Giorgio's Game Report

This was the final show of the first season, Noel recommended sky-diving for the excitement, lion-taming for the drama, and laxatives for the ‘other thing’. You’ll miss us won’t you? The audience said ‘yes’, but they sounded tired, and God knows Noel must be, I certainly am. [Please read to the bottom of this report for some important news!]

At the end of the series only the £250,000 has not been won – could today be the day? Probably not with those odds. Today’s player was Giorgio, with box 6. A very dapper retired member of the Carleone mafia family, complete with hat and moustache. From Assisi, Giorgio Fellucini (?), described himself as a lucky man (having recovered from a bout of confusion with Noel about being unlucky). ‘A little kid’ found out that Giorgio was playing and gave him a letter with the numbers to choose – this was what he was going to use. His fiancée was in the audience at times such as these I am reminded that our vocabulary is just not good enough – I mean people in their forties should not have girlfriends and boyfriends, and retired people should not have fiancés, and fiancées – there should be other words, more meaningful than ‘partners’, and less …youth-oriented. Anyway, back to the game.

[By the way, I have missed a few of the names below because I have not been able to watch the program recently and so when Noel has not announced them, and I have not been able to read their labels, they have had to remain nameless. If you know any of the missing, then please let me know, thanks.]

Round one: Khanny, box 1 - £15,000 – that’s alright’ in the voice of whatsamatternow Luigi. (?) box 3 - £5000. Sal, box 8 - £250. Lindsay, box 9 - £3000. Box 12 - £50,000. Giorgio suspected/hoped that the banker thought he was crackers – the banker agreed with this assessment. The banker left a gift for each of the contestants, a book mark with the words ‘ the next member of the 1p club’. The offer was £6800. Giorgio didn’t think twice – ‘no deal’.

Round two: Otis, box 5 - £100,000. Giorgio hadn’t a clue where he was, he just laughed and clapped. Steph, box 16 – 50p. Sarah, box 18 - £20,000. The board was already looking sparse on the red side, the music was down in the piano’s bass area. Noel thought it looked bad, ‘so what are you thinking?’ he asked. Giorgio looked back at him, ‘I dunno, give me a hint’. The banker’s offer was now £3400. Again Giorgio responded instantly – ‘No deal, Sir’, said with charm and a nod of his head.

Round three: Mark, box 17 – 10p. Sharon, box 7 - £250,000 – ‘oooo, it’s a biggun’, said Giorgio. Noel was astonished that despite month after month of this game, no-one was winning the big one. Matt, box 9 - £10,000. The board was down to three reds already, but the £75,000 was still there. Lance suggested in a very plumy voice, that this could still be a great game, he advised Giorgio not to pick his box – it was ‘spooky’. The banker’s offer was now £1700, immediately Giorgio said ‘only one thing to do – no deal’.

Round four: Sandra, box 19 - £10. Bill, box 22 - £500. Noel got the audience to start chanting ‘blue’, so signalling a break. Afterwards, Barbara opened box 4 - £75,000. Noel reflected that a run of destructive games was going to end the series. The board contained two reds against 6 blues, with only the £35,000 between Giorgio and oblivion. The offer now was £425, at no stage had Giorgio been given a decent offer – and again he needed no time to think about it – ‘no deal’.

Box 15 - £250. Box 21 - £5. Ashley, box 10 - £1000. A better round, giving renewed hope, but this was now a one box game, four blues against a single red. The offer now was £2500. This time Giorgio thought about the offer – and even when asked the question took his time – but he was a brave old man – ‘no deal’.

Round six: Paul, box 2 - £35,000. ‘That’s it, we have crashed’, said Noel, suddenly looking very pale. Lance, box 11 - £1 – nothing spooky about that Lance. Giorgio was no longer laughing. Helen, box 20 - £750. Giorgio could not smile, his eyes were scanning the floor and ceiling, the law of Omerta was strong in this Italian. The offer now was £25.

He didn’t want to be there anymore. The fates had taken a little, old, Italian man, and tortured him mercilessly. The banker offered the swap, Giorgio refused it, and Noel opened Giorgio’s box on 1p. This had been the banker’s best week ever, there were now seven people in the 1p club, and two of them joined this week. Noel referred to the book token, Giorgio took it from him, shrugged his shoulders and said ‘I shall frame it’.

So there it is, the last program of the first series had ended on the lowest note possible. The problem with Giorgio’s show was the feeling of inevitability that pervaded it - at no stage was Giorgio given an offer that made him think, it reminded me of Geordie’s game so many months ago – there really wasn’t a point where I felt Giorgio could do anything except continue.

You may have noticed that over the last few weeks, regular articles such as the top ten chart, have fallen further and further behind – this is because I am running out of bandwidth. Today’s report is likely to be the last game report that either Sue or I do, as work commitments have finally caught up with both of us. The blog has become extremely popular and we are very grateful to Adie, Bal, Bairy, Chris, Georgia, Olivia, Randomthoughts, Steve and Toby for their game reports, to all of the ex-players who have contributed, especially Pat, Gaz and Tan, to all of you who have sent in comments, and to the rest of you for taking the time to read it – a really big thank you to you all!

We intend to put the blog up for sale on E-bay (so it will hopefully continue when the new series starts) - proceeds from the sale will go to Cancer Research, so please let your friends know. I will post more details about this very soon.

In the meantime, from me (Iain) and Sue, have a great summer.

Giorgio won 1p