in Hagrid’s motorbike and the flying car from the second movie, which were parked nearby, so the 10 inches of wooden dowel I was waving around like a prat was purely for my own benefit.

It’s about this point that refreshments are called for. Given that the WB studio is one of possibly four places in the world where one can buy butterbeer, we made a point of grabbing ourselves a beaker each. Which is to say, I bought a couple of beakers to share: at £6.50 for a half-pint or so, I’ve definitely bought cheaper champagne. It’s also horrifically calorific, and long-term use is practically guaranteed to require remedial dentistry. ‘But how does it taste?’, you ask. Imagine a blend of butterscotch and cream soda … My children hated it, and personally, I’d stick to the cheap champagne, but if you’re determined to rot your mouth, I understand that Flying Cauldron butterscotch beer is pretty similar.

Outside the refreshment area you can also have a nosey at the night bus and take a quick tour of the Dursleys’ house (again - I can’t believe this scenery was built for the movie - I honestly had to touch it to believe it!). You’re also only minutes away from the incredible Diagon Alley, but don’t get ahead of yourself - there’s all the CGI and robotic FX to take in first!

The Dursleys' front room

Just one of the treats on Diagon Alley

If, like me, your time in this zone is curtailed by one of your offspring having a tantrum while the other harasses the staff, the one thing you absolutely MUST experience is the bit where you get to control a fully-rendered animation of Dobby the house elf via real-time interactive motion capture. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make Dobby dab, dance the robot or whatever else takes your fancy.

The penultimate area is dedicated to the set designers - the unsung heroes of the franchise - the folks who, thanks to their vision, conceived the entire franchise. Their sketches offer a first-class insight into the production process and leave you genuinely in awe of their imagination.

Finally, it’s time for the money shot: the absurdly intricate 1:24 scale model of Hogwarts. That translates to a model almost 50 feet in diameter. I really can’t overstate the incredibleness of this structure - for reference, the man-hours put into building and reworking the model, if totalled, would exceed 74 years!

Hogwarts (only smaller)

So, all that remains is to exit through the gift shop. Here’s the sucker punch. Everything - but everything - is obscenely expensive. For example, the markup on relatively pedestrian pocket-money items, such as a pack of Top Trumps, is at least 50 per cent over the standard market rate for similar (but non-Potter) items. You want a magic wand? That’ll be £35 please. Understandably, my son wanted a souvenir, but when a chocolate frog costs a month’s pocket money, the world was hardly his oyster. He settled on a pair of Harry Potter glasses for £4 - of the quality you might expect from a Poundland fancy dress kit, that - yes - also contained other plastic tat. But his red mist for acquisition was at least sated and we could move on.

In sum then, the tour is plainly one of the most magical things I'll ever experience and I totally recommend it to anyone with only a passing interest in the Potterverse. I'd probably counsel against taking small children - or, more specifically, my children - but despite their best efforts, it was worth the wait. It's also worth mentioning that I'm really terrible at getting my act together, so if it hadn't have been for comping, I might never have got round to doing this. To this end, I'm also grateful to this hobby for giving me the nudge to get more out of life!

My Harry Potter Win: Part 1

Ten months after winning tickets to the Harry Potter tour, I finally had them booked. ‘Whaaat?!’ I hear you say, ‘Why?! Why did it take you so long?! How could you sit on something so stupidly exciting?!’

Point taken. But here’s the thing: I work freelance, and the very the nature of my work (or perhaps just my client) is so very last minute that it’s impossible to say when a quiet spell will be upon me. This makes it hard to forecast my schedule for the next day, never mind six months ahead like most people seem to be able to manage for this experience.

The other thing is that my lads are still small. The oldest has nightmares about Willy Wonka, while the youngest hides under the sofa cushions while Dobby the house elf is on screen. With this in mind, I figured there was a distinct chance that they might take the gloss off the experience.

As such, we waited about as long as we could before booking our visit, in the hope that they might man up a little. However, we never made it past the Chamber of Secrets DVD.

Not to be beaten, we thought we’d make the trip as exciting as possible by staying nearby, so that we could arrive first thing, without the stress of driving across country. I will confess that the experience of driving to the spa break I won a few months previously still loomed large in my mind, and I was anxious not to involve the RAC in our lives any more than strictly necessary.

So far so good. What I didn’t budget for was the four year-old going on a rampage and refusing to sleep till 10. The other one wasn’t much better. As I sat in a dark Travelodge room, drinking whisky from a mug while my wife snored, I reflected on how I’d envisaged the evening going differently.

The next morning, as you might have guessed, the youngest lad was so exhausted that his monstrous screaming fits appeared with the tedious inevitability of January's credit card bill. Given also that I was a few weeks into the stress and blues of a heinous work bender, the day ahead was never going to be easy.

Getting to Warner Bros Studios was a piece of cake. Getting inside was something else.

First we queued to get the tickets. This queue was short but painfully slow, as the dispensing machine was woefully inept. It was also a waste of time as I was unable to provide the telephone number that the promoter had used when booking the tickets, so the machine refused to recognise me.

As such, I joined the longer queue so I could chat with the counter staff. By this point, the antisocial behaviour of my eldest was at peak malevolence, so my wife removed both children from my line of sight.

