Sole competitor comes second in cake-baking contest

Not so 'new's

This sounds pretty petty to most people but it's not uncommon. I've helped out at a similar small village show and no matter what you tell the judges they always cite 'standards' and will only award first prize if the entry is good enough. They've even done this on children's drawings. The way we got round this was putting the whole thing onto a computer (usually this show had about 100 classes and 700 exhibits so working out prize money by hand wasn't funny) and telling them that the computer would 'fail' if it didn't see a first prize in each class.

Thank you

That's cheered me and my colleagues up no end.

IT Angle?

And the IT angle is....

Never Mind ICT, What about Soccer?

The title says it all, who cares about banning the use of ICT when soccer is running rife on this site!

IT News

Thats it, I have had enough. The Register used to be a great site for IT news. More and more its turning into just a news site, with articles such as this one.

The Register has now been deleted from my favourites and I will get my IT news elsewhere.

It seems that half your stories are either non IT related or "borrowed" from the BBC news website.

Regards

Alistair

a triffle

I'd be a triffle dismayed at a result like that.

To quote Calendar Girls...

I followed my mother's advice of cake baking:

1. Line the bowl with butter and use a warm spoon.

2. If it's a special occasion, buy it at Marks & Spencer's.

Enough said... perhaps she should've done what Helen Mirren's character did... namely buying it at Marks & Sparks.

:D

You don't want Who on second?

Makes you wonder who came first - was there a list of imaginary names, or was there a blank line next to number one?

And let me be the ninth person to point out that this story doesn't have the slightest connection with IT except that computer people sometimes eat cake, or brioche.

And sometimes the cake eats them.

Connections

Obviously our beloved Reg is following a word association game in terms of what is acceptable on the site to count as relevant news. Let's hope they complete the circle:

IT

Internet

Porn

Sex

'Posh and Becks'

Victoria Beckham

Victoria Sponge

Sponge fingers

Fingers

Digits

Bits

IT

I just don't get it at all..

Who gives a toss if the story has an IT angle or not?

Personally if I just wanted to read dry, boring IT news I'd go to CNET or CNN.

I really don't get why people just don't read the stories they're not into. Does someone have a gun to their heads saying "read every Reg story or else"?

I've been going to this site for about 3 or 4 years, and it's alway published funny, non-IT related material. It's called having a sense of humour, and being IT related is not a pre-requisite to being funny.

Personally I couldn't stand going to the sort of sheep mentality websites that produce tutorials on how to copy a file using Explorer, repeat verbatim the bullshit spin from Redmond, or suck up to the sensationalist malware crud that clueless CNN reporters claim will bring down airplanes and cause WWIII.

I prefer my IT news to be written by someone with a fucking clue.

And even if I didn't want to read non-IT related news I'd still be happy to come to this site, because I have the ability to determine the nature of a story from its title.

For example ‘Sole competitor comes second in cake-baking contest’ does not shout IT to me. It shouts very clearly, cake-baking contest.

Occasionally we make mistakes. Sometimes we read cake-baking contest and think, oh an article on mass media storage or perhaps the lady in question came second in blade server configuration. However in cases such as these I have a second special ability - the back button. This mysterious functionality of my browser allows me to go back one page at a time - so I can undo the mistake of opening an article I wasn't interested in.

Accidentally reading something I had no interest in doesn't often make me fly into a rage - I can handle it. I've been there before, I know the perils and have tools to make it through the process relatively unharmed.

I want my IT news to be spattered with borg-like hoovers, gay sheep, drug addicted squirrels and only managing to come second when competing against no one else. I call it satirical news, funny and having a sense of humour. You should try it.

Re: Alistair

I can only suggest that you not read the Odds and Sods section, then. Instead of getting in a huff and denouncing the site as a whole. Subscribe to the rest of El Reg without the Odds and Sods section if it really rogers your hammerstein so much.

Beware the TOGs

Terry Wogan (Mon-Sat 7-9 the Light Programme, BBC) gets many such complaints. He enjoys reading them out.

"I have been listening to this drivel every day for 3 years now and I have had enough. You said <something I utterly disagree with>. I am OUTRAGED. You should be bodily thrown from the building. I am DISGUSTED my licence fee is being wasted in this way. I DEMAND you stop transmitting this RUBBISH to my wireless AT ONCE.

Appalled of Tunbridge Wells"

His response is usually to the effect of "my listenership is made up of angry people listenening intently just waiting to be enraged about something so they can write in. You can hear them sharpening their quills."

And the IT angle is?

Just thank God it wasn't another Paris Hilton story.

Oh yeah, lose chokey.

IT Angle

The IT angle is obvious: IT workers experience this all the time. We are told how important our work is (which it is), but are paid barely adequately. Then there are the sales parasites who do very little except entertain, make idiotic promises which cause the rest of us heaps of work, and they are paid ridiculously high salaries.

So, being an IT professional is like coming second in a competition in which there is only one contestant.

re: Connections

@AdamV -- liked the connections.

But I would quiblle about the link "sex" -> "Posh and Becks"

I dont see the connection personally, although, it would make good

ryming slang if it wasnt so inaapropriate.

Breathtakingly logical

Gotta love it - a ridiculously small village has a contest, and not only is there no more than one contestant, but said contestant doesn't even get first place !

And let's not forget how a piddly village judge is an obviously internationally-renowned authority on just how perfect a cake is supposed to be, and is obviously totally qualified to judge any cake by the strictest and most absolute rules there is. It wouldn't do to let a scrungy little cake win first prize when maybe there is someone somewhere in Africa or South America that could have made a better cake but just neglected to enter the competition.

Frankly, the attitude of the jury just astounds me. I would find normal to judge the selection before me, and award first prize to the best of what is offered. If there is only one contestant, it might have been a better idea to cancel the whole thing anyway. Maybe if they weren't so callous in their judgments they might get more participants in their stupid competitions.

Who was the judge?

Perhaps the cake baker was Steve Jobs.

And the judge was Webster Phreakey.

triffle

What's a triffle, Brian ?

Wimblington

The name of this place is definately the best part of the story

Obvious Connection!

It's because the cake complies with the 4-Layer OSI standard cake baking model.