Booby Prize

I regularly enter competitions. My entries are entirely impulsive.

There are opportunities every day in pop-ups whilst browsing the internet or attached to those e mails that get through my on-line security measures. Such is their frequency that I just do them automatically and give little thought to making a note of what I have entered.

Perhaps I should realise by now that every entry is actually a full disclosure of my identity to some marketing company who will mercilessly sell these details on to the highest bidder. No wonder I get bombarded by offers of products and services that I cannot recall either needing or expressing any curiousness about.

My most recent competition entry was for the first prize of a two day expedition of my choice with one of the UK's leading mountaineers. To their credit, the outdoor pursuit retailers who were the sponsors did send all entrants notification of the winner and I sincerely hope that Denise from wherever has a lovely weekend.

There are two main forms of competition that I go for.

The first is a straightforward entry that just involves disclosing my name and e mail address. This involves no skill whatsoever. The second is usually a simple multiple choice question basis but again demands little knowledge as the answer is so obvious when two of the three options are downright ridiculous.

I have not, to date, won anything at all.

I exclude the £100 voucher sent to me by a national clothing retailer from winning a regional raffle on the basis that it was not a real competition. I just had to buy something and post off the entry form. It was however the means by which I had a nice brand new suit in which to attend my father's funeral.

I am aware that some people do make a nice living out of a professional approach to competitions and there are magazine publications which highlight which have the best odds to come away with a prize.

I have always wanted to win a trolley dash around a supermarket or be showered in confetti at my local Tesco as the millionth shopper but such things happen to other folks and not me.

Some winners are unaware of having entered a competition .

Take as a prime example the recent good fortune of a Russian schoolboy, Ruslan Schedrin, aged 16.

His appears to have been a typical teenage life, apart from a bit of work as a child actor, with studying for exams, mixing with friends and spending a lot of time on his video or computer console indulging in warfare and role playing.

He lives at home with his mother and sister but upon hearing that he had won a prize to mark the 100,000th visitor to a website selling virtual arms for games they have not been able to share in his obvious delight.

They are not so much making a stand against the relentless marketing of conflict and violence amongst the youth of the world but that Ruslan has won a month in a hotel with a female Pornstar.

His mother is in fact furious and feels that a monetary equivalent would be more suitable as a competition prize than a potential temptation and corruptive influence.

There are some issues of questionable morality in the prize offering, for example if the winner had been a married person or a girl, but for the competition sponsors it has presented an unbelievable level of publicity on a global media scale.

Ruslan was initially sceptical and suspicious about the whole thing and was quoted as saying "I didn't believe it at first, I thought it was rubbish" but this sooned turned into sheer joy and excitement.

Although his further comments may have lost a bit in translation from Russian into English they are along the lines of "I saw her and I liked everything, she has got good sizes....and so on. .....everything is boiling inside me".

The young lady concerned, Ms Ekaterina Makarova in her twenties is quite philosophical about the whole situation and appears to have adopted a pragmatic attitude to what could be seen as a very controversial few weeks.

I doubt that Ruslan's mother will relent in her position and give permission and the level of public outcry is mounting but whatever the outcome Master Schedrina will, without doubt, be quite a popular chappie amongst his peer group.