Day 37 - The Eagle Has Landed

Actually, the eagle has not so much landed, rather crashed... and burned in quite spectacular fashion.

'truly awful'

'spectacularly bad'

'uggnh' (staggers slightly)

'wow!'

These were just some of the comments made about my T-shirt today, culminating in the lead in the Quality Competition passing to Nick.

Pete came in this morning resplendent in his 'Cards' T-shirt , last worn on Day 19, quietly confident I think. Nick and I both seem to have gone for an 'ethnic' theme with Nick wearing a teracotta 'shirt with a full-chest aboriginal design. He garnered a number of compliments through the day, despite the fact that he doesn't like the t-shirt and never wears it. I went for a pretty outrageous choice - let me see if I can describe it. Multi-colour, tie-dyed tee from a North American Indian reservation, with a cow's skull on the front and a majestic, swooping eagle on the back, a rattlesnake ensnared within its claws - doesn't quite do it justice, I'm afraid, just look at the picture. I kept it covered all day until judging partly because I felt ridiculous in it and also to maximise the effect of the 'reveal' (which was duly achieved with one judge almost falling over). Sadly, Operation Shock and Awe didn't work and Nick claimed three points, Pete 2 (halved to 1) and I walked away with nothing but a skull, a mangey bird and a dead snake.

Those of you who have been following events since Pete started his 2nd Cycle will know that the scoring has been haywire, tactics all over the place and fortunes swinging like a dodgy couple from the Midlands. So what was behind my choice of T-shirt today? (Or 'What were you thinking?' as some judges put it). This was only ever going to be a novelty winner at best, so tactically I probably should have left it to the end and hoped that Nick ran out so I that would never have to unleash it upon the world.

But no, I felt that this was a 'shirt that the world had to see and that being so, I might as well play it now, accept the loss, but give myself time to come back. And so Nick propels himself into first place. He did some research and found that this is the first time I have not been in the lead since September 27th - a sobering thought and one that highlights the fact that the competition is now wide open!