Are you a superstitious comper?

Winning competitions is usually about luck - even in a competition with an element of skill, there is still some luck involved: you need to be lucky enough to get judges who like your entry better than all the others.

And wherever luck is involved, there are superstitions. So do YOU have any comping superstitions?

Some compers like to send all their postal entries from the same postbox. You may try to argue the logic of it - that one is in  a visible spot where it won't get vandalised, or has the most convenient collection times - but I bet that deep down inside something is telling you that you are more likely to win if you post your entries there.

Other people may like to write with a lucky pen,  kiss the envelope before posting it,  or even walk three times round the post box (TIP: don't try this if it's set into the wall of a building!)

I'm sure lots of us have our own  versions of the well-known good and bad luck superstitions, with lucky charms, lucky days of the week to enter and always hoping to see two magpies rather than one. And although you probably keep the toilet lids in your home closed to keep germs  and smells shut away, isn't there a little voice in the back of your mind telling you that an open toilet lid drains money from the house?

With more modern comping methods, it's harder to be superstitious, after all a computer is just a machine, but do you arrange your desk  a certain way or approach things in a certain order? I know I do  - I have a list of bookmarked competitions to enter, and I feel very uncomfortable if for some reason I have to change the order. And if a Captcha word or security code number is one that has special significance for me, I'm absolutely convinced I am going to win! The other day I entered a competition that closes on December 31st, and the security number was my husband's old Army number. If you've ever been in the forces, or married to a member of the forces, you'll know how that number gets etched into your brain! So I am fully expecting a win from that!

Now we are all modern, rational adults and you might think there is no place in your life for lucky charms and superstitions. But there is a lot of evidence to suggest that the luckier we think we are, the luckier we actually ARE. This was demonstrated very well by Dr. Richard Wiseman in  his book "The Luck Factor"  - for which I was one of the guinea pigs. And while looking for the link to the book for you, I found that there is now a website dedicated to teaching you how to be lucky!http://www.theluckfactor.com/ is the site. I'm going to check it out now and will report back to you in the New  Year if I find anything exciting there.

In the meantime, I would love to hear what comping superstitions YOU have and whether they have ever brought you luck on a grand  scale.

Photographs courtesy of Valerie Dallimore. 

WIN one of the top 5 gadgets of 2011

Life is better ON are giving you the chance to win one of the top gadgets of 2011. The prize will be one of the Top 5 devices of 2011 (iPhone 4S, iPad2, Nokia Lumia, Samsung Galaxy S2 or Samsung Galaxy Tab)  - whichever turns out to be the most popular.

To enter, pop along to their Facebook page then go to the xMas game and pick your favourite device. Click the "Like" button underneath it, and if the one you have chosen is the one with the most likes at midnight on January 8th, when voting closes, you will be in the draw to win it.

The dinner that was a winner.

Back in  February 2000 I won one of the best holiday prizes ever, as a result of entering a competition in the Sainsbury's magazine. The task was to answer various questions about Indian food - a passion of mine - and write a tiebreaker, and I was absolutely delighted to learn I was a finalist.

The final involved staying at the Ritz for a night. I have never slept in a bedroom with a real chandelier before! We were greeted with a bowl of fruit and a freshly-ironed copy of the Evening Standard and left to explore our room. The price list for the mini bar and room service made entertaining reading – thank goodness we were being provided with dinner! When we got back to our room after the meal, not only had the bed been turned down, but a little mat had been placed on the floor at each side, with a pair of bedroom slippers on it. They think of everything, don’t they?

The meal itself was absolutely wonderful. I was pleased to see that it was to be all based on Indian food as my husband’s years in the Brigade of Gurkhas had given me a good knowledge of it. The first course was a soup and the questions were “what is the herb” and “what is the cappuccino made from” – the herb was easy, coriander, as my husband is violently allergic to it so I have to be able to recognise it easily. The cappuccino was impossible – by the time everyone had been served, the froth had sunk into the soup and was indistinguishable from the rest.

Next came a risotto of kedgeree, and as well as the spices and variety of rice, we had to identify the fish. Delicate pink strands in it led several people to say salmon, but I managed to isolate a pink piece – it was tomato! The fish was smoked haddock, unnoticed by one or two because it was undyed.

Then came a lime pickle sorbet – powerfully flavoured and an easy one for everybody.

Next a meat dish which stumped us all – it turned out to be lamb, but had no discernible flavour apart from the spices it had been cooked with. The spices in the accompanying chutney were a challenge and left us all struggling – until I finished eating mine and I saw the plate stained bright yellow. I have bleached turmeric stains off my worktops often enough to recognise them anywhere.

Finally a delicious pudding of cardamom ice cream with a ginger dressing – another easy course for all of us.

Before the pudding we were told that two of us were close on points and well ahead of the others, but didn’t say which two it was. I was hopeful though, as from the conversation after each round I seemed to have had the right answers most of the time. However it was still a surprise and an enormous thrill to be awarded the prize!

The officials left soon after the meal, leaving the contestants and partners to gather together all the half-empty decanters of port and settle down for a long chat. It was great to find that there was no animosity from the runners-up.

The prize was a wonderful gourmet trip to India, staying at hotels  in Delhi, Shimla, Jaipur and Bombay. I'll tell you more about that another tine.

A bit of festive fun

You really don't want to hear anything about comping from me at the moment, do you? Either you've got RSI from trying to enter all the Advent competitions, or you've  decided to take a few days off now and prepare for Christmas. So I thiough I'd share a bit of off-topic festive fun with you.

