Irish Ebay

HAS EVERYONE SEEN THIS ad doing the rounds on Irish ebay?

FOR SALE: MEDIAEVAL TORTURE INSTRUMENTS ...

... while stocks last ...

!!

Waah-waaah!!!

...

I did have the entire back of an envelope scrawled with poetic postings but left it behind so don't know what I'm going to say.

Well I oughtta describe the state of my house. Laundretta's lying blotto on the entrance hall floor. Had to tell my dealer to wait outside & I'd come to his car. (Didn't add details about the drunken hooker lying there: he thinks my house is ridiculous enough. It was his runner who arrived at 7.30 am one time in the middle of my infamous month-long crack binge to find me barefooted wandering the street thinking I was stuck in a Magic Roundabout episode and people with baseball bats were out to rob me. This guy (the runner, not the dealer) took one look at the chocolate milkshake I was drinking one other morning, sniffing disparagingly: "that's got alcohol in, hasn't it??!?". Yes, I replied to his undisguised disgust. Just as I handed over £40 and he handed back three bags of Afghan brown heroin and Peruvian crack cocaine ... (The ridiculous hypocrisy of this situation did not hit me until much later ...)

My Chinese Mouse went for a massive dartabout this early morning. I was lying awake practically all night. Countdown came on. I got nothing better than a five letter word. I am terrible at spelling games but insist on playing them. I'd love to be a contestant one episode. They still have oldskool prizes: a coffee mug, Oxford dictionary and special Countdown biro pen (the kind you can get 500 pieces for £240+VAT if you trawl the character-merchandise type mousemat printing companies in business yellow pages ... The other game I'd go for is (Who Wants To Be A ...) Millionaire though I doubt I'd ever be "fastest finger first" to ever get through to round one. I do at least grasp the MO of the game. Chris Tarrant (or Dynasty's Blake Carrington if you're watching the American version (was that really him? And hasn't the US version been long ago axed? American telly progs never seem to last as many "seasons" as ours do ...) ... anyway what was I dribbling on about...? Oh yeah, the main job of the host after obviously asking the questions is to panic the contestants into using up lifelines when really they know the answer too early in the game so then once they're past the £35,000 mark (the one you "can't loose" because the losing prize money once you get here gets no lower ... if you know what I mean ...) I've seen this happen so often. Also idiot contestants who Ask the Audience something the audience aren't likely to know (eg who was Henry VIII's fourth wife) then go for 50:50 on something with two likely answers and we all know which two will remain on screen oh don't get me going any more. I'm not genuis enough to feel guaranteed to win really anything on Millionaire, I would hope to make it past £16,000 but even that wouldn't be guaranteed. The history questions are the ones that get me ("Where was the Battle of Bannuckburn??"/etc) Another game topping the ratings here (coming to the mighty US of A very soon according to the Sun newspaper) is Deal or No Deal. Let me explain concisely. It's a betting game. 22 would-be contestants hold 22 sealed boxes. These contain amounts of money varying from 1p, 10p, £1, £100, £1000 etc ... to £3000, £5000, £20,000, £35,000, £50,000, £75,000, £100,000 to £250,000. Nobody except the "independent ajudicator" knows what amount is there, least of all The Banker (an important fact to bear in mind: read on). The contestant, who is chosen at random from this 22 basically spends a TV 45 minutes (ie about a half-hour of actual airtime) opening boxes. Bear in mind he has absolutely no idea and not a clue what's in what box so he might say "Linda, box number ten please" and Linda the glamorous granny holding box ten says "good luck Peter" and with a mighty velcro rip and a flourish opens said box, hopefully to reveal 1p, the lower the number the better. (The number revealed isn't won; it's eliminated from the game. You only money from a box you can win is whatever's left in the box you're holding. Or you win money by accepting the Banker's "Deal".) Say the second box contains £100,000 and the third £20,000 the telephone in the middle of set now rings, all goes hushed as presenter Noel Edmunds (who I've always found a faintly obnoxious man) answers. We never hear the Banker's voice. Ever. Or see him. It's a gimmick of the show. Now the Banker makes an offer of say £14,000. The contestant must say "Deal" or "No Deal" to each offer the Banker makes, which will vary according to how many and what big numbers are left and second but just as importantly, how likely he believes you are to settle for how little. His job is to psyche you out. And the boxes continue being opened, big amounts of money now and then dropping out of play to huge oooooze and aaaarrgh!s of the crowd. When eventually you do accept the Banker's deal you have to play on "honestly" opening whatever boxes you've got left until finally your own box reveals what you'd have won if you played right on to the end (only people in their 50s who've paid off their mortgages and don't really "need" the money as much tend to do this. I've seen £250,000 come up in the last box twice in the past week, so it does happen. Odd as it may sound for "a game show with just one question" and considering how you're watching someone playing on pure chance (no hints or clues or anything of that ilk ever come into it: as I said nobody involved in the game, not the box holders, the host or the Banker have any idea what amount is where) this is bizarrely rivetting. If you want to play a dummy version of this game (or open an account and play for cash, click this Ladbrokes Deal or No Deal link here ...)

Well that's enough babble for today. It's going to take me an age to link up this poasting so I'd better get going now ... see yous all later!!

Gledsxx

PS Just nearly got run over by a middle-aged man driving Laundretta into McDonald's carpark... she doesn't waste any time. A mere 2 hours ago she was bleary-eyed all over the carpet of our hall ... now she's providing a service McDonalds do not in the furthest corner of their carpark!!!