bored of excitement – the griefjunkie blog 

Ahoy there, casual lovers.

  Like all working class people, we would rather win money than earn it.

 It is this instinct which prompted me to apply to appear on Deal Or No Deal, which is the only thing guaranteed to bring life to a standstill here at Griefjunkie Towers. I am a particular fan of the bit where they get the other contestants to offer advice as to what to do vis a vis dealing or not dealing. What I want to do at this point is ask if any of my fellow contestants are versed in statistics and probability, as this will be genuinely useful advice, and will enable me to make a more informed decision. Otherwise, you just get some fat-armed old growler from, I dunno, Knaresborough, saying either a) follow your heart b) stay true to yourself or c) follow your dream, which is just a variation on a) if you ask me.

Also, I don’t really know where the gambling aspect comes into it, as you have no stake whatsoever in the game. The banker is the only one who will definitely lose, day after day, with the only variable being the amount he will be out of pocket. Without wishing to be crass, he reminds me somewhat of the kindly old gentlemen that used to hang around arcades when I was a kid. In those days, you thought nothing of letting a stranger give you money for no reason whatsoever – something we’ve lost sight of in modern Britain.

(Ha, while writing that I was reminded of the legendary Frank the Wank, who was a well known mentally deficient character around Canning Town years ago. Frank was a perfectly harmless simpleton who had an unfortunate distrophy of some kind that made his arms move as if he were stroking an enormous phallus while walking along Victoria Dock Road. Another notable derelict was Mono, a career tramp with one ear, who had a dog called Trio, who as you might already have guessed only had three legs. Mono would pick up bits of work around the markets, and my granddad once told me he had never been inside a building in his life. My granddad had an affinity with Mono as he also only had one ear, due to an unfortunate firearms related incident in the 1930’s.)

Anyway, yes. Getting on Deal Or No Deal with the Edmonds would be a larf I reckon, if only because you could keep holding up play by claiming to have forgotten the rules or asking if you could phone a friend or I dunno whatever. Also, the bit at the beginning where you have to give your reasons for wanting to win money, and it’s always some old bollocks about taking your children to Eurodisney or whatever, you could just say ‘To be honest Noel, I can’t be bothered to work’ which would at least be closer to the mark.