How I Met Monty
Stupid bets, you say? I've made a few of 'em. Most of these come about drunkenly between me and my friends, when my decision-making prowess (not great at the best of times) dwindles to Corbett-esque proportions.

The majority of these are normally settled through a text to our good friends at the Texperts, whose word is taken as gospel in drunken disputes, despite them having been subsequently proven wrong on numerous occasions.

The frequency of these bets has led to our group developing standard betting units; bets are not deemed valid unless they are for:

a) 80p (which must be referred to as "point eight of a sheet" for the bet to count);
b) A pie (filling and supplier decided at victor's discretion); or
c) £300

These units have been carefully developed over time, and no-one is really sure of the origins of most of them. The one time an exception was allowed was when I lost my skeleton in a bet regarding our local takeaway.

*makes mental note to update will accordingly*

Anywho, the story begins last summer in Dublin. When we're abroad we don't just like to do the usual sightseeing rubbish, we tend to try to immerse ourselves fully in the local culture. So, being Dublin, we'd decided to spend the entire weekend in the pub.
Usual apologies for casual racism

On the Saturday, we were working our way around the windy streets, before settling in a lovely little establishment called the Hairy Lemon (like my Grand National bets, I like to choose my pubs entirely based on how funny their name is). Imagine my delight to walk inside and find live coverage of a pre-season game of my footy team.

The conversation inevitably turned to football, and the upcoming season. Alcohol levels had reached the point where our confidence in our respective teams' chances for the forthcoming season had crossed from the realms of realism, sashayed obnoxiously through optimism, before settling into blind faith.

For those interested in football, I'm a Villa fan, whereas my friends support Bolton and Sunderland respectively - my blind faith was marginally saner.

Inevitably, drunken machismo took over, and the Boltonian (I shall call him Scott, for that is almost his name) and I were betting on whose team would finish higher in the forthcoming season. I was quite hungry by this point, and so started the betting reasonably, at a pie.

"Fook that, sunshine - it's three hundred or nowt".

With 8 pints of Dublin's finest inside me, and - albeit to a lesser extent - with logic on my side, I accepted.

Waking the next day to the realisation that the odds were stacked in my favour, I offered Scott the choice of either rescinding the bet, or lowering the stakes. However, his machismo hadn't left the same door by which his hangover entered, and he refused, letting me know I was "not getting away with it that easy, mate".

The season progressed, and my team built a comfortable lead, to the point where I stopped worrying about that bet, and started making other bets (all to be settled by the Texperts). I won't go into too much detail about those, but the findings can be summarised as:

- Oasis' The Masterplan does count as a studio album
- penguins grow to a maximum of 3 feet tall, NOT 6 feet (I lost that one); and
- a badger would win a fight with a dwarf, unless the dwarf had a weapon

We had always said that the football bet would be paid up in full when it became mathematically certain. Despite a prolonged attempt by my team to throw away the lead, this moment came when I was away from home on a business trip.

Obviously, I took the opportunity to ring home and celebrate graciously. I think I probably pushed it a bit far by demanding the money in crisp £5 notes - "it'll look like more that way". How wrong I was...

A week or so later, I get back from a (heavily delayed) flight at 7 in the morning, and walk into my room. Expecting nothing more than maybe some post and my beautiful, comfortable bed, I was instead greeted by...

A 6-foot penguin, literally pissing money on my floor.

*rubs eyes, squints a bit*

Actually, it was a 6-foot cardboard cutout of a penguin, pissing 1p coins onto my floor. As a way of gaining revenge for losing the bet, Scott had decided to pay me in 1p coins (30,000 of the fuckers), as "it'll look like more that way".

The 6-foot penguin (with penny-pissing genitalia attached) were simply an added extra "for the aesthetics".

A couple of weeks on, and there's still 30,000 1p coins sitting on my floor. I've counted £50 of them into bags, but I think it's going to take the best part of the summer to count them all.

The penguin - which has since been christened Monty - now stands in the corner of my room, as an eternal reminder that when gambling, even when you win, you sometimes lose.

That said, I reckon I've got a sound basis to argue my point on my earlier penguin bet. Now, what pie to choose...

PS If you look at the replies (and - more pertinently - if I can get it to work), you can meet Monty too...
( TheMagicDwarf is back like ballroom dancing, Thu 7 May 2009, 13:06, 11 replies)

Meet Monty

( TheMagicDwarf is back like ballroom dancing, Thu 7 May 2009, 14:28, closed)

CLICK!!
Awesome!

I'm intrigued as to how you guys determined the badger and the dwart bet though?

Also - if you get stuck you can take your pennies to Asda. I'm pretty sure that they have a machine that counts your coppers and gives you notes for a small fee that goes to charidee :)
( DUMBLONDE is a rubber lover girl, Thu 7 May 2009, 15:25, closed)

The badger and the dwarf
The Texperts settled that one - I would like to point out that no dwarves were harmed in the answering of this QOTW.

As for Asda - I was reliably informed that they take 15%. If this is wrong, I may get involved. The other problem with it is the weight - at night, I'm pretty sure I can hear the floorboards groaning under the strain.

Of course, that groaning could just be Monty - we had to castrate him during a household lime shortage the other day.
( TheMagicDwarf is back like ballroom dancing, Thu 7 May 2009, 18:09, closed)

texperts, and the 118 guys
are the definitive source of drunken bet settling.

They were, however, stumped when asked "does a girl cat have a clitoris" (phrased in the singular since we couldn't figure out the plural of clitoris)
(bblgoose, Fri 8 May 2009, 15:54, closed)

if this does not win i will bet my
oh
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Fri 8 May 2009, 16:06, closed)

Thats...
...quite possibly the best thing EVER :D
(Fleximus Rex briefly gave up lurking on, Tue 12 May 2009, 16:43, closed)

Wonderful
*clicks*
( SubCulture Hero ... ... He... .... Comes ... ...., Thu 7 May 2009, 15:01, closed)

Bet you I can count it in about 10 minutes
I'm so confident, I'll see your pie, and raise it to £300.

(checks that his nearest ASDA and its cash counting machine is no more than 200m away)
(MartinB9999, Thu 7 May 2009, 16:19, closed)

absolutely fabbo...!

*clicks damned hard*
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Thu 7 May 2009, 17:20, closed)

Massive click from me!!!
Genius!!!
( skeltonator Needs some new daps., Thu 7 May 2009, 17:38, closed)

Ha!
Great post, matey!
( SpankyHanky, Fri 8 May 2009, 13:38, closed)