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THE PILGRIM
Right, pay attention at the back. This is important stuff you all need to know, excepting maybe those who already know it, in which case keep quiet for now or find yourselves something useful to do until this is over.
I’m going to let you into a little secret concerning a matter that always seems to crop up at this time of year.
In spite of all that guff about economic meltdown, credit crunches and the good ol’ plastic taking a hammering over the Christmas period, after it was all over the statistical folk decided the shopkeepers had enjoyed a few pretty good weeks trading in the run-up to the feast of St Legless.
In simple language this means droves of us bought presents which we inflicted on other people, not always showing the essentials of good taste or whether the victim actually had any use for whatever they got. I did warn you all about this some time ago, but the figures don’t lie and now we are a nation lumbered with a minor mountain of oddball seasonal gifts for which we have no imaginable use or desire to closely examine.
Fair enough, the charity shops will be soon be so full of unwanted gifts they can’t get the doors shut at night, leaving plenty of the stuff not readily suitable for them. It is OK to sling most of the non-perishable stuff into the loft, but sooner or later the accumulation of breadmakers, foot spas, etc. will bring the upper floors of your castle down around your ears, and I very much doubt if the insurance chappies would stump up for such folly.
Here’s the interesting bit. The great British public have evolved a sure-fire way to shift a lot of unwanted gifts, so long as they have not been mucked about with too much.
No use thinking in terms of a box of chocs, less the ones you like most, or a bottle of plonk that shows signs of being seriously sampled. Don’t go for the old dodge of topping up the bottle with water, and certainly not vodka, although with French wines it can actually improve the taste at the expense of the personal wellbeing of the imbiber.
Now, it’s all beginning to look as if the old boy has really strayed off his track this time, and to a degree you are quite right. So, veering back on course, I now come to the nitty-gritty of this week’s effort (at last!).
I speak indeed of that wonderful tradition without which no social gathering is complete – the raffle. All you need is a couple of books of cloakroom tickets and a box from which to draw the lucky numbers and you are in business.
It is a good policy to ask everyone likely to be at the gathering to bring one prize, although it should be broadly hinted that more would be acceptable to offset any shortfall arising from the miserable devils who bring nothing and just grin, excusing themselves with pathetic tales of forgetting or not being at the shops.
Their problem is more likely to be that the only things they wanted to bring are items won in previous raffles and there will be too many people present who will recognise these prizes, usually because they’re working the same trick. Not to worry, sooner or later some hapless twerp will win a rather dog-eared box of bath salts that can turn his or her tub into a reasonable copy of a sheep dipper, although its effect on sheep scab will be largely notional.
If you are an unfortunate individual lumbered with the job of organising the raffle, take heart. With a deft sleight of hand you can control the choice of prizes, making sure that those you don’t care too much for are lumbered with the lacklustre stuff, while it will be your best mate who wins the only bottle of single malt in the draw on the basis that next time you go round to his house he will pour you a liver-crippling dram of Highland proportions.
By the time you have drawn the tickets down to the dwindling remainder, a few clever so and sos will be asking for the prize to be drawn again if they get wind of what it is.
A septuagenarian bachelor is not going to be terribly impressed to win a three-pack of fishnet tights … err, sorry, I’m not so sure about that one, but you get the idea.
The real trick is not to reveal what the prize is until the sucker has started waving his tickets about in the hope of getting booze, fags or even a frozen chicken a week past its best-by date. Again, if you are the organiser, don’t forget to mark each gift beforehand so you can tell straight away how many times it has been presented as a prize – it is quite likely you will invert maybe a box of sugared almonds, only to discover half a dozen similar marks if it has done the rounds for a while.
So there you are, another of the Pilgrim’s secrets is out in the open at last. I quite often run the raffle in various places and do my best to be fair, above board and take great care to ensure everyone gets a fair chance – given the character of the punters at my usual raffle venue, it has to be that way to avoid getting lynched.
Nevertheless, it is always good practice to do the draw fairly close to the exit – you never can tell with these things Good luck – you might need it!
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Weather for Selkirk
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
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Temperature: 10 C to 20 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: North east
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