Luck, Loot and the London Sewage System

When I was a kid I can remember looking with some interest at a large tartan teddy bear, and almost feeling his indignation at being second prize to an even larger basket of fruit in a draw at a local church's summer fair. With an astonishingly unshakeable faith that I was going to take him home, I paid for a number. Even more astonishingly, I actually won the object of my desire on that single ticket. Far from being treated with the reverence my first ever prize deserves, McTavish now lives in terror in the untidy twilight zone that is my daughter's bedroom.

Strangely enough, this fete-ful incident didn't exactly ignite the comping spark in me. Oh sure, I've entered the odd competition over the years, and won some of them too - a pond liner and fountain pump for the garden, a mobile 'phone, a tenner from a 'top ten' type competition in the local paper, and on one occasion the neighbourhood mums still talk about, I even managed to embarrass myself by winning all three baskets of fruit on offer at our school Christmas Fayre. It wasn't a fix, girls - honest!

As a lager lover, the five pints of the stuff that I won in our local boozer would have gone down well too, had I not been seven months pregnant at the time. With hormones raging, I inwardly seethed as my husband drank the lot. Sweet revenge came a couple of weeks ago when I slept on blissfully unaware that he'd been dragged prematurely from a lie-in to collect another prize from the postman - five floating candles. To say that he was underwhelmed by this experience would be putting it mildly. Well, you've gotta take the rough with the smooth I say, and he did make the very most of that beer.

Then on holiday this year, I met an amazing couple who were positively comping mad. Such was their obsession, the telephone number of their regional radio station was even listed among their BT 'friends and family' numbers. They were lovely people, living on a limited income, but as a result of their wins never had to buy a birthday or Christmas present and still managed a holiday a year. Prizes ranged from t-shirts, gadgets and weekend breaks, to pocket-money toys and books, including a bizarre sounding volume on the London sewage system.

This was enough to fire my enthusiasm, and unlike them, I had the benefit of being on-line. When we returned home, I searched the 'net and found my real inspiration, the newsgroup uk.rec.competitions. I'd recommend this as a first port of call to anyone interested in competitions. The attitude of the subscribers is usually helpful, fair and generous - very Walton's Mountain but without the schmaltz. I make my first pit-stop of the day here, where we all try to post details of the competitions we've found, very often with the answers to the questions needed to win them. It's also worth remembering that competitions are usually run to promote something else and some useful discoveries can often be made here, the front-runner for me so far being the posting introducing 'dooyoo', with their competition paling into insignificance at the side of what the site has come to mean to me since.

Next stop is www.tombola.co.uk for their scratch-cards and suchlike (haul so far - a tenner on the associated Lycos 'fetch' game), and www.bananalotto.co.uk, where I regularly win 50p prizes, and even a fiver once (it all adds up, you know!) Then it's on to www.freemoney.fm for the chance to win a thousand dollars daily for filling in a brief survey. No luck here yet, but I do know of people who have won. Also compulsory is a visit to www.loquax.co.uk, if only for a quick gander at their 'comping calendar', giving details of competitions due to close that day. All this doesn't take nearly as long as it sounds, and there's always time to do just one more…

It's not just on-line activities that are dominated by comping either. Back in the real world, shopping takes twice as long as I scout around for new competitions featured on packaging or entry forms, or the last item needed as a qualifying purchase. I do stop short of dogfood or catfood competitions however, as we have neither, and I think even with my dubious line in cooking the family would notice a strange taste in the bolognaise.

It's been two months now since I decided to give comping some serious attention, and now hardly a day goes without the post bringing another prize. Among other things, I've had t-shirts, CD roms, books, chocolate and a personal attack alarm. Just the other day I had a 'phone call from the iBrax website, to say that I'd won a 14" portable telly. For some reason, the 'dead chuffed' feeling kicked in on overtime on this one. I was bouncing round the room shrieking and yelling like Zebedee stuck in a lift, when I noticed the kids staring at me open-mouthed. "Don't you think you're going a bit over-the-top on this?" asked one.

Well, it strikes me that fourteen inches is enough to get excited about in anybody's money, and these thrills could all be yours too, so give it a go. Granted, you're going to be up against me and thousands of others, but you've got the same chance as any of us. Soon you'll be trembling with anticipation at the sight of the postman, and dreaming of winning cars, cash, holidays, and that most sought-after of prizes, the book of the London sewage system.

Advantages: The thrill of the chase, hundreds of pounds in goods and cash for nothing, and meeting some very good people.

Disadvantages: The death of the lie-in as we know it, and the possible expiry of an exhausted postman on your doorstep - it's not just the prizes he has to contend with, it's all the associated junk-mail too.