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How not to make friends

How about this for the perfect way to get out of paying up a million pounds - accuse the successful contestant of cheating.

That's right. Instead of copping it on the chin and forking over the dosh, the misers from Britain's Who Wants to be a Millionaire are crying sooky bubbas because a clever clogs answered all the questions correctly.

Hello? Isn't that the aim of the game.

Aren't people supposed to win?

Anyway, poor old Major Charles Ingram has had a stop placed on his cheque while investigations are carried out about - wait for it - coughing in the audience.

Oh ho, the plot thickens, thought the cheapskate TV producers. Let we tightwads say this chap had a mate in the audience who would cough the right answers and then we can welch on the deal.

Now let's roll that back a mo. Cough to help the major get the right answer? Questions must have been good. Must have been something like this.

Question: What's the word for a hacking noise made at the back of a throat. Answer: Cough.

Question: Finish the name one of Australia's most lovely living spots? ----- Harbour? Answer: Coff's Harbour.

Question: What type of beverage comes from dried beans? Answer: Cough-ee.

Question: Instead of buttons on a shirt sleeve you can use? Answer: Cough-links.

Hang on, I reckon the producers may have been right. It all points to cheating doesn't it? Yeah stop the guy's money, brand him a cheat in front of 20 million viewers (watch out for libel action, however), say there was an accomplice and cheat him out of a million quid.

What a pack of a-holes. Let's hope we don't see the same sort of niggardly-ness Down Under!

If there is something that has really got up your nose, let Grumpy Old Coot know at grumpy@webwombat.com