Ho ho ho! No, we're not still laughing at Liam Rosenior's fashion sense or the latest predictions of greatness from Grey Graydon. It's time for The Incider to play Santa and hand out presents to readers who have been good boys and girls by contributing to the fanzine over the past month.
Every issue we give away a prize to the reader who has sent in the best contribution, whether it be a letter, caption, article or graphic gag (graphic in the sense that it involves an image, not that it's necessarily X-rated). It's only possible to put together a decent fanzine with your effort, so we are genuinely grateful for all your emails and contributions.
However, in this dog-eat-dog age of competitive capitalism, there can inevitably be only one winner. We judge your suggestions on the amount of effort and time they must take to produce, how interesting or funny they are, and how much you're willing to bribe the Editor for the prestige of being included among the top dogs, the elite, the crème de la crème who can boast at high-powered social functions and society charity fund-raisers of their intellectual prowess and circulate C.V.s to headhunting agencies proclaiming that, yes, they are indeed Incider winners and therefore by definition cerebrally capable of holding down the top jobs in industry.
In the absence of any bribes this month, we've had to narrow down the criteria. There were some great caption contest entries and a fascinating letter on East End Etiquette from Tony Parker. But this month's brainbox is Ian Marriner (Madger), who wins for sending us not one but two cartoons, which obviously took a lot of effort, and for being one of two readers to take the time to pen a letter as well. An exclusive Incider mug is on its way to Madger faster than Lee Peacock rushing to the bar for last orders. As Madger clearly has nothing else to do in his life and no friends to distract him from his computer screen, the mug will unfortunately probably gather dust on his shelf, as he's already among those who have already bought one from our fantastic online shop (which took ten minutes to get up and running rather than the two years the official club shop took!). And we both know a second mug is only useful if you have a friend to share a coffee with. Still, maybe it will mean he only needs to do his washing up half as often, or perhaps he has a set of false teeth lying around and needs a receptacle to dunk them in at night.
For those of you still needing help climbing the social ladder and hoping to make a good impression by casually exhibiting Incider goodies to show your impeccable taste, there is wonderful news. We're giving away one of our famous Tommy Doherty “El Motor” T-shirts for the best contribution to the next issue. So don't be intimidated. All offerings are gratefully received so get writing or image manipulating now! Send your articles, jokes, captions and - in the case of Swindon and Rovers fans - viruses to: editor@theincider.com and letters to letters@theincider.com
The El Motor T-shirts and Incider mugs are also available to buy at bargain prices via the online shop. But wouldn't it be so much more satisfying to win one for nothing? And let's face it, it'd make a wonderful present if you're a tight-arse who doesn't want to fork out money on your friends and family.
