My wife won an iPod for me last year.

When I was 13, I was at the bumper cars at the funfair. While I was driving, they had a quiz: identify the song, and you'd win ten tokens. I did recognise the song, and tried to shout to my brother what the answer was (Robert Palmer, "Bas Case Of Loving You"). The arsehole couldn't hear, and so nobody got the prize, because no fucker knew the answer. Except me, and I was driving.

I know, I know. But I was 13, for fuck's sake. What if I did stop my car, ran to the booth, and some other bastard beats me to it with the right answer?

Oh yeah, fuck, nearly forgot. Me and a couple of the other kids at primary school came out top in a poetry compo and got our names painted on the cliffs at Blakeney, a famous North Norfolk beauty spot.

At least, that's what the teacher told us at the time. The more I think about it, the more unlikely it seems. Who's going to get permission to scrawl a load of names on a scenic cliff? And more to the point, how were they going to do it? Dangle over the edge on ropes with a brush in one hand and a pot of red paint in the other? Nah. He must have been winding us up.

Unless, of course, you know better. Anyone remember a visit to Blakeney in the late 80's where they saw names daubed all over the cliffs in 8-ft letters?

I've won two or three. When I was about 12 I won a comp in some football mag (can't remember which one, or what the comp was) and my prize was some football game. This was followed a few weeks later by a letter from someone from Abuja wanting to be my pen-pal. I corresponded with her three or four times, and then got a letter from her saying something about how she'd like to come and live with me in England and could I send her loads of money for her airfare. I wrote back declining the opportunity and never heard from her again.

Back in the 1980s I always used to do the Guardian cryptic crossword on a Saturday, and on the few occasions that I completed it before the deadline I'd send it off. Never won. Once, I couldn't get the Guardian (it didn't always arrive in the shops in mid-80s Ilfracombe) so for some reason I bought the Telegraph instead. Did the crossword, sent it off, and won a £10 book token for my efforts, as well as lots of opprobrium from my family when they found out from friends about my name appearing in the Telegraph.

More recently, a couple of years ago I entered one of those Guardian online comps where you just have to answer a multiple-choice question. Got an email a couple of weeks later saying I'd won, and about a month after that I got a box containing the six or seven short-listed books for the 2006 Aventis Science Books prize. Very nice...

I have mentioned this elsewhere on here, but I'll say it again, especially as I now have a couple of questions about it.

I don't enter many competitions, so I don't win many. Or in fact, any. Ever. Although, over the bank holiday weekend, I got a phone call from 888.com. I'd only ever been on their site, once, because they were showing the draw for the World Snooker Championships. As it was, I didn't watch the draw, but I did enter a competition on there - just a fill your name in and press submit jobby.

The phone call was to tell me I'd won second prize in the competition. I couldn't remember exactly what it was, but I seemed to remember that there was a cue involved in one of the prizes, and I figured that it was probably going to be something I could put on ebay and get £20 for.

But no, it wasn't. It was tickets for the semi-finals and final of next year's World Snooker Championship. The guy on the phone wasn't exactly sure how much (in terms of matches, days or even sessions), but promised I'd be "all snookered out" by the end of it.

He told me to contact 888 if there was any change in my contact details, and that as the tickets aren't on sale until next year, I wouldn't receive anything until next year.

Now, I understand that, but I would have expected an email or a letter of confirmation, but nothing. Should I get in touch with them, or forget about until the tickets turn up or not?

The Horse wrote:

QUOTE:
I posted the winning piece up on OTF. Justin said it was rubbish.

Oh man. How he is missed, eh.

He said the same about my bit in the first Bang. Mind you, that was rubbish.

Has it grown since?

won a Dr Feelgood album and the first Blondie album in a local radio competition...but couldnt recollect entering and was totally surprised when the albums were delivered...though a school mate heard my name given out on air as the winner so it couldnt have been a mistake...

a game of Raving Bonkers from Look-In magazine by identifying pictures of boxers...you moved robots around a boxing ring and attempted to catch the opponent on the chin which lifted their head by means of a wire...

not strictly competitions but had a letter printed in Cor!! comic (Gus Gorilla on the cover is all I remember) for which received 25 shillings and a letter in the NUFC programme (WBA home in September 1978) which was worth £1 ...

Oh yes, I remember my wife winning a CD of some sort in a radio phone on a morning show. I was half-sleeping and mumbled the correct answer, wife heard it, phoned in, got through (incredibly), and won.

I won a magnum bottle of bubbly at a corporate event soon after. We had a bit of a purple patch...

That's too much information, I'm sure.

I won one earlier this year. Sent in a photo of my 'reading space' (which was actually a ground-level photo of me sitting on my bedroom floor in front of my bookshelves) to a publisher's blog, and won 15 books from the catalogue, which includes BBC Books, Time Out guides and others. That was nice.

In 2006 I won tickets to see Jamiroquai at the Mean Fiddler in London (which has a capacity of about 400 or so). Ended up front row centre and got a couple of record covers signed. That was nice too.

One of my friends once won a book on 'Multicoloured Swap Shop'.

Another friend had a period of entering competitions and won the odd weekend away plus various small items. His biggest 'win' was a local radio competition in which the first prize was to meet Belinda Carlisle, who was playing locally. Before meeting Ms Carlisle he was taken to one side and told that she was very shy and didn't like talking to strangers. He asked her one question (the only thing he could think of) which was where she had played the previous week. She replied "I don't know".

I've won loads of competitions. Too many to list and remember.

I won EIM in a poker game.

Yeah, that's true. You should have seen the first prize.