Hoopla - and a lesson in capitalism.
At my primary school, we used to get a day out to the Staffordshire County Show every year - presumably, so that the kids could see what a cow looks like. In practice, it meant that we'd spend a few minutes looking at barns and dung and tractors, and then spend the rest of the day milling around the stalls spending a few pence on junk.

One of the stalls was a hoopla game. On little wooden blocks around a table were various poor prizes - bottles of HP sauce and the like - and one good prize: a crisp five-pound note. The parent who'd been roped into chaperoning a small group of us around the place gave us each the required 10 or 20p that three hoops would cost. I walked up to the oche, looked at the fiver, and tried to work out how I ought to take aim.

I threw the first of my hoops...

... and it landed neatly - no: perfectly - around the fiver.

I was ecstatic: this was the first time in my life that I had had in my hand so much cash - about a month's pocket-money - that I could unequivocally call mine. Nor have I ever been a big spender (and I think I was saving up for a new bike at the time, too); and so I resisted the ample opportunity to spend my winnings on penny chews straight away. And, naturally, at the end of the day, the first thing I said to my mother when I got off the bus was to tell her about my victory.

Was she thrilled on my behalf? Proud that I had decided not to waste my capital on tooth-decay? Possibly. But she hid it well, and told me instead that I should immediately go and offer my fiver to the parent who had lent me the money to enter the game to begin with, since it was morally his.

I learned something about capitalism that day.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 4 May 2011, 9:10, 7 replies)

I should point out
that the parent who had lent me the money refused to accept my winnings - which was minimally decent of him.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 4 May 2011, 9:11, closed)

If the parent had just lent you the 10p,
then repaying the capital, plus a generous 10% interest, making a sum of 11p, would surely have been fairer? And more in the spirit of philanthropic capitalism?
(Bear Pookie The Frankly Challenged. Halloween is coming to town., Wed 4 May 2011, 9:14, closed)

Perhaps...
... but this was the mid-to-late 80s, and philanthropic capitalism was very unfashionable.

Besides: I think that philanthropic capitalism would be a system by which I was allowed a few pence as a reward for helping the owner of capital increase that capital.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 4 May 2011, 10:16, closed)

Well he got a penny out of it.
And you were £4.89 up. Win win I'd say.
Except for the stall holder of course.
(Bear Pookie The Frankly Challenged. Halloween is coming to town., Wed 4 May 2011, 10:33, closed)

Yeah, but it's hardly maximising the return on investment.
The day capitalism embraces the Micawber principle is the day that... um...
Nope. Can't think of an analogy: it just won't happen, as a matter of principle.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 4 May 2011, 10:48, closed)

Congratulations on your dexterity BTW.

(Bear Pookie The Frankly Challenged. Halloween is coming to town., Wed 4 May 2011, 10:50, closed)

shirley you put the stall out of business that day
by winning the Big Prize early on?
(Monkeystrumpet monkey. Monkey, MONKEY!!!, Wed 4 May 2011, 13:17, closed)