First of all, something that has been around for many years - I first saw it as a badly Xeroxed copy handed round my husband's  office about 25 years ago, but it still makes me laugh every time I read it.

CHERRY CHRISTMAS CAKE

Ingredients

 1 cup butter                                         1 cup sugar

4 large eggs                                         1 cup dried fruit
1 teasp baking powder                        1 teasp salt
1 cup brown sugar                               lemon juice
nuts                                                     1 bottle whisky

Method

Sample the whisky to check for quality. Take a large bowl. Check the whisky again to be sure it is of the highest quality. Pour 1 level cup and drink.

Repeat.

Turn on the electric mixer. Beat 1 cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add 1 teaspoon of sugar and beat again. Make sure the whisky is still OK. Try another cup. Turn off the mixer. Break 2 leggs and add to the owl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit. Mix on the turner. If the fruit gets stuck in the beaters, pry it loose with a drewscriver.

Sample the whisky again to check for tonsisticity. Next, sift 2 cups of salt or something. Who cares? Check the whisky. Now sift the lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add one babblespoon of brown sugar, or whatever colour you can find. Wix mell. Grease the oven.  Turn the cake pan 350 gredees.

Don’t forget to beat off the burner. Throw the bowl out of the window, check the whisky again and go to bed.

~~~o0o~~~

 

Next, something far more up to date. I first spotted this last year and thought it extraordinarily clever yet relevant to the season   a video on YouTube called "If  Jesus were born in times of Google, Facebook and Twitter" - you can see it here http://youtu.be/8gFYzErcweg

Enjoy!

Mud, mud, glorious mud!

Have you ever had a prize that has become memorable for the wrong reason? A prize I won a few years ago was a perfect example of this.

The prize was a day of pampering and treatments at a small town-centre health club. I felt a bit uncomfortable when I realised that I was the only customer, but I soon got used to having a team of personal staff and had a wonderfully relaxing day. Until it came to the final treatment…….

The idea was to lie in a bath of water mixed with a bucketful of seaweed puree, and in a darkened room be pummelled by intense underwater jets that moved gradually up and down the body. The beautician said that this would make more blood flow towards my heart (from where exactly???) and collect particles of undigested food on the way, which it would excrete through my lymph glands. I kept as straight a face as I could, while surreptitiously checking my armpits for signs of my lunch emerging.

Despite that, the treatment was very relaxing and I was almost asleep when the new trainee beautician, on her first day at work, came to tell me that my time was up.

“Do I need to switch this machine off?” I asked.

“No,” she replied, “the beautician will be along soon to do that,” and departed to let me dress in privacy.

However the underwater jets were stronger than I thought – just as I finished dressing, the ones which should have been pummelling my back started up, squirting half a dozen powerful jets of seaweed slurry straight into the air! I was soaked, and the walls and ceiling were covered in a thick brown sludge – oozing down the walls and dripping off the pictures and mirrors!

Thank goodness it was my last treatment, I couldn’t get away fast enough! And something tells me that the trainee beautician was probably not far behind me!

Image: think4photop / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Don't be a Bad Egg on Twitter

Are you a comper? Do you have an avatar on Twitter, or do you still use the egg picture you were given when you signed up?

If you are still an egg, you might be surprised to learn that it might be reducing the number of competitions that you win. This is because most people on Twitter, including many of those who run competitions, believe that if you haven't personalised your account,  you are

a) brand new to Twitter, possibly having only set up the account to enter that particular competition
or
b) too lazy to change it, in which case why should they make the effort to give you a prize
or
c) a spammer - all those "throwaway" accounts that send you the dodgy "Free Starbucks gift card" and "Free iPad contest" tweets have egg avatars.  Spammers with egg avatars are getting into such a problem on Twitter that many people hit the "Block and report spam" button as soon as  they see a tweet from an egg, so you could be a genuine person and find yourself blocked.

Now I'm not saying that everyone takes that attitude, but why not take a few minutes to make sure that NOBODY ever deletes your entry just because you look like an egg?

Not everyone want to show their face to the world, so here are some ideas for pictures you might use.

• a picture of something you would like to win. A lot of compers believe this can bring them luck - why not give it a try?
• a picture of a family pet.
• one of your holiday photos
• a close up of a flower
• something relevant to the current season - for instance a Christmas Tree or the Easter bunny

Have fun thinking of something. Try to make it something that will make your tweets instantly recognisable, so everyone will know it is you.  Don't choose a copyright image, such as a Disney character or a photo you've seen on somebody's blog, without permission from the owner.

To change your avatar, log in to your Twitter account and go to the arrowhead to the top right, by your name. Choose "Settings" from the drop down menu then go to the "Profile" tab. Use the Browse button  to choose a picture from your computer,  and once it appears in the box, click "Save" at the bottom of the screen. It may be a few minutes before your tweets start to show up with your new picture, and you may need to send a few tweets, but once it starts to appear, you won't be a Bad Egg any more!

Win Strictly Live tour tickets!

If you are a fan of Strictly Come Dancing - and I know that a lot of you are - you'll be pleased to learn that Hotels4U are giving you a chance to win tickets to see the tour next year. Shows are to be held in London, Birmingham, Nottingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow, Cardiff, Dublin and Belfast. One lucky person will win a pair of tickets to their choice of venues on the tour.
To enter, you will need to like their Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/hotels4ucom then click on the "Win....." button in the left hand menu and  answer one simple question.

But hurry! The competition closes at 11am on Monday December 12th.

And on the 13th, they will be launching a "12 Days  of Christmas" competition, so look out for that too.