Tuesday 21 October 2008

Deceptively simple yet inspired...

I quite like the BBC website as a pot of interesting nuggets to brighten my lunch hour. One of my favourite features is the caption competition on the Paper Monitor blog. It's a quick, fun, exercise in wordplay, where mere mortals do battle for the small amount of kudos dished out to the top-five entries of the 600+ witticisms they receive each week.

I quite like scrolling through the other entries, laughing at the sometimes clever, sometimes painfully awful captions for the 'begging for a caption' image provided. Last week the image was of a church that allowed dogs to sit on their owner's laps during the service.



My entry was the minimal "Pewdle". A mix of pew (the type of seat) and poodle (the type of dog). A fair crack at it I thought.

Checking back the next day, I found I hadn't been selected in the chosen few .

I thought no more of it until I noticed this in my other BBC blog vice 'Your Letters' (which must be exclusively populated by upper middle-class jam-makers and gardening enthusiasts judging from its tone). The final letter said:

"I can forgive you for overlooking my caption competition entries, but I can't forgive you for overlooking the deceptively simple yet inspired 'pewdle'.
Sue, London"


Hilarious on many levels. First, my throwaway pursuit got some recognition from a woman named Sue from London, second, they felt compelled to write in to correct a perceived injustice, and third, that the BBC deemed it an important enough issue to print in their letters section!

My confusion only increased when I found this:


"Can I second Sue in London's support of the simple but effective 'pewdle' caption competition entry (Friday letters). However I must admit the 'dogging' entry made me chuckle the most, although I can fully understand why it wasn't chosen.
Mark, Portsmouth"


How odd. I must have some form of talent for captions. Previously I won two Glastonbury tickets for a four-word slogan to stop ticket touts ("Tout and you're out" if you were wondering), and five tickets to a Gomez gig for a description of what I'd do if I had wings!

So, thank you Sue from London, and Mark from Portsmouth. Your support was most welcome and brightened my day.

Ian "insert caption here" Ravenscroft

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