Christmas number one
Metal Hammer Defender of the Faith award and a Blue Peter badge. That's pretty much it. I still haven't used my badge, hope it gets me into Legoland.
( moogy boobles, Wed 4 May 2011, 1:12, Reply)

My team won a booby prize for coming last in trivia.
One of the prizes was a belt-buckle which was the words 'Ian Moss' (the less famous one from Cold Chisel) in huge letters.

I can only imagine it actually belonged to Ian Moss.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Wed 4 May 2011, 0:56, 2 replies)

I bet my friend £20
that Norwich would finish higher than Reading this year. 1st time I've ever won a bet!
(Jezziah, Tue 3 May 2011, 18:44, 4 replies)

I think I've just won the "It Sounded Innocent In My Head" award
I work in a plumbing shop, yes that is as exciting as it sounds. A plumber (shockingly)came in to buy some exciting plumbing releated stuff for his customer.

The customer phoned to pay over the phone, after taking her details I casually signed off with "ok great and I'll send your plumber and his bits back to you!"

The plumber with a perfect poker face stated he had had enough problems with his ballcock today as it was.

I'm not sure if I love or hate my job.
( TGB checking Off Topic is still shit at, Tue 3 May 2011, 17:54, 2 replies)

Beethoven, alcopops and claws.
Looking back, I've actually been fairly lucky when it comes to crap prizes. There have been a few:

It all started with Beethoven (the film, not the actual composer). My dad's knowledge of rubbish puns enabling me (aged around 8) to answer a question about a 'doggy sounding composer' to win said video from the newspaper.

Hooper's Hooch. A can thereof. A friend and I luck out on the tombola stall at a village fete. Given we were about twelve we thought we were being highly naughty drinking said can. Rank stuff.

Lollipops. Hundreds of them for coming last in our local rural pub quiz. Made up for by my random luck in winning the t-shirt draw every few weeks.

But the crowning moment came in Cleethorpes (probably not too many times those words have been uttered) when I was 21. After feeding the arcades far too much of my hard earned money, I spotted a flaw in the grabbing machine. OK, so the claw might not actually grip (they never do), but I could hook it through the fake bull bars on the cuddly car and cheat. So I did. And won. And probably highly embarrassed my other half at the time with a little happy dance and chant of "IwonIwonIwonIwon".
(Picotee, Tue 3 May 2011, 17:51, 2 replies)

Room 237 of the Overlook Hotel
Absolutely skint, the pair of us.
We'd woken up in the same place and clothes that we'd crashed in/on the night before - only now it was nearly midday, and that meant the pub was open!
We scraped around the back of the sofa, emptied bottles for their 1p and 2p coins, and we just scraped enough for 2 pints - 1 each.
We walked up the pub, bought our pints and sat down in our usual spot.
Shortly, we were approached by one of the bar staff and asked if we'd like to buy a raffle ticket for the Sunday lunchtime draw. One pound per strip of tickets, or 20p each.
After buying our one and only drink each, we had exactly 20p left. The top number on the strip of tickets was 237. Both of us realising the (somewhat imagined - in the book the room number was of course 217) significance of the number, we jumped at the chance.
Sure enough, we won a crate (which could be substituted for a number of draft lagers at the bar as and when the need arose) of lager...which, we of course set about consuming straight away.
A few hours later, and once again we were skint.
That's when we noticed a chap on the fruit machine seemingly winning over and over. Every time he pressed the 'Start' button a few seconds later money (or in this case tokens - which, handily could be exchanged for beer at the bar) would tumble out of the thing. It was at the point where the pair of us were loudly exclaiming our disbelief that the chap came over, deposited a large portion of these tokens on our table, look at us, winked and said, "Don't tell the landlord. I'm a fruit machine engineer", then proceeded to his car where presumably he drove to the next pub to repeat the excersise.
Bonus!
We counted up - about 18 quid in tokens. Another 6-7 beers then! Remember, this was a while ago.
A couple more hours pass, and once again we found ourselves in a position of dire straits, so we started the stagger home.
By this time we were both starving and so asked my friends ladyfriend if there was anything to eat. She replied in the negative, being skint herself and having not been shopping for some weeks.
Just as we were resigning ourselves to an evening of hunger, we heard a 'knock, knock, knock' on the back door. This in itself was quite strange as the only access to the back door would have been through the neighbour's garden.
We opened the door to see the neighbour standing there with a large tray of sandwiches all cut into little triangles, which as we all know, makes them taste better.
She said, "Would you like these? We've just had a party for little [insert generic child's name, I can't remember it myself] and none of them have eaten a thing. It'd be a shame to have to throw them away."
Couldn't get them down us quick enough.
Nothing like that has ever happened to me before that, and certainly not since!
It's forever known as our 'lucky day', and is still referred to now when the drunken reminiscence sets in.
(dchurch bah, Tue 3 May 2011, 17:49, 3 replies)

