Happy Seventh Birthday to Grape Vine

Today it is exactly seven years since I took over Grape Vine from John Lock, who had been producing it for twelve years and felt it was time to retire. Since then I have helped hundreds of readers to win thousands of prizes, and every single one reported to me feels as good as winning it myself.

Also today, I tweeted my 50,000th tweet, and on Wednesday it will be three years since I joined Twitter.

Taking those experieces together, what a lot I've  learned in a relatively short time! And hopefully I've passed  on a lot of the things I have learned to some of you.

To celebrate, I am running a quickie competition on Twitter. The prize is a bundle of goodies comprising

a signed Rosemary Schrager's Breakfasts recipe book
a smelly Dalek for your dashboard (go on, you KNOW you want one)
a "Versatile Vegetables" address and birthday book
and most importantly, a 3 month subscription to Grape Vine, or of course an extension to your sub if you are already a subscriber.

All you have to do to enter is retweet the competition tweet which you will find here

The competition closes at 8pm on Monday  13th February and is open to UK residents only

The Galloping Gourmet

I originally wrote this back in 2007 after a wonderful prize experience from the Evening Standard. How I miss their Gourmet Challenge competition which vanished when the paper became a free one a while ago. This was the second occasion I had been involved in the final - the previous time had a different format, and was also at one of Giorgio Locatelli's restaurants, but all the finalists had to guess the ingredients in a series of dishes and the person with the most correct (not me) won a holiday to Italy. On the second occasion, the evening out was itself the prize, and one of those wonderful "money can't buy" experiences that our amazing hobby sometimes throws our way.

-o0o-
 

I am a great fan of the annual Evening Standard Gourmet Challenge quiz – being both a foodie and a comper it combines two of my favourite hobbies – and this year’s quiz was a tough challenge (I have learned that the setters had gone to great lengths to make the answers ungoogleable) so I was delighted to get a LWE telling me that I was one of this year’s 10 winners, who would be taking part in a “Gourmet Gallop”.

The prize was dinner in four of London’s top restaurants – all on the same evening!  The ten winners (partners and guests were not allowed, which meant we all mingled much better than we would have done as couples) met up with our hosts from the Standard at Sketch, alleged to be the most expensive restaurant in Britain. More like a living gallery of modern art than a restaurant, we enjoyed a guided tour of the surreal labyrinth of rooms and staircases – even the loos were works of art – while slurping Pommery champagne and sampling canapés as surreal as the surroundings. A strawberry and black pepper vodka martini is unusual enough – even if it doesn’t have a langoustine floating in it!

When the champagne bottles had been drunk dry, we piled into cars waiting to take us to Scotts, a very traditional British seafood restaurant. Here we had a choice of baked spider crab (my choice – and utterly delicious) or a dozen oysters, three each of four species. The oyster lovers in the party thought they were in heaven!

Back in the cars again, this time to The Greenhouse – a very stylish restaurant tucked away in a quiet Mayfair mews. Here we were treated to a choice of sea bass  or veal – I opted for the veal and enjoyed an exquisitely tender piece of delicious meat served with asparagus and girolles.

Already feeling full, we were driven on to Locanda Locatelli for dessert. Giorgio Locatelli was waiting to greet us, and it felt just as if he was welcoming us into his home. Dessert was served at a long, family style table and I’m sure we were authentically noisy as the wine that had been so generously poured with each course began to take effect.

The first part of our dessert was a rice spoon filled with tiramisu. Next came a small dish full of fresh berries topped with a Catalan Cream, then a plate with a tiny, elegant chocolate doughnut and an equally tiny scoop of coffee ice cream. Then coffee and dessert wines were served and we sat back, replete – or so we thought! Moments later, Giorgio appeared with a huge platter of Sicilian pastries,  and before we had finished helping ourselves, he was back with a whole cassata. But the best was yet to come – two enormous platters heaped high with scoops of ice cream of every flavour imaginable. Simple, stunningly presented and of course the most Italian dessert imaginable. Somehow we all found room for at least one helping.