After this queue, we joined the queue for bag checks. Finally, we joined the queue to get in.

Let’s just say it was a very British experience.

Nevertheless, we were now IN, and the excitement could begin…

[This enormous post continues tomorrow!]

2017: How was it for you?

Now that it’s all over but the unboxing, it’s time for a quick glance back at the last 12 months.

For me, it’s been a year of two halves. By April, I’d won a GoPro camera, four bikes and VIP tickets to watch Norwich City play - prizes with a grand ticket price in the region of £1900. At that point, In needed only to maintain a win rate of £70 per month for the rest of the year and I’d have beaten my personal best.

Sadly, my form took a dip, and my blue period gave my mojo a good roasting. Although I’ve since recovered, that hasn’t translated to the same kind of luck as last year, when I averaged a win every other day in December. That’s not to be a moaning minnie - I still managed about two a week (although three of those were in America, so it’ll be a while before I see those wins - if at all!).

More than anything else, though, my 2017 is going to go down as the year of the sublime and the ridiculous. It’s the year I won cologne from both Paul Smith and Peperami; a £100 voucher to spend at Amazon and a coupon for a bottle of Lucozade that ended up costing four pence to redeem; an awesome flannel shirt for my lad and, for me, a hoodie from a peddler of online smut.

Be honest - which would you rather have?

Still, it’s the utter randomness of the draw that keeps the game interesting. Sure, you can shorten your odds, and develop that luck muscle, but unless you can find a competition with no other entrants, the result, like so much in life, could go in any direction. And if you’re lucky enough to find a competition with no other entrants, there’s a good chance it’ll be pretty niche - at least, that’s how I ended up with a beanie hat advertising cattle disinfectant.

The other notable development this year has been my minor success as a piggy-back winner.
I don’t know if there’s an official term for this mode of winning, but I’m talking about giveaways where the entry mechanic requires compers to tag a friend or two, and prizes are awarded not just to the winning entrant but also their friends. This mechanic is great for a whole bunch of reasons. Most obviously, it adds a random-act-of-kindness to the prize-giving - I love that for some folks, the prize will come completely out of the blue. Simply put, it’s a fantastic way for promoters to foster brand sentiment (and in my case, provide a little mojo boost).

In fact, I’ve had three such mojo boosts this year, having won teabags, a Corcicle canteen and a bunch of flower remedies thanks to my lovely comping buddies, Lorna and Rebecca. (This is the point where I call for a virtual team hug, topped off with seasonal high-fives, and, what the hell, finger pistols too!)

But I’d hate for the rest of y’all to feel left out - drop us a comment below to let everyone know how your year has gone, and I'll chuck you an attaboy as you collect your mince pie!

I hope you have a lovely (and restful) Christmas!

Another voice: Winning stories from Rebecca Beesley

A few weeks ago, I interviewed the wonderful Rebecca Beesley, who kindly promised to share some winning stories with you guys … Well, today’s your lucky day! I am absolutely delighted to hand Rebecca the metaphorical mic so she can tell you all about some of the fantastic experiences her family have enjoyed since Rebecca and her husband took up comping!

People often ask me “what is the best prize you’ve ever won” and that’s a tough one to answer as it’s not always the highest-value prizes that come to mind.

In a way, the best prizes are the ones that meet a need you have at the time. For example, when we had some building work done on our house, we ended up running out of budget to renew the front door, which was in desperate need of replacing. So when I won a new front door, I was thrilled because it was exactly what we needed at the time!

Some of our holiday wins have also been really special – again, not so much because of their monetary value, but because of the special memories they have given us - the precious family time and unforgettable experiences.

For example, we had the most amazing time when my husband won an epic road trip with laterooms.com.

The road trip involved travelling as far as St Ives in Cornwall, into Wales, and up to Liverpool and Leeds, staying in places that we would never have thought of going to (especially with three kids in tow!), had it not been for LateRooms making all the arrangements. In total, we stayed in nine different places over the course of 13 nights.

Most special of all was the trip to Fowey in Cornwall, where we also took in a display by the Red Arrows. This was so magical for me because my late mum was a massive Red Arrows fan and here was my little daughter having the most amazing time with me watching the Red Arrows in the best possible viewing spot you could imagine.

Last year, my husband also won another unforgettable experience: a few days away in Dubai!

The whole thing was just amazing, but for me, the first evening was the most special. Having had no sleep since travelling from the UK the night before, and then taken in the Dubai Mall, Sega Republic, and Dubai Aquarium and Underwater Zoo, we were ridiculously tired.

But despite the tiredness, it was just SO magical - I felt like I was in a dream, floating through the evening. Sitting in the Thiptara restaurant at the palace in downtown Dubai and watching the famous fountains at the base of the Burj Khalifa is one of those moments I will never forget.

The restaurant made us feel so welcome and treated Miss T like a princess. D even fell asleep whilst eating his ice cream and anyone who knows how much he loves his food knows just how tired he must have been! And that was just the first day!

As a parent of small children, I can imagine just how exhausting these holidays would have been - but how exhilarating too! Thank you so much for sharing these inspirational stories! 

If you have any winning stories you'd like to share, just let me know in the comments below!