School Raffles and almost first kisses.
My primary school had a summer fete. Parents only Tombola's where you could win tins of Beetroot, listeria ridden home-made pork pies or that dusty bottle of booze that the rich kids parents had bought back from their annual trip to Puerto Buenos. If you were lucky you got to throw a wet sponge at the headmistress and watch your dad pretend he didn't care if he won the Father's Race while surreptitiously stretching his hamstrings and doing star jumps behind the chicken hut.

And then there was the raffle. A fine collection of cakes and damaged toys and knitting patterns for Giles Brandreth-esque jumpers to be won along with a couple of genuine treasures, including a boxed Star Wars Snow Speeder and football signed by Bobby Moore. So I clutched my tickets in my sweaty six year old hands and hoped that I'd get something good. The first ticket was called and the Star Wars toy was taken. The next person chose the football, a few other prizes went and I was sad. But then my ticket got called, so I trudged up despondently and ungratefully to take my pick of the remaining dregs of so-called prizes on the table, only to brighten up considerably when I saw that still there was an unboxed, well played with but fundamentally undamaged X-Wing Fighter, which I grabbed with glee and ran back to my parents, flying it above my head all the way only to have to turn around and go back to pick something else when straight away the next number called was also one of mine. By now, I didn't care, I was happy, so faced with a table of broken Rubik’s cubes and out of date hampers I would have taken anything, but I was struck by inspiration and picked up the raggedy but sweet looking knitted doll to what I am sure were looks of bemusement and scorn. I then walked proudly over to where my friend Joanna was sitting and gave it to her. And she smiled like I'd never seen a girl smile before, took it and without a word to me proudly showed her Dad, who told her kindly but firmly that she should say thank you to me. And she did. And kissed me on the cheek and over the course of the afternoon became my 'girlfriend'.

She broke my heart two days later when she decided she preferred Richard, mind you.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Tue 3 May 2011, 16:47, 4 replies)

Charlie Brown-esque, White Elephant F A I L
As a generally skint child sometime in the mid 80s, one Saturday myself and a chum were reduced to having to hang around a local church fate for something to do. Yeah alright....It was 5 pee to get in, they had bottles of cola for 10 pee and the moderate excitement of a 'wack the rat' game.
After paying to get in, buying a bottle of shit panda pop Cola and some sweeties; I only had 20 pee left to my name to last me the whole day, so I decided to gamble the last of my cash: on 2 tickets from the white elephant stall. The prizes consisted mainly of the usual crap that mainly old ladies had donated..you know bottles of lavender perfume, hairbrushes that sort of thing but amongst the usual dross was a couple of half decent prizes: a 5 pound record token and a largish box of groceries. I really wanted the record token but was pleasantly surprised when I won the box of groceries-pretty much the 1st thing I'd ever won in my entire miserable existence up until that point..
So off I ran home to proudly show my prize to what I imagined would be beaming and proud parents. Breathless I arrived home and presented my prize to my dad, who took one look at the box of stuff, tutted,went back to reading the paper and pronounced: 'nice one dozy..that's the box of crap from out of the cupboard that your mum donated to the church..shes going to bloody LOVE you.'
She didn't love it either..she moaned about it and threw it all in the bin in front of my face.
( bigmeuprudeboy is using powerpoint or paint...have MERCY, Tue 3 May 2011, 16:46, 1 reply)