The whole evening had been well planned, smoothly executed and a joy to participate in. At each restaurant we were warmly welcomed and made to feel extra special, and the food and drink were both generous and delicious.

And as we left Locanda Locatelli there was one more surprise for us – each of the restaurants had made up a goodie bag for every winner, as had the Evening Standard, so we had five smart carrier bags to take away, containing goodies such as signed recipe books, sweets, biscuits, cheeses, olive oil and, rather bizarrely, an eye mask. I fear that may have been intended to put over one’s eyes when standing on the scales next morning!

The Strada Loving Challenge

Strada are celebrating Valentine's day by giving you a chance to win a 3 night break at the 4* Hotel Savoia & Jolanda in Venice for 2 - courtesy of Citalia

To enter, go to the app on their Facebook page  and complete the weekly challenges  - everyone who completes at least two of the challenges and scores at least 10 points by the closing date of 26 Feb will go into the draw.

There are several tasks each week and you can choose which to do. Each has a points rating beside it and you need to make sure the ones you choose add up to at least 5 points. You may choose to upload a photo, answer a question  or tweet a message.

It's lovely to see a competition that involves something more interesting than simply giving your name and email address, isn't it?

Top tips for savvy compers

This weekend it will be seven years since  I took over Grape Vine from John Lock, when he retired. Grape Vine's motto is "news, views, tips and clues" so I decided to celebrate the anniversary with a bumper collection of tips.

Over the last few weeks, I have been tweeting a daily tip, with the hashtag #compingtip : you can find them all by searching Twitter for that hashtag, but to make life easier I have brought them all together for you here. While many of them relate specifically to Twitter, most can be applied to all of your comping, however you prefer to do it.

Good luck - and here's to the next seven years!

#compingtip

Always check the rules and instructions. Don't rely on another comper as they may have been in a rush and not checked themselves

Don’t tweet the same thing several times – you could go to Twitter jail or be filtered out of search

Make sure the person running the comp gets an @ mention in your tweet or they won’t know you’ve entered

Check your @ messages and DMs at least once a day to see if there are any winning messages

Follow the person running the comp – it’s good manners and means they can DM you if you win

Check the closing date – it’s no use entering a comp that has already closed

If there’s a link to the rules, follow it. Otherwise look at the promoter’s timeline for info about the comp

Follow as many other compers as you can – if they spot a new comp you’ll be one of the first to know

Don’t let your timeline be all retweets as you may get filtered out of search. Chat a bit as well!

Don’t copy another comper’s entry if there’s a slogan or opinion question – you need to  give your own answer.

Check that the promoter is in the UK or says the comp is open to the UK or you  won’t get your prize

It’s fine to use the retweet button nowadays, in fact if the promoter collects entries by email it’s the ONLY way to enter.

If there’s a hashtag, make sure you include it and  spell it correctly

When a tweet says “enter by 4pm”, it’s no use entering at 8pm!

Say thank you when you get a prize. It’s good manners and lets the person know it’s arrived safely.

Don’t retweet other compers’ entries. It’s  annoying to them and means the promoter probably won’t see your entry.

Have a picture on your profile, not just a Twitter egg. It really does make a difference to how much you’ll win.

Make lists – one for your comping friends, and lists for comps that run regularly on certain days

Look out for scams and hackers – you CAN’T see “who viewed your profile”.

If a promoter tweets about a comp, then doesn’t tweet again for 6 months, the comp isn’t going to happen.

Don’t cheat! Promoters can easily spot  people tweeting from multiple accounts.

Tell non-comping friends and family to select “Hide retweets from this person” on your Twitter page.

If a winner is being picked at a certain number of followers, check their current number to make sure you’re not too late.

Not every comp on Twitter is a retweet comp – make sure you’re doing the right thing.

Interact with the promoters – most of them have a real person handling the Twitter account and they’ll enjoy a chat.

