High tension in Dungannon

There was a sense of unease in Dungannon today after last night’s annual Scrabble tournament saw a foreign victor for the first time since its inception in 1984. With Matel announcing that they were allowing proper nouns, Polish native Wojech Wasnickski (19) romped to the title, beating 10-time champion and ex-schoolteacher Colm Doris (55)  by over 100 points in the final. Wasnickski admitted afterwards that he simply spelt out the names of places from home as well as a few cousins’ first names. Doris said he was finding the whole thing a bit shambolic.

“Listen, everyone knows I’m the smartest in Dungannon. I’ve won this thing ten times. Last year I used words no one around here had ever heard of such as ‘ladylike’ and ‘apologetically’. Now these buckin rules have changed and yer man Wasnickski was in his element. I think he was making half them names up. He scored 122 points for Aleksandrów Kujawski. He says it is near Warsaw. Like for Jaysus’ sake. The longest we have is Loughmacrory or Castlecaufield. He then scored over 200 points for his cousin’s name, Benedyck Banaszynski. The most I managed was 43 for Iggy Jones. I’d have doubts that this Benedyck lad exists atall.”

Wasnickski goes on now to the county final as hot favourite where he’ll met the champions from other areas including three-time champion Hettie Horridge (82) who emerged from the Moortown heat yet again, winning her final with the word ‘budley’. Although not existing in the Oxford English Dictionary, local words are allowed as long as they’re placed in context by the user. Her explanation of  “My husband has some budley on him” was found to be an acceptable usage.