I won a meal for two in a raffle...
...but I am far too nerdy and unattractive to have a girlfriend, so I gave it to a work colleague on condition that:

1) He took the girl (from work) he obviously fancied, but had very clearly got nowhere with at the time. Popular opinion amongst the other girls at work was that she wasn't remotely interested, and "that could never happen"
2) If they ever got married, I get to be best man.

Went to his barbecue this weekend, and had quite a long chat with said lady, whom he has now been dating for a couple of years now.

I fully intend to hold him to this promise.
( prince-igor si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses, Tue 3 May 2011, 16:17, 1 reply)

I went on Countdown last May.
Actually, I lost, so that doesn't really apply to this QOTW. I just wanted to say 'I went on Countdown last May'.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Tue 3 May 2011, 16:05, 6 replies)

Jury's just given it's verdict on Ian Tomlinson: unlawful killing
looks like justice is winning - fingers crossed for a prosecution.

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2011/may/03/ian-tomlinson-inquest-verdict-live-blog
(leviticus no longer likes the cut of your gib on, Tue 3 May 2011, 15:49, 6 replies)

I am fucking winning.
Two and a half years ago, it was the first time took a swig from the remains of the previous nights Vodka before I went into work. It wasn't the last.

Two years ago, I found myself unemployed and three months behind on the rent, in debt and spending days in the park with cheap cider so I could pass out in the freezing cold, dark flat where the electricity had been cut off and I was about to be evicted.


Today I am one year and 79 days sober, in a good job, a long way towards being out of debt and just got back from 10 days holiday with the girlfriend that, by the skin of her teeth, managed to keep enough faith in me to not run away screaming as any sensible person should have done.


So yeah, I am fucking winning.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Tue 3 May 2011, 15:39, 18 replies)

i won
the chance to be called Bert a lot on the OT threads...

...joy!
(gavin_millicent, Tue 3 May 2011, 15:26, 1 reply)

Steve Wright's 'Big Quiz'
In 2003, I was 'lucky' enough to be picked as a contestant for the 'Big Show's Big Quiz'
Got through 4 days worth of Quizzes, and amassed a tidy sum of prizes in the end. DVD Player, Mother's Day bundle, Whole stack of DVD Box Sets and so on. Quite a nice haul if truth be told.

Lost the last day as I couldn't for the life of me bring to mind the Author of Robinson Crusoe.

I'll also use this post as an opportunity to apologise to the people of Fakenham, for bringing to the attention of the nation (which was aired) the fact the town was named 'officially' as the UK's most boring place.
( The Great Architect is still waiting for his account to be deleted on, Tue 3 May 2011, 15:05, 2 replies)

As useful as a chocolate record
I won a prize at a funfair booth, sometime around 1980. The prize was any record from a pile of singles, that turned out to be great unknowns by great unknowns... a random selection that was probably rescued from the bins behind the record factory.

But, I managed to find an absolute gem: the "Yorkie" song, an extended version of a song on a Yorkie chocolate advert. At that time Yorkie was big in popular culture (remember "I Like Truckin'"?), and the record sleeve was made to look like the chocolate wrapper. But the really cool part was that the record itself was rectangular! About 200 x 150 cm of brown vinyl, that really did look like chocolate!

Naturally, the music was forgettable, but the record itself was wonderous to behold. I've still got it somewhere.
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Tue 3 May 2011, 14:17, 5 replies)

I won a holiday
I won £1000 to spend on Virgin's holiday site... I don't even remember entering the competition and really had to check loads that there were no catches.

But it turned out to be legitimate.

