CAN YOU BUY AN ENTIRE CHESS SET IN A
PAWNSHOP?
USELESS TIP:
DON'T DWELL ON YOUR FAILURES. JUST ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE A LOSER, AND MOVE ON.
First,
I must start with a bit of sad personal news.
I came home today to find all my doors and windows smashed in and
everything gone. What sort of sick
person does that to someone's Advent calendar?
Well,
we’ve come to the end of another season which, like our competition, went down
to the wire. No-one dominated the F1 driver’s championship and no-one dominated
our competition, even if the same teams regularly appeared at the top and
bottom. So,
how much did we raise for charity and who won the personal prize from the
additional £1’s? In spite of the number of entrants being down on the
previous two years due to the recession and the continued ‘restructuring’ at
Eaga plc - I refuse to call it Carillion Energy Services as they have not been of
service to anyone previously employed by Eaga - we had the magnificent total of
146 teams entered, and I managed to extract the entry fee from 140
of them. Those who didn’t pay have
disappeared off the radar, presumably because of the aforementioned
‘restructuring’. In spite of the reduced
number of teams entered, the amount that will be donated to charity this year
is almost the same as last year, mainly due to the magnificent generosity of you,
the entrants, many of whom chose to donate more than the basic entry fee for
charity or entered multiple teams. My
heartfelt thanks to everyone who went above and beyond for the sake of others
less fortunate than us.
So,
who were the winners, which charities have benefited from their generosity, and
who won the additional £1 entry fee personal prize? Those deserving of
praise, please stand and acknowledge the applause from your peers. Those deserving of embarrassment, please look
away now.
Before
I give the final overall places report I would like to mention some of the
highlights – and lowlights – that have been enjoyed by some of our idiotic
collective this season. First we had 20 races that produced 19 different winners,
with only Rupert Murdoch Will Ruin F1 and Tiggywiggy winning two
each…lucky devils. At the other end we
had 17 different teams that came last in a race, with See What Alcohol Does To You? and
Lee
(Stoney) Stonehewer both doing this twice, showing that some people
shouldn’t be allowed to breed. There is
also an honourable mention for The Leg Ends, the only team to come
both first and last in a race this season…the crazy mixed up fool.
The last honourable mention of
this seasonal review is for the person that guessed closest to this laps total,
this being Jason Young with his Verbalkint team, with his guess of 25,193 laps.
The actual total of all of the laps was 25187, only six less than his
guess. If only he had used the same
crystal ball to select his teams.
In the Battle of the Genders the girls took
sympathy on the men, allowing them to win by 501 points to 490, reinforcing the
men’s view that a woman’s work is never done because they don’t get up early
enough. However, the girls still won the
overall competition by 7920 points to 7910, reinforcing their view that when sex isn’t involved men have
an attention spam smaller than most bacteria. Finally, anyone who believes that men are the
equal of women has never seen a man trying to wrap a Christmas present.
So, who has finished the season in a
blaze of glory and who has been shot down in flames? All of the bottom ten occupants are
delinquents already known to the authorities, and they have returned to the den
of iniquity for a dose of reality before they compile their Christmas presents
wish list for Santa. In 137th place
with 323 points we have Paul Szomoru looking very sad at
this performance, which is most appropriate for someone whose surname means
‘sad’ in Hungarian. In 138th place
with 301 points we have Merlions, our Singapore flyer
plummeting to earth again. In 139th
place with 288 points we have Dirty Leeds, two words you never
hear in the same sentence today, just like you’ll never hear the words ‘Lewis
Hamilton’ and ‘MacLaren’ in the same sentence again. In 140th place with 287 points we
have
CaspAir Racing, who is happy that he’s not being sectioned under the
Mental Health Act for his performance this season. In 141st place with 279 points we
have
Stephen Neild, who is happy that he’s not being castrated to prevent
him from breeding for his performance this season. In 142nd place with 267 points we
have LUFC
Andy who now believes he has less chance of picking a winning team than
of the Vogon’s coming along and destroying the planet to make way for an
intergalactic highway. In 143rd place
with 253 points we have John Casement who loves life in Japan, but the only
yellow people I trust are the Simpson’s.
