I was reading a blog post earlier, this one in fact, by the lovely Given To Distracting Others about people cheating at competitions. My first thought was 'what's the point in cheating when prizes you win without cheating don't turn up', then the bee that lives in my bonnet started buzzing and this post was born.
Back in March of this year I entered a competition, hosted by a fellow blogger, to win some make-up, the prize was actually a bronzer and a nail varnish. I was lucky enough to win.
I am still waiting for the items to arrive.
I have contacted the host on a couple of occasions to be told that they had been too busy to post and would try and do so the next weekend.
All the time they were too busy to post my prize, they were posting about blogger events, launch events, they also seemed to be working their way around all the bars, clubs and burger bars of London, not too busy for that!
The items were from M&S, so if they had wanted to, they could have kept the prize bronzer and nail varnish, and whilst they were waiting for one of their burgers to arrive, could have ordered the exact same items online and had them delivered to my local store. I would have happily collected.
If they hold any more competitions, I would be interested to see if the winner actually receives their prizes.
The second prize that has not turned up was a twitter retweet competition held by a shop chain back in May. The prize was a goody bag, which from the photo looked like it contained a tote bag, a voucher for the shop and some other items.
I have contacted the twitter account with regard to the whereabouts of my prize and I have not had the courtesy of a reply.
There are, of course, bloggers and brands who are so fast at sending out prizes that you have barely had time to send them your address, or so it seems.
Why can't every competition host be like that?
Today was the first of my three exams for this sitting. I won't dwell on the actual exam too much except to say I will be re-sitting it at some point in the future.
It seems that a lot of people did not turn up to sit the exam, there were so many prepped (tiny) desks that remained empty.
It didn't cut down on the disturbances however.
Two people arrived 15 minutes after the exam had started and were allowed admittance disturbing everyone around them.
The candidate to the immediate left of me, muttered to himself for the entire 3 hours of the exam, on occasion loud enough for people 4 or 5 seats away to glare at him. He also nodded his head, well almost his entire upper body, whenever he felt he was going in the right direction with his answer.
When he wasn't muttering or nodding, he was furiously jamming the end of his pen into his opposite palm, clicking it on and off, on and off in rapid succession.
As well as this, there was the usual constant procession of people to and from the toilet. Most of the candidates were half my age, so if they can't go three hours without a trip to the toilet at their age, I think a trip to their GP is needed.
About two hours into the exam, I don't know what was going on outside, but it sounded like table tennis was being played with a cannonball and metal paddles. This went on for the next hour.
As expected, at 1.05 mobile phones started vibrating. Any phones taken into the exam room SHOULD be switched off, but most people seemed to put them on vibrate only.
Still, only another 2 to go....
