Strictly returns! Exciting reader interaction returns! Majority of regular readers experience profound sense of dread!

Hello September

How have you been? You bring me some miserable memories these days, but you also bring Strictly Come Dancing and legitimise the wearing of tights, so I suppose I'll let you stick around. It's a little known fact that I have full control of the months of the year. Depending on how I do with those, They're going to try me out on the seasons next.

I know what you're thinking as we contemplate the passage of the year. Some of you will be brooding on what has become of your life and all the wide-eyed, wonder-struck dreams of your youth. But realistically most of you are thinking, 'There hasn't been a lame reader-interactive Why Miss Jones competition for a while. When, oh when, will I get the chance to compete for some cack-handed homemade prizes?'

Well, my friends, that particular boat has well and truly come in. RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW.

The all-new WMJ competition relates to Strictly Come Dancing, which I know is of little interest to a significant proportion of the hardcore WMJ readership, but is of MASSIVE OBSESSIVE interest to a large amount of seasonal WMJ traffic.

The contest is a skilfull deconstruct of Strictly host Sir Bruce Forsyth's Play Your Cards Right, in that you most definitely do get something for a pair in this game. You must predict which recently announced celebrity contestant will be paired with which pro dancer before the 'big reveal' show on Saturday evening. You may want to consider things like compatibility of height, build, whether the pro deserves a better/worse partner than the donkey/super-dancer they had last year and the pair's showmance potential. Or you may just want to guess.

Using the 'Contact me' link on the left, you need to email me your 14 predicted partnerships. The winner will be the person who correctly guesses the most pairs – I'm essentially a traditionalist, so it's a pretty classic contest in that respect. But that's not all. As a bonus question, and possible tie-breaker (and here I'm making a colossal assumption that more than one person will enter), you must predict which celebrity will be the first to say they are going to give it 'x' per cent, where 'x' is a figure in excess of 100, during Saturday's launch show. You must also guess the value of 'x'.

Now don't bore us, get to the chorus. And by 'chorus', I mean 'prizes'. It/they is/are [a] unique, bespoke, highly collectable piece[s] of Strictly merchandise, lovingly crafted by me. Money literally can't buy these prizes, not least because they don't exist yet. I might get my friend Miss L to help me. She doesn't know this yet. But we'd all be in safer hands that way because she made this.

Let's recap. Send me:
*14 pairs.
*The name of the first percentage overstater, and the percentage.
*Your favourite Strictly professional dancer (this information will relate to your bespoke prize, should you win).

Your entry must reach my inbox by 5pm on Saturday 10 September. You can find a useful list of all the pros and celebs at the bottom of this post.

You may suggest that BBC employees have an unfair advantage. They probably do. But a) I think it's unlikely that any of them are reading this, and b) I know what the prizes are and, with that in mind, I'm not sure an advantage is actually, like, an advantage in this case.

Following the launch show on Saturday, I will post some ill-formed and prematurely judgmental thoughts on the contestants. The hardcore WMJ Strictly non-tolerators will particularly look forward to this, I know. One of my initial impressions is that there are no EastEnders involved. Probably because last year they witnessed Scott Maslen reduced to a walking cadaver by the demands of the show – or the demands of Natalie – and vowed never to be that hollow-eyed bag of bones. Some people have no sense of adventure.

Helpful list:
CELEBRITIES Men: Harry Judd, Russell Grant, Robbie Savage, Audley Harrison, Rory Bremner, Dan Lobb, Jason Donovan
Women: Lulu, Holly Valance, Nancy Dell'Olio, Edwina Currie, Chelsee Healey, Alex Jones,
Anita Dobson

PROFESSIONALS Men: Brendan Cole, Anton du Beke, James Jordan, Vincent Simone, Robin Windsor, Artem Chigvintsev, Pasha Kovalev (new dancer referred to by Len Goodman on The One Show as 'Pasha the Siberian tiger')
Women: Katya Virshilas, Flavia Cacace, Ola Jordan, Erin Boag, Aliona Vilani, Kristina Rihanoff, Natalie Lowe

Romance! Free stuff! The return of thrilling reader interaction, a bit!

Here is a free book, lying on the table of free books at work.


The table of free books is also home to free DVDs and free CDs, and there is one in every magazine office. Unloved and unreviewed, each item was once optimistically sent in by a PR, hoping for an ounce of exposure. When they arrive, these items are torn from their jiffy bags (which, brace yourselves when I tell you, are rarely recycled) and only a precious few are spared the fate of a careless toss onto the free table for passing employees to pick up and take home.