Occupying the inverse podium of
shame, in 144th place with 192 points we have Lee (Stoney) Stonehewer,
who, in return for a season of performance so bad, doesn’t even deserve a
ceremonial death by tigers. In 145th
place with 188 points we have Blast From The Past, who has found
out that the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off because of
budget cuts. In 146th and
last place with 161 points we have Clueless Aussie who, it is rumoured,
once had a boyfriend with a wooden leg, but she broke it off.
Our decadent decade this time has two new debutants;
still, better late than never. In 10th
place with 661 points we have Nick's No Hopers who often breaks
into song because he can't find the key, and who I had the pleasure of annoying
on a daily basis when he worked with me…well, someone had to do the work. In 9th place with 676 points we
have
David Parkin showing that this Doctor’s sonic screwdriver is still
working well. In 8th place
with 677 points we have Henry Crun who once fell into an
upholstery factory but is now fully recovered. In 7th place with 683 points we have Ava Honora
regaining some honour by finishing with a flourish. In 6th place with 688 points we
have
Colin Potts, a Fantasy F1 virgin this season with a performance worthy
of Mary Magdalene. In 5th place with 690 points we
have
Verbalkint signing off in style with his best performance of the season
but still failing to hit the heights he hoped for. In 4th place with 699 points and making his seasonal debut we
have
JCs Superstars, who has kept his light under a bushel all season, i.e. finished
nowhere interesting, and now bursts onto the scene with more shocking impact
than a fat lass on a Parisian haute couture catwalk.
We
have a first for our podium squatters this time. In joint 3rd place with 701 points
we have the Siamese twins of Wide Castores Abiertas and Wideopen
Beavers, two teams that have the same name, albeit in different
languages, with the same score from the same entrant. Finally,
with 720 points our winner is Charlton's Chumps, winning a race
for the first time, so he deserves to bathe in ass’s milk.
The inmates at the bottom are as
exposed to humiliation as a snowman in winter.
In 137th place with 6311 we have Alright Here? who is
alright now that the season is finished and the embarrassment will stop. Dropping to 138th place with 6261 points
we have Blast From The Past, who is sick of people mocking his lack
of height and wishes he had higher elf esteem. Dropping to 139th place with 6037 points
we have Lee (Stoney) Stonehewer, who gets enough exercise by just pushing his luck. Still in 140th place with 5584 points
we have From Marussia With Love, feeling less loved than Stalin in a
gulag. Remaining in 141st place
with 5310 points we have Erik The Elephant, evidence
that everyone has the right to stupidity some people abuse the privilege. Static in 142nd place with 5247 points
we have Donnelly's Danglers, who says that age is only important if
you're cheese or wine.
The occupants of the inverse podium are
now entombed there for posterity. In joint
143rd place with 5030 points we have And In Last Place! and Bottom
of the Barrel, a couple who will never be auctioneers because they have
to know Lots. In 145th place
with 5004 points we have Last Man Standing, who is perfectly
suited for a career in the demolition industry because he’s left a trail of
destruction behind him. Finally, still
in last place with 4929 points we have See What Alcohol Does To You?, alias
Kevin Nicol, who wins the booby prize of £58.55 for coming last and suffering nine months of abuse, much like a pregnant woman's body. Kevin recently went to Debenham’s to get his long
suffering wife, Gill, a Christmas present.
Always short of money, he thought long and hard about what that
present might be. Unable to decide,
Kevin went to the cosmetics section and said to the sales girl, 'How about some
perfume?' She showed him a bottle
costing £75. 'Too expensive,' muttered
Kevin. The young lady returned with a
smaller bottle for £50. 'Oh dear,' Kevin
groused, 'still far too much.' Growing
rather annoyed at Kevin’s meanness, the sales girl brought out a tiny £10
bottle and offered it to him. Kevin
became really agitated. 'What I mean', he whined, 'is I'd like to see something
really cheap,' so the sales girl handed him a mirror.
To compensate for this Kevin has decided to donate his booby prize
money to the Mick Knighton Mesolothemia Fund.
