In Competition 3475 you were invited to take a well-known figure on the world stage, living or dead, and cast them in the role of agony aunt/uncle, submitting a problem of your invention and their solution.
There is space only to commend Adrian Fry and D.A. Prince before handing over to the winners below, who are rewarded with £25 John Lewis vouchers.
Dear Niccolo, I chair our village fête committee. Margaret, who runs the tombola, questioned my bunting in front of the vicar, and the others are wavering. What should I do?
Troubled, Little Snoring
Dear Troubled, It is better to be feared than loved, but at a fête it is best to be both and be seen to be neither. Never argue about bunting; a prince who argues about bunting has already lost. Instead, thank Margaret publicly for her boundless energy and give her the cake stall as well as the tombola. A woman with two stalls has no time for rebellion, and when the Victoria sponge runs out at 11, as it will, the village will know whose fault it was. Then form a sub-committee to review stall allocations, and chair it yourself.
Remember: injuries should be done all at once; kindnesses, a slice at a time.
N. Machiavelli
Mike Scriven
Dear Grumpy of Berkshire, you ask how to regain the Christmas spirit when shops are already filled with Santa Claus ‘tat’. I see a certain ‘bah humbug’ has crept into your soul. It is the best of the times and the worst of times. Try to wish goodwill to all, to honour Christmas in your heart. Rejoice in merry greetings, the holly and ivy, the Christmas-themed hot cross buns. Be like a little child, for it is good to be children sometimes. Christmas is not merely a time to pick a man’s pockets. Light a speckled cannonball of a pudding, sing carols at midnight and buy those fancy mince pies at £20 each. Invite your family over for three weeks. Bankrupt yourself sending cards. Enjoy the merging of Christmas Present with Christmas Future. Soon it will be Always Christmas! God help us every one. Yours festively, Charles Dickens.
Janine Beacham
Dear Gloriana, I am aching to lead our benighted nation to glory but there’s a smiling rival who is emerging who claims his Reform movement will restore our troubled subjects to wealth and happiness. What shall I do?
Dear Kemi, Do as I do. Tolerate no rivals; they must be eliminated. Put your team of double agents, cryptanalysts, and intercept networks into action to uncover his frailties. Have him incarcerated in the Tower of London for a year or two. Any crime will do, but accusations of treason, conspiring with foreign powers, reception and misappropriation of funds provided by alien nations, will convince our loyal and credulous subjects to drop their unwarranted adoration of that beaming upstart. Regular torture will remove the smug smile, then when you have supremacy, Off with his head!
Elizabeth R.
Shirley Curran
A smith, clept John, from London, hath a qualm!
Writ he: ‘Dear Uncle Geoff, no soothing balm,
(of doctor or apothecary procured)
hath healed me of my malady since lured
by harlots at the William Conqueror Inn
to practise in their chambers carnal sin.
When now I piss, unto my knees I sink
in pain, with dark-hued urine that doth stink.’
I sayeth, in reply: ‘Though, John, you’ve strayed,
and Venus’ temptations have waylaid
your very soul, a metal doth exist –
quicksilver! If ingested, ’twill assist,
and one way or another sort you out,
though ofttimes full recovery’s in doubt.
In which case, ere your imminent demise,
unto a priest, confession I advise.’
Paul Freeman
Q. I ask you, Master Shakespeare, for your aid:
My writing style is sober, creeping, staid.
How may I keep my listeners’ yawns at bay,
And stop them checking phones throughout the play?
A. The quality of writing is not strained:
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the page beneath – you know the rest!
Try not unceasingly to force a rhyme,
But let the beauty of the words express
Itself in sound that’s pleasing to the ear.
If history you show, omit what’s slow:
A decade can be covered in a scene!
And grammar? Pish! The groundlings (yobs of yore)
Can’t tell a comma from a clause, but will
Respond to laughter, loving, struggling powers:
Suspend their disbelief for two short hours!
Nicholas Lee
Dear Agony Kant,
I hesitate to disturb your dogmatic slumbers, but I think I have lost my Ding an Sich.
Your distress is understandable. However, I must point out that if you only think you have lost it, then you never possessed it. The noumenon is inaccessible. What you miss is merely a collection of phenomena which you mistook for the thing-in-itself.
Before placing advertisements in Königsberg or searching behind the Sofa of Reason, ask whether the loss could be universalised according to my Categorical Imperative. Could all rational beings lose their thing-in-itself and still inhabit a coherent world? Furthermore, the transcendental unity of apperception suggests that the ‘I’ who has lost the object is itself helping to constitute the experience of loss. Finally, remember that absence, like geometry, may be known synthetically a priori. In short: you have not lost your noumenon. You have merely mislaid your spectacles.
Revd Dr Peter Mullen
No. 3478: Misprint
You are invited to take a well-known poem (please specify), change one letter in the first line (e.g., ‘They tuck you up, your mum and dad’) and continue for up to a further 15 lines. Please email entries to competition@spectator.co.uk by midday on 25 November.
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