David won £30.000

David from Wales, making it up as he went along. He had taken a lump of coal, a rusty horseshoe and a picture of his pet goat up to the desk. Now the goat I don't understand, but celts in Scotland (and perhaps Wales too?) have a tradition of bringing a lump of coal with them when they cross a new theshold, to say may your fires keep burning. He wanted the money so that he could take his wife in style to Australia to see their daughters.

David had been off ill, this clearly seems to be the way to get picked early, Geordie was chosen three days after he came back from a heart attack, and its only a couple of days since David returned; maybe the producers should be concerned about the stress of so many days in the wings for the older generation? In any case, this pattern undermines the suggestion that players are picked at random, and makes me wonder why Lucy is still waiting after seven weeks?

Round one: £250, £20,000, 10p, 50p and 1p . A strong opening round. The banker's opening offer was £6000 and this was immediately rejected by David.

Round two: 50p, £500 and then a break, on the return Lucy pulled up £250,000. This was a shock for David, his voice shaking, face reddening, flustered by the loss of the big one. The banker's offer was £3800, low considering the number of reds on the board, maye the banker was hoping that David's illness had weakened his resolve. David said 'I am here to gamble...no deal'.

Round three: £1 from Aaron, £5, and then £75,000. Noel thought the third largest amount appearing in the ropund after the big one spoiled the round but the board looked strong, and David seemed to have regained his composure, 'careful with his money generous with his time'. Put coal under pressure and you get diamonds, the banker's offer was £7500, but Noel seemed to suggest that because it was a poor round, the offer was very good - unfair pressure to deal I feel, but David said 'No Deal' - here was the diamond.

Round four: a quick round, £10, £5000, and then £100 (after the break). Noel was clearly very happy about this, cheering around the studio. David held on to the horseshoe as Noel took the call - the offer was £17,500. David held his smile throughout the game, and his expression didn't change now. He asked some Welsh people in the audience, three out of four of them said 'no deal', and so did David.

Round five: David said at the start of this round that he was going to choose boxes 10, 6 and 11, I can't remember anyone else doing that before - and these translated to £50,000, £3000 and £750 respectively. Finally the enigmatic smile broke into a laugh and his glasses came off to remove the steam. Unbelieveably, considering that there were only reds left and the lowest was £1000, the offer was only £15,000, two thousand less than the last offer, and this is what I think pushed David to say 'No deal'. This despite two of the contestants, clearly thinking of David's best interests, saying that he should deal.

Tension beginning to really build now.

Round six: the £1000 was first to go, £15,000 was next, leaving a minimum of £10,000 and a maximum of £100,000. David pulled out a lucky penny (if lucky charms were weapons he would have been Arnold Schwartzennegger's Commando), to decide between 18 (tails - his youngest daughter's birthday) and 22. He declared heads to be 22, his oldest daughter's birthday, and tails to be 18, his youngest daughter's birthday - fate is interesting in the way it produces such neat dramtic circles. At this point David's voice had turned to a croak, he was beating back tears, its difficult to imagine what thoughts were going through his head. He tossed the coin and Noel chased after it, it was tails, box 18 was opened to reveal £35,000.

The choice now was between £10,000 and £100,000, the banker's offer was £30,000. Would a man who had been off ill for the past week make the decision to keep going? He decided again to call on fate, he was going to throw his horseshoe. If it landed black, then it was deal, if it landed on the rusty side he would keep going (it all seemed rusty to me). Up went the shoe, it was declared by Noel to be Black and he dealt!.

David had won £30,000, and moreover he had beaten the banker, there was only £10000 in his box. Ah, gives me a good feeling when people win like that. I think it is interesting that when the decision is taken away from the player through the use of coins or horseshoes or whatever, then the pressure comes off, and it seems much easier to deal with the consequences, maybe this hints at how we invent religons to cope with the pressures of life?