Everyone loves a winner, except Michael Winner, he’s a pompous twat. But winning is ace and it is therefore something we should all experience at some point in our lives. Except the losers out there. Because without them, there couldn’t be people like me and it’s best not to give them false hope. That’s just cruel.

This desire to ‘win’ is why it’s so tempting to enter a competition when you are absolutely, positively, stone-cold 100% certain you know the correct answer. Like the kid at the back of the class waving his arm as high up in the air as possible, willing the teacher to look his way, it is an almost irresistible draw to let everyone know how clever you really are. Or rather, how clever you think you are.

Which is what the TV stations are relying on when they have their thinly-veiled cash collection exercises, otherwise known as text ‘competitions’. For some reason they seem to think that we’re all stupid, and are willing to spend the price of a lottery ticket to win a ticket to a World Cup football match, when the odds of success are probably nearing the 14 million to 1 you’d expect on the lottery.

The reason the odds are so high? Because everyone, and I mean everyone, will know the answer, and will presumably text in as a result. Perhaps an example would better illustrate this? (more…)

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