I haunt the free table like a ghost looking for treasure. The ghost of a magpie, I suppose. A magpie with superior wing/beak strength that enables it to carry items as heavy as a book. Also, a magpie that prefers reading to glittery things.

I have lost count of the number of free books that I have dragged home, thinking they look interesting or improving, blindly ignoring the likelihood that they will fall into the 98.7% I never get round to reading. Sometimes I take them along to the book auction we have at our book group, where their quality is routinely derided – I am always slightly stung by this.

I have now decided to use them as building blocks in the construction of a paper-based kingdom in my local park, which features only replicas of famous landmarks, Vegas-style. The Taj Mahal next to the Eiffel Tower, next to the Pyramids and the Chrysler building. I will call it Worldworld.

Obviously if someone comes at it with a naked flame, it'll be Pudding Lane all over again.

Anyway.

The book above caught my eye for two reasons. Firstly, the quotation from 'Romantic Times'. How did I not know that such an organisation existed? This is terrific news. Their quote on the cover promises the book will make 'our hearts melt'. This must be the very definition of an occupational hazard if you work at Romantic Times. (I like to imagine the Romantic Times started when a small group of people who worked at Radio Times finally had enough of the television output not being totally romantic all the time – the final straw came when broadcasters refused to introduce an erotic narrative to the weather forecast – and formed a breakaway group who were set on rectifying this unhappy state of affairs.) Other occupational hazards include starry eyes, weak knees, habitual nausea ('lovesickness') and frequent swooning. Employees have notched up a precocious early retirement rate.

The other distracting thing about this book was its confident boast that it is 'a Huxtable family novel'. Blame the era I grew up in, but when I think of a Huxtable family novel, I imagine the tales of an incorrigible GP in multi-coloured knitwear living in New York in the 80s with his lovably chaotic family. I'm surprised the publishers would be happy for this confusion to go unchecked. The cover has a period feel, which makes one wonder if this is Victorian Cosby Show, a similar conceit to the wartime episodes of EastEnders or The First Of The Summer Wine. In these books, Theo Huxtable has an industrial accident in the mill but he's not seriously hurt and he meets some really inspiring kids while he's recuperating in hospital. Vanessa Huxtable is furious that she can't have a new bonnet for the dance, but Doctor Cliff (or 'Papa' as he's known here) reminds her that if anyone is judging her for her bonnet, they're not worth knowing in the first place and she should refuse to dance with them. Also, judging from the cover, if this is a spin-off from The Cosby Show, the retouching staff of Indian Elle might have got their hands on the artwork.

There are many items that appear on the free tables in the various places I work that I consider writing about. You won't be surprised to hear that I rarely get round to it. Just one example is this:


It's Maths Doesn't Suck by Danica McKellar, aka Winnie Cooper from The Wonder Years, aka Will Bailey's stepsister on The West Wing.

Just to recap, Danica McKellar is a) Winnie Cooper, b) has a maths degree and c) has been on The West Wing. This makes her ridiculously cool.

This is the British edition as the title has been translated from the original US version, Math Doesn't Suck. It is like an edition of Jackie magazine, but it helps you learn mathematics. How Much Do You And Your Best Friend Have In Common? Who's The Cute New Foreign Exchange Student? Are You Drinking Enough Water? All these questions and more can be answered with maths. Or even math. I think it's OK to use either.

Also, there are maths horoscopes. Mine, Capricorn, includes the line 'You don't need a study group for motivation - you're one of the few signs that does very well for itself.' Mmm. Maybe stick to the maths, Winnie. Leave the astrology alone.

Anyway, my point is that I have this copy of Maths Doesn't Suck in my house. It needs a new home before it becomes the key stone of the faux KL Tower I am readying to build. Would you like it? If you would, send me an email with your address and you may get a lovely surprise* **.

*Surprise comprises 1 copy of Maths Doesn't Suck by Winnie from The Wonder Years sent to you second class in a recycled jiffy bag.
**You may not.

Admin

Hello, how are you? Very well, I hope. If you are a highly strung quizzer, you will be totally psyched to learn I have posted the answers to the ludicrously hard 1959 BBC Children's Annual quiz for deaf children in the comments thread for that particular post.

There is no prize. Which is probably just as well as there was no clear winner. Hmm. I do feel slightly guilty about this though. If you entered, or left any kind of comment on the quiz post, would you like some biscuits like these? They won a prize themselves once, way back in the heady Indian summer of 2009. You don't have to, obviously. Don't feel obliged or anything. It's no big deal. After all, what am I to you? No more than words on a screen, a stranger. But if you would, send me an email by clicking on the 'Contact me' link somewhere to the left, let me know your address and I will send you some. I promise I won't use this information for ill, or drop round unannounced. I'm really pretty lazy so you can be sure neither of these things will happen.