Try to make some free time on Fridays as there are so many one day only comps then – it can be hard to keep up!

Hashtag searches can sometimes help you to find comps. Try #competition #giveaway #bookgiveaway and #comp

It sometimes helps to enter right at the end of a comp, as older tweets can be lost from Twitter search.

Don’t have  a protected Twitter account – nobody will ever know you’ve entered their comps.

If a promoter is based in Ireland, check which part. The Republic has different laws so you probably can’t enter their comps.

Treat over-generous comps with caution. Somebody with 250 followers can’t afford to give as big a prize as one with 25,000.

Don’t tweet more than 100 times an hour or you’ll end up in Twitter jail.

An obvious “comping” email address can count against you. Avoid  the words “comp” and “win” in it.

Don’t claim you’ve done something (liked, followed, commented, subscribed) if you’ve not – you’ll be disqualified.

The Chorley Comping Day is coming

Formidable Friends are holding a Comping Day on Saturday 24th March 2012 at St Joseph's Parish Hall, Chorley.

Tickets are £25 and include a buffet and unlimited teas/coffees and soft drinks.

If you would like to attend, please send a cheque made out to Formidable Friends for the sum of £25 and send it together with a Large 2nd class Stamp, self addressed C5 envelope to

Mrs Anne Marie Martin,
14 Rawlyn Road
Bolton
BL1 5RQ.

Please include your name and contact details and the details of any one else you are applying for. All info will be sent out about 3 weeks before the event

Protected Twitter accounts are no use for compers!

Last week a fellow comper, let's call him @fred,  told me that he'd entered literally thousands of competitions on Twitter and never had a single win. I offered to have a look at his Twitter feed to see if I could see any obvious mistakes.

So off I went to his Twitter page and all I could see was:

@fred's Tweets are protected.
Only confirmed followers have access to @fred's Tweets and complete profile. You need to send a request before you can start following this account.

I couldn't see any of his tweets - and neither could any of the promoters whose competitions he had been entering. So he had entered those thousands of competitions and hadn't stood a chance of winning anything.

When I told him that, he unprotected his tweets and I could then see that he  had tweeted me several messages - questions, comments and even messages of congratulations when I won things, and I had never seen any of them.

This is because if your tweets are protected, ONLY people you have authorised to can see any of  them at all. You can be following other people, you can retweet their tweets, you can send them messages and they will never be aware that you have done it!

Twitter doesn't really make this clear, so you might think that having a protected account stops stalkers and potential spammers from seeing your tweets while still letting you talk to people you follow even if they don't follow you, but unfortunately it doesn't work that way. So if you are a comper and have your tweets protected, you will never win anything.

To check whether you have protected tweets, go to your Twitter page and click on the arrowhead next to your name on the top  right, then select Settings. On the Account tab, scroll down to Tweet Privacy  and make sure the box next to "Protect my tweets" is unchecked. If it is checked, click the box to clear it then click on Save at the bottom.

That's what @fred did - and just five days later he had his first Twitter win.

There is a handy guide to who can see what when you send a tweet which you can see  at Meg Pickard 's Flickr page.

Two lovely Valentines' Day competitions for you

There are some lovely Valentines Day competitions around this year - here are two with brilliant prizes  from some favourite restaurants.

Bella Italia   is running a competition to win a Pamper Spa Day for 2 courtesy of Red Letter Days
Participants will be able to select a 'love card' design from a gallery and write their 'love message' there to post it on the wall of their chosen dearest.
All love notes sent will be then added to their gallery and entered into the competition to win a Pamper Spa Day for 2 people courtesy of Red Letter Days.
Enter on their Facebook page

Café Rouge  Their competition  is to win a romantic break at a luxury Chateau in France
To enter, you need to eat at Café Rouge and enter the details from your till receipt on their Facebook page then answer the question  - you can find the answer by following the link they provide to the Chateau's website.

Both competitions close on February 29th, so you have plenty time to pop into Café Rouge for your romantic dinner.