I NEVER USED TO be a risk-taker but then I had children who would play in the dirt and say things like: ���Daddy, close your eyes and open your mouth.��� Parents soon learn what true courage is.

I���ve been thinking about brave decisions after reading a news item: a couple who got top score on a farm-themed mobile phone game took home A LIVE COW as their prize.

Game-maker Digital Media gives winners the option of taking their award in the form of steaks, but the latest winners, from Tunisia, took the entire cow ���as is���.

���That way they get the cow as a pet, but also have the option of turning it in steaks later,��� said reader Bernard Betts, who sent me the news item.

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Reading it reminded me of a solo sailor I once met who went on long sea voyages with a dog called Emergency Rations.

He assured me that the pooch had no idea what his name meant, but it kept making worried eyes at me.

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Anyway, I like that the cow-winners chose the brave option. The same could be said for UK university students who this month elected a cat as honorary president, I heard from reader Sara Padilla.

I added that to my list of unbelievable-but-true election results.

In 1967 a tin of itchy foot powder was elected mayor of a town in Ecuador;

in 1988, a chimpanzee stood for election in Rio de Janeiro under the slogan ���Vote monkey, get monkey��� (possibly the only honest political slogan in the history of the world);

and in 2004 the US public re-elected George W Bush, when it was clear to everyone else in the world that a tin of itchy foot powder would make better decisions.

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Of course, you can also make life interesting by making original decisions on a smaller scale.

Reader Rajiva Singhe forwarded me a news items about a US business traveller who noticed a box on his hotel booking form form labeled ���additional requests���.

So Sean Fitzsimons wrote something silly on it: ���If it's not too much trouble could you build a fort out of pillows?���

Hotel staff did.

Now he always puts in offbeat requests (���I would like a photo of a dog dressed as a sea captain���) purely to challenge hoteliers and increase the amount of fun in the world.

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I immediately thought of ���additional requests��� I could make for some of the hotels I stay in around Asia:

1) ���A bed that doesn���t collapse in the night���;

2) ���Edible food���;

3) ���Staff which speak at least one of the top ten human languages���, etc.

That should challenge them!

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Anyway, if I ever win a mobile phone farm-themed game, I���m definitely going for the live cow option, whatever trouble I get into.

WIFE: ���You said you wouldn���t bring home any more large useless items.���

ME (covering ears of cow): ���Shhh! She can hear you, darling.���