I will try to learn some lessons from the last time I posted biscuits to people. These lessons may involve bubble wrap. Also – and I'm not proud of this – I still owe the lovely Hel some from a year ago, after a catastrophic email fail. (Hel, if you're reading, let me know if you're at the same address).

I will repeat the lucky dip offer from last year. If you're the first non-commenter to email me, you will also get some biscuits. I don't think that's exactly a lucky dip. That's more first come, first served, but I'm extremely tired and I have to go to Banbury very early in the morning.

Previous applicants need not apply.

You have two weeks to contact me. Then the baking will happen. It won't happen next weekend, as Strictly Come Dancing starts, and I have to go on an owling excursion. It would not be unreasonable for you to expect some kind of report on both those happenings in the coming weeks.

I think that's it then.

Good night.

Picture quiz (difficulty rating TBC)

Blah, blah, GCSE results are out. Babble, babble, best results ever. Ramble, ramble exams getting easier. Bore on and on lazy joke about getting an A level these days just for [insert menial non-academic school-related action here].

But still. Perhaps there is something in this.

In the balmy days of early summer, I went on a south-coast seaside safari. In a junk shop in Hastings, I found this:


It is the BBC Children's Annual 1959. It's a hell of a read. Look!

Informative!

Yet exciting!


Not to mention challenging! You would not expect a university-educated 36-year-old with an enquiring mind (that's me by the way. I know. I look younger) to struggle with a Picture Quiz in a children's book. But the one below is genuinely, to me, quite tricky. I could not answer any more than two of the questions below with unflinching confidence. Can you? [Click to make it big.] I can't help feeling – and call me one of the baying mob if you must – that picture quizzes in today's children's annuals are significantly easier than this.

(I like the way it non-specifies 'From a Programme for Deaf Children'. Can no one at the publishing house remember the title of the programme for deaf children? ['Oh, never mind. Someone will remember the proper name before we go to press. Just stick that in for now...'] Or is the programme actually called 'a Programme for Deaf Children', in which case a) there are some capital letters knocking about somewhere in search of employment, and b) those children deserve better.)

Wait, oh yes, wait a minute, Mr Postman

If you are a biscuit claimer/claimant (you can choose your own suffix, I'm fairly relaxed about this), then today I have been working HARD for YOU.

Warning: red-hot naked biscuit action follows

You lot will catch your death. Put something on…

That's better. Now, if you, readers, are anticipating biscuits by post, take a good look at this:

Not actual size. By sending me your postal address you have agreed to enter into a ribbon lottery whereby ribbon despatched may differ from that pictured.

The next time you see something like it, it will be IN YOUR HOME, emerging from a Jiffy bag like a lumpy, edible butterfly from a padded chrysalis. And also the contents will have disintegrated into a fine brown powder which I would suggest you sprinkle on to some vanilla ice cream or something. You may notice that I have upgraded the container from Chinese carry-out foil carton to the kind of thing you might get a portion of takeaway lasagne from Carluccios in, if you are a profligate gourmand about town. This is because some biscuits are embarking on a journey to NEW ZEALAND, which is about as far away from London SE22 as it's possible to get. And also because I care. I really do.

The borderline anti-climax of the interactive excitement, in which interactivity eats itself, and some people get to eat prize-winning biscuits

You may recall that several weeks ago, on these very screens, I set a thrilling mystery object competition.

The time has now come for prizes and further interactivity, and also for confession and atonement.

The truth is that the identity of the object remains a mystery. I have let you all down but, in my defence, I have been let down too on many sides, and those sides include The Internet Generally, with particular reference to Google Images, as well as Dulwich's upmarket kitchen utensils shop. I have asked, via email, an actual proper food journalist/chef who has been on television and everything, and who was recently full of praise for my baking skills, of which more to follow. She has not replied, which shows what a big deal I am.

In summery, the proper, actual serious competition remains unresolved. The not literally glittering organic marmalade that looks like it's been tampered with but actually hasn't will not be awarded to the one true winner just yet. This is just The Way It Is. Suck it up. It is hard to suck marmalade, but that is not what I meant. However, it is time to proffer the previously secret and never-before-mentioned Other Prizes. It is like this is the boxing tournament at the Olympics, and I'm giving out the bronze medal before the gold medal fight has taken place, only there has been no bronze-medal deciding bout, I'm just giving lots of people bronze medals because I think it might be, like, nice and stuff.