I'd just split up with my long term gfriend and so I spent it all on a holiday for me on my own to San Francisco where I had a few internet friends.

It was only when I landed that I realised I was entirely alone in a foreign country. But my internet friends were/are awesome and I had the best time ever! I was taken places, fed nice food and I got terribly drunk and massively stoned. On my 1st night I met Randy, Brandy and Clay, never has there been a more American trio.

And I didn't get bumraped at any point.

win!
(Ross McBingobangobongo bingobangobongo, Tue 3 May 2011, 14:13, 9 replies)

Back in 1989...
...KitKat had a compo on their wrappers - send the wrapper and the name of an album you want (or nominate something from the current chart as a substitute) and if you were a winner then you'd win the album.

I wanted Joy Division.
I got the Batman soundtrack.
(mcnelson, Tue 3 May 2011, 13:48, 2 replies)

I won a rucksack
At the last royal wedding (I'm sure there have been loads in between but people seem to think that Chaz and Di were the last ones to have a proper royal wedding...) I went to a fancy dress thingy, I was wearing a clown outfit and I won a rucksack. It was green.

I didn't win anything on Friday so I guess my lucky streak ended there.
(Ross McBingobangobongo bingobangobongo, Tue 3 May 2011, 13:46, Reply)

While we're on the subject of winning...
Who else is looking forward to the special Olympics next year?
(The Archduke of South London I'm in your Girlfriend eating her organs, Tue 3 May 2011, 13:45, 12 replies)

Church Raffle
I won a Kenny Rogers album.

I am made of win
(EvilMeister, Tue 3 May 2011, 13:45, 1 reply)

Single greatest thing to happen ever
I was attending the graduation ceremony of a friend. The usual poncing about by academics, and speechifying etc. Some international esteemed astrobiologist or something... can't remember.
Anyway, it came time for a student to speak, he'd won the school medal for best handwriting or something terribly important, I think he was from Psychology.
Anyway, I don't wish to digress, he starts his talking, probably about his research project on dressing rats as ninjas and seeing if they run faster through mazes. About 3 minutes in, he says 'Oh, my, I think I'm about to faint'. And then he did.
It took just that moment too long enough that you realised, that they all thought he was joking, which made the joy all the greater. Not only did we see a man faint, which is funny enough, but we saw a room of people think that he was not really fainting...

Total Win.

and yes, he was ok. It was just fainting, not no stroke or something.
( Sextant goes to him is emotionally erect, on this day, Tue 3 May 2011, 13:31, Reply)

Out of the millions of sperm, I was the fastest.
First and only time I've won a race.
( TitanLX, Tue 3 May 2011, 11:57, 4 replies)

FIVE DAYS OF SOLID WORK...
...and on winning the Independent On Sunday crossword after years of entering I got a bottle of olive oil. Fuck socks - Sunday Mail readers got £150 that same weekend for correctly indentifying that "Capital of Britain (6)?" was LONDON while I was still trying to work out how to make the letter "B" fit 6 spaces.
I stopped doing crosswords after that.
(beaverwastemanagement a real company. I want to work for them!, Tue 3 May 2011, 10:53, Reply)

I'm a lottery winner!
I've won the lottery 6 times this year. Worst prize: £6.80. Best: £18.60.

I only put on a cou0ple of quid a week, so I'm in profit by £4.

Go me. I'm thinking of retiring on that.
(ScousersPet, Tue 3 May 2011, 9:30, 4 replies)

Mrs Vagabond maintains that she's only going out with me for a bet.
We're getting actually married in August.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Tue 3 May 2011, 9:26, 2 replies)

Weekend in Milan
I downloaded an app for my phone a couple of years back to update me on Premier League scores etc.

Decided after a day or so (and before I'd need to pay for the service) that it wasn't what I wanted so deleted it.

Couple of weeks later I got a call saying I'd won a trip for 2 to Milan for the weekend. "Yeah, yeah," I said, "post me details then."

