ODDS OR EVENS

Competition is a lovely thing in the right hands. I am neither a right wing ‘competition is all, losers should be scraped into the drains’ type person, nor am I a left wing ‘everyone should just join in and stand around until nobody wins’ type person. Inclusiveness is key and the correct tone should be set for ever endeavour.



The case-in-point is our street party. At 12noon, the Royal Wedding happened, then people charged out en mass to set up tables and chairs, share good humour, food and drink. The actual subject of the Royal Wedding barely raised its head through the day. There were those who were high on the pomp and circumstance, and there were those who really couldn’t give a stuff about the Royals but had been offered a chance to converse and play with their immediate community. Then began a small slice of times gone by, the competitions.


Cake competition. Lots of kids entered truly awe inspiring creations, made from rice, and other such ummm…. things that kids make cakes out of. There was a winner, they were happy; the young’uns that didn’t win weren’t too bothered.

Cakes - loads of cakes - some were winners too

Egg and spoon race. Lots of kids entered. I fucked up a little here as I was supposed to have boiled the eggs. I didn’t. So seconds before the race I was taping eggs to spoons of the youngest entrants to give them a fighting chance. Most of the little blighters still managed to drop the whole egg and spoon ensemble. There were admittedly a few upset kids in this race – but this is mainly because there was no winner.



All races need a start. Not all races need a finish (think human).


Welly throwing. Nobody won this either. In fact, thanks to some cava fuelled throwing we nearly only had losers. Sorry about your front door Phil.

The clever ones amongst you will notice this is in fact an egg splat and not a welly.

Hat competition. I didn’t know we had this competition. Some kids won. They were happy.

This hat would have won. It didn't. Lady Gaga was not
 present at our street party either, as far as we know.

Sack Race. I won (some call it a draw). I was happy. My eldest was beaming.

We made the sacks race each other with male jockeys riding them.
Some people thought this was cruel. We returned the sacks to the wild after the race.

Tug of War. Also known as the Main Event. This was the moment when everyone could settle their differences with their neighbours opposite. It was Odds vs. Evens. You can imagine the heady scent of testosterone as we all marched down to the 'theatre of Tug'. It was decided there would be three Tugs; Male adults, Female adults and Children. There was a great deal of forest noise making, and from the most unlikely sources. Collectively, us (and boy do I mean us) admin-based-commuting-withered-limb males could stand tall with our fishermen, builder and body-building brothers by a different house. Flip-flops were discarded and hands were dried on our nervous children’s clothing. The call went out to ‘take the strain’ and within that instant 50 males who, only five minutes prior had been conversing about the disruption caused by the airport extension whilst sipping on a flute of fizz, turned into sweating, heaving, growling beasts. Veins popped, children sped on the wings of infantile pride to hysteria, their shrill cries of ‘pull, come-on, pull’ attracting dogs for three counties. Wives, girlfriends, sisters, mothers and grandmothers intent on treating this tawdry masculine willy waving competition with the scorn it deserved were all sucked into the gladiatorial heat of battle. There were promises of all kinds of fringe benefits being tossed at the potential victors, from kids being sent to bed *ahem* early to being reinstated in the inheritance. With dogs barking and snapping at the duellist’s ankles and meagre muscles starting to ache more than they did when we last put up a shed, a roar went out from our side. A roar that galvanised Team Odds in the final sinew tearing tug. We pulsed with this roar, all our excel spreadsheet angst, our ektron web management frustration travelled to our palms and pulled at once. We won. This battle was reincarnated three times. Odds won each Tug. Later, as we were all chatting and trying not to let the shaking muscles show, it transpired that the roar was caused by the guy in front of me treading on a stone and hurting his foot.

Imagine 50 men holding this at groin height, yup you get what I am saying....

There was no prize except the pride of a street coming together and having fun. The general consensus? Sure the Royal Wedding was fun, but the street party even better, we should have one every year regardless of the occasion, in fact the street party IS the occasion.


Roll on 2012 and the Street Olympics.