Gill’s Auntie Anne and Chris Knighton both lost their husbands to this
disease, and they were at Buckingham Palace last month to collect an MBE for
Chris as this charity has now raised £1m for research - http://www.mkmrf.org/2012/11/chris-knighton-receives-mbe-from-the-queen/
At the top of the table the names are boringly
familiar to us all. Remarkably, in a tie
for joint 8th place with 9174 points is the strident trident of Ailene
Marshall, Bluebottle and Erik Estrada with their tribute act
to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly,
in that order. Remaining in 7th
place with 9312 points we have Neddie Seagoon, a man who has less
sex in his life than there is in the Levinson report. Dropping dramatically to 6th place
with 9320 points we have Martony Racing 1 who can now get back to the serious business of baling out Spain
the water from his boat in Spain. Remaining
in 5th place with 9400 points we have Bis Bravehearts, a proud Scot
who once found a fly in his whiskey and then grabbed the fly by the throat and
shouted, 'Now, spit out all that you swallowed.' Rising to 4th place with 9501 points,
but just missing the money, we have Do'nut Donnelly who has to be careful with drinking this Christmas
because he got so drunk last year he found himself dancing in a cheesy bar, or,
as his long suffering wife, Angela, calls it, a delicatessen.
Our prize winning podium
occupants remain the same, but not in the previous order, and are pleased to
have fought off the challenge from those trying to get their hands on the
goodies. Dropping
to 3rd place with 9544 points we have Fletch Lives, alias
Malcolm Fletcher, a man not so much born as hewn from a chunk of granite, with
the sensitive nature to match. Mal reaps
the reward for years of perseverance and is donating his prize of £87.83 to Help For Heroes. Dropping off the pinnacle to 2nd
place with 9620 points we have Hercules Grytpype-Thynne, who wins £146.38 for his chosen charity, and is the only team to be in
the overall top ten all season, but still not good enough to win outright. Finally, the champagne, winner's laurel wreath and our congratulations go to our winner
this season, who, with 9655 points, is, amazingly, Eccles, our resident
village idiot, showing that luck beats skill every time, and who wins £292.75 for his chosen charity. In addition, 80 of our gallant band suffered from delusions of
grandeur and opted to pay the additional £1.00 entry fee in the hope of winning
the personal prize, and thus the winner of the personal prize of £80.00 is Eccles, and he is also donating this to
his chosen charity.
For those of you who know me, it will
come as no surprise to find out that both Hercules Grytpype-Thynne and Eccles,
together with all of the other Goon Show named entrants, are the alter egos of me,
Lawrence Connelly, appropriate for someone who is more idiot than idol. Lawrence’s reward for entering eight teams,
in the hope that he’ll get lucky with one, is that he wins combined prize money
for first place and second place of £439.13, which, together with the personal prize of £80.00, gives a total of £519.13. Lawrence
is donating all of this to charity and splitting it equally between three charities,
The Great North Air Ambulance, The Sir Bobby Robson Foundation, and The Crohn’s
and Colitis Foundation. With the benefit
of Gift Aid this will mean that the total of £665.50 donated this year will be worth £831.88 to the chosen charities. This means that over the last nine years,
since I started to charge you the price of a pint for the masochistic privilege
of being abused by me, this little piece of stupidity in the name of fun has
raised £4,320.50 for charity, which with Gift Aid is worth £5,400.63 to the chosen charities. Well done everyone.
My best
wishes to you and your family for a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
I hope that you all stay dry, warm, and safe this yuletide, and I hope to
see you taking part again next year with as many of your friends, family and
colleagues as you can harangue into taking part. In view of the continued uncertain employment
outlook for many people, if you haven’t sent me or have changed your private
email address please send it, or any comments you wish to make, to me at lawrence.connelly@gmail.com and then I’ll be able to invite you to take
part in next season’s competition, which starts with the Australian GP in
Melbourne on 17 March 2013. If you do
not receive an email from me inviting you to take part next season please check
the blog from the end of February next year for details.
So,
that concludes the 2012 season. I’m
pleased, as I feel I ran out of funny things to write around August and the
reports since then have been a struggle to write at times, so I hope the rest recharges
my creative batteries, allowing me to invent new ways to abuse you next year. I hope you have enjoyed the experience this
year and my sincere thanks to you all for your participation this season.
Regards,
Lawrence.
(alias
Eccles, Hercules Grytpype-Thynne, Neddie Seagoon, Major Dennis Bloodnok, Bluebottle,
Count Jim Moriarty, Henry Crun, and Last Man Standing)