Sure enough, trip for 2 to Milan, 3* hotel, tour of the San Siro :)

And I got a picture I took of the San Siro published in the Milan City Guide.
( snee held his breath since, Tue 3 May 2011, 9:00, Reply)

I play the lottery ...
yes yes, I'm a chump. I realise the likelihood of winning is astronomical. I also realise that the lottery is a better bet than my bloody pension fund.

Anyway, one slightly hungover Sunday, I checked the numbers.

We had all 6.

Across 2 lines. Fucksticks. Those 6 winning numbers equated to two Division 5 wins, which yielded us $42. I could hear the recently deceased Saint Douglas laughing gently at me.
(Que?, Tue 3 May 2011, 5:36, 7 replies)

She caught my eye one cold cold night in November.
I had won a competition, I was in London enjoying my prize. The challenge had been to design a new method for honey production. My revolutionary idea was, in the production process, to replace bees with ants, ants which had been genetically engineered to be the size of echidnas. We would replace their antennae with new, specially designed with bespoke DNA, honey producing glands which I had, after much careful thought and mastication, named 'jackbones'.

My concept had won favour with the judging panel, a panel composed of the finest minds in the field. DNA was being sequenced, farms were being designed and I was basking in a glow that only the truly gifted enjoy.

My prize was a tour of Broadcasting House- that great symbol of excellence in journalism, of independence of spirit and clarity of purpose. A prize picked to mirror the very talents that enabled me to dream of jackbones and will them into their own existence.

I was ushered in to a hushed studio- the cameras with their ever-seeing, unblinking eyes focussed on a single spot at the end of the vast room, a spot inhabited by a being so otherworldly that I could not look away for fear that my soul would seep out of my pupils and congeal around my sasquatch feet.

Our eyes met for a moment and I found myself staring into dark, dark eyes that reeked of the grave. The pitch depths of these orbs spoke to me of terrible things; such terrible things, hewn from black marble as if in perverse worship of the very Beast itself.

She fixed me with her gaze, and with a voice as rich as the blood of Seebohm Rowntree, she began to speak. Such words I heard that I felt my blood run cold as it near froze in my veins. Words I had heard in fevered nightmares from which I would wake weeping and shaking.

"Good evening, I'm Fiona Bruce and I'm sitting on the luckiest chair in Broadcasting House".
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Tue 3 May 2011, 1:30, Reply)

unintentional headbanging
many years ago, a pub not far from my home would have spin-the-wheel contests on a saturday night. the main prize was a bottle of wine, but the wheel could also land on such things as broomstick aerobics, worm dancing and suchlike. if you span and got one of these, you had to perform the task and won a voucher for one free drink.
one saturday night, utterly hammered, i decided to give it a try. i staggered my way onto the stage and faced the wheel.
now, i'd seen other girls doing this, but they all seemed to simper and giggle, before giving the wheel a puny little spin.
i wasn't going to do that, oh no.
i grabbed the wheel with both hands and gave it a mighty yank. unfortunately, this involved me bending down as i yanked, which meant that i was struck rather forcefully on the head by one of those spoke things that you pull the wheel with.
it hurt like a bastard. seeing stars, i staggered about a bit more, clutching my head. once the colour had returned to his face, the d.j(who ran the spin-the-wheel) hurriedly gave me the bottle of wine, despite the wheel landing on broomstick aerobics. definitely a win there and fuck it, i was going to have a sore head the next morning anyway!
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Mon 2 May 2011, 22:44, Reply)

Winning Lolipops
When I was a kid I had a thing for cola lollipops. Not the fancy chupa-chups that you get these days. These had more of a bite! Anyway, there was a competition run way back then. Simple enough, there was a dot on the wrapper and if you opened it and found a 0 you got another free, and a 1 you got zilch.

Or at least thats the way the poor shop owner thought it worked. His wife arrived home and corrected him on my 20th something lollipop.
( dazbrilliantwhites has been meaning to change this..., Mon 2 May 2011, 22:27, Reply)