Curiouser and curiouser

Being a brow-furrowing musing on winning and losing

Regular readers with a taste for the trivial may remember that we won third prize in a competition back in November. I didn't mention at the time a very peculiar circumstance: the mayor of Smalltown himself—personally—phoned G to tell us that we'd not won. This is not a usual outcome, mayors usually do not speak even to the winners; and our previous third prize was not announced to us at all, we discovered that we'd got that one by chance.

So it was something of a puzzlement that the mayor should phone up; and even more so that he said that we would be hearing from him. Why should he want talk to the losers?

Well, a letter arrived from Smalltown today inviting us recalculate the building volume (and thus a rough estimate of its price) and submit this in person on the 21st, along with the other winners, "for discussion and negotiation." The official wording of the letter was that one of the winners' calculations—dear gods, not ours please!—could not be confirmed (i.e. were seriously wrong) and therefore that the competition result was no longer conclusive.

At this point, we all looked at each other and said "What the hell?"

Possible inferences: the town council does not want to build the first prize project. Or, the first prize was too expensive and they are looking to give the contract to the runners-up. Or, the judges screwed up somehow, in a way that would leave them open to legal challenge, and want to put the cat back in the bag.

Fascinating. Watch this space. [Teaser of a semi-update here.]