Yes, it is exactly like that.

But what are the bronze medals? Where is the further interactivity? Read on, read on.

I received several suggestions relating to the use of the object which were ingenious and brilliant, while not grounded entirely in reality, and generally Incorrect. These originators can now claim a batch of handmade chocolate and ginger biscuits which I, Miss Jones, small-fry award-winning baker of south London (NB, the biscuits are not fried), have freshly made for you, the bronze medallists. The biscuits are the bronze medals. They are round, like medals, and a bit bronze-coloured. I don't just throw these analogies together. These are the biscuits that won the prize that comprised the mystery object that initiated the competition that made the whole world sing.

Because Poundland is full of interesting things, the biscuits will be packaged in foil takeaway cartons like this:

Stunt biscuits were used in the recreation of this photo and do not resemble the actual prize.

They will not be packaged like this:

This is something that my phone camera/camera phone did that I did not ask it to, because I wasn't really concentrating, on account of the fact I was at the same time watching Siobhan who is in my choir on The F Word talking about the venison she was eating.

So, if you are the commenter named Salvador, Hel, Simmo, Frances or Holly and if you would care to, please send me an email by clicking on the Contact Me link to the left, and nominate a postal address where your biscuits can be sent. I will also send a batch to the first random reader who responds this way. Then, when you receive them, it would be totally awesome if, in return, you email me a picture of the state they arrived in, as well as the date. Thus the interactive element thrusts tirelessly forward in a ground-breaking investigation of the state of the Royal Mail, the robustness of home-made biscuits, and the suitability of takeaway-style foil cartons for transporting them. We are breaking boundaries, you and I, and the Royal Mail are breaking my biscuits, almost certainly. I will wait a couple of weeks before baking/posting because, unbelievably, not everyone is feverishly checking this blog on a daily basis.

Finally, in further baking news, here is a picture of an excellent eccles cake made by Miss W which I ate on Saturday, even though it had a plaintive little face that was looking right at me:

Exciting/doomed interactive element

At the weekend, I won this:

What is it? I don't know. Let's find out together, because the internet is all about sharing.

I am fairly confident when I say it is used in the cooking/baking arts. The mystery object has two not-quite-pointed ends, with a ridged middle section. It could be a rolling pin, and maybe it is, only you would end up with a rubbish criss-crossed pattern all over your pastry, which I quite often do, but not intentionally. Here is a picture that gives an indication of its size, in comparison with the 30cm Mr Men ruler I have had since I was about 6, and a regular household teaspoon, that I have had since I was about 28, probably.

I am hereby setting a competition in which enormous amounts of prestige and an actual genuine prize will be awarded to the best person/the first person/a person/someone/anyone/seriously, anyone at all (roll up, roll up to watch me crash and burn!) who either a) guesses the correct identity of the object, or b) provides the most entertaining explanation, in the case of me never finding out the answer to a) myself.

'What is the prize?' I am deluded enough to think I might hear maybe one of you briefly wondering, before you go and read some other, more interesting blog. I will tell you. The prize is a delicious jar of marmalade made by highly desirable, adored-by-upmarket-lifestyle-magazines company Daylesford Organic. I also won this at the weekend, yet am prepared to give it to you. This is not the benevolent gesture it may appear. My congenital hostility towards marmalade has been well reported on these screens.

Here is a picture that allows you to judge the size of the jar of marmalade alongside another jar of preserve, in this case the hyberbolically named St Dalfour Rhapsodie de Fruit raspberry.


Basically, I just like the look of these two jars next to each other. Daylesford is the Eddie Large to Dalfour's Syd Little, the Gary Barlow to its Jason Orange, the much fatter Paul Simon to its Art Garfunkel, the Ted Bovis to its Spike Dixon (Hi-de-Hi seems to have become my go-to sitcom for lame comparisons). The Daylesford marmalade also comes in a rustic, I-made-it-myself-in-my-Cotswolds-farmhouse-while-wearing-a-Boden-dress, clip-top jar which, while being stylish, does also look a little like someone has opened it already and stuck their hand in, WHICH THEY HAVEN'T. Well, not me anyway.

So. Hit me with your best shot. Somebody please.

Terms and conditions: 1) I am basically in charge and will give the prize to whoever I like. 2) This does not affect your statutory rights. 3) I don't really know what your statutory rights are, but I don't see how they could be affected, right? 4) No purchase necessary. 5) There is no cash alternative. 6) This competition is open until I finally become resigned to the embarrassingly slim number of entrants and put us all out of our misery.