Competition 3437 invited you to submit a passage or poem incorporating the line ‘Why, what’s the matter, That you have such a February face’, from Much Ado About Nothing. It continues ‘So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?’ – rain, muck, drizzle and sludge would be more appropriate to 2026. There was a healthy and varied crop of entries, and Elizabeth Kay’s vision of the platonic ideal of February was uplifting:
snowdrops, hellebores and crocuses; blue tits exploring nestboxes. Wheatears, woodlarks and chiffchaffs, returning from Africa. Birdsong, with robins competing for territories. Hazel flowers, catkins and daffodils. The days are lengthening…
The winners are below.
Some folk are blessed with a radiant grace,
But I scored the genes of a February face,
Frosty and flinty, as cold as Mount Everest,
Even if I’m the most charming or cleverest.
‘Why, what’s the matter, that you have such a
February face?’ I am asked every day,
My smile is wintry, it causes mild panic,
I am the iceberg that sank the Titanic.
People say ‘brrr’ when they should say ‘hello’,
Struck by my blizzards and avalanche snow.
When I got married, my veil of white lace
Stuck to the chill of my February face –
Guests suffered frostbite and chilblains and flu,
Even the groom was teeth-chattering blue.
My forecast’s constant, I have a cold case
Of Antarctic, sub-zero February face.
Janine Beacham
Fortnightly, the resting thespian needs must attend a Jobcentre. One queues behind the usual Brechtian ne’er do wells and Pinteresque monologuists, ultimately to stand before a clerk appositely named Dolman, whose thin-lipped froideur calls forth from one the ritual quotation ‘Why, what’s the matter, that you have such a February face?’ Dolman, following a script of his own, delivers, with the flatness of Salisbury Plain, his line ‘Have you done any work in the last two weeks?’ One seldom has. In lieu of listing one’s failed auditions, or one’s failure even to obtain such, one hazards a theatrical anecdote. A most particular and pertinent anecdote detailing the promise (yet unfulfilled) of a bygone performance at Second Murderer in a production of the Scottish play at Stratford East. Dolman, one need hardly specify, had essayed the role, perhaps the apogee of his dramaturgical career. That February face undergoes, momentarily, a spring thaw.
Adrian Fry
‘Why, what’s the matter, that you have such a February face, Beelzebub? With all those emails published, is not evil flourishing this month?’
‘Far from it, Lucifer. Mr Epstein was our premier terrestrial representative, and dear Peter always corruption’s finest ambassador – but after these revelations, our optics are terrible. What once seemed glamorous and exciting, even to Noam Chomsky, now looks merely seedy. Evil seems second-rate.’
‘Second-rate as Mr Mountbatten-Windsor?’
‘Oh the work we’ve done over the years, tempting him to little sins, watching corruption and stupidity gradually consume the poor fool. Our press associates called him Randy Andy, and silly young men everywhere found a role-model. But now? A national laughing-stock, with a reputation so threadbare that he has nothing to keep him warm but his hyphen , and I fear that too must go if the moralists insist. It is a chilly February indeed.’
George Simmers
Well, now you see me smiling, filled with cheer,
Unlike when you arrived, for recently
When other people speak to me I hear
Some English words pronounced indecently.
Their speech drives me almost to a frenzy.
They won’t come soon: they will be here ‘dreckly’,
Or later: ‘probly Satdi or Wensdi’,
And then ask me if I heard them ‘creckly’.
So when you asked me, ‘Why, what’s the matter,
That you have such a February face?’
I rejoiced to hear, amid their patter,
That all four syllables were in their place.
David Blakey
Vladimir: Why, what’s the matter, that you have such a February face?
Estragon (anguished): It’s been raining here for 40 days. Non-stop, all the time.
Vladimir (inspecting the sky): It must be the time of year. (Pause.) The same number of days that it rained on Noah’s Ark.
Estragon: The same as St Swithin’s Day.
Vladimir: That was last year. (Pause.) July was lovely, nothing like this. This is wetter.
Estragon: Let’s not quibble. (Pause.) This umbrella is leaking; it’s no good.
Vladimir (inspecting the sky): February must be faced. (Pause.) I can assure you, it will end.
Estragon (sagging): I can’t go on in this incessant rain.
Vladimir (reassuring): It won’t go on for ever…
Estragon (irritably): I can’t go on. How much longer? (Long pause.) Let’s go. What are we waiting for?
Vladimir: We’re waiting for our bus. And the rain to end.
Silence.
John O’Byrne
Why, what’s the matter, that you have
Such a February face?
I’d never thought of you as slave
To fears of winter’s rough embrace.
This season will, like weather, pass:
Mark how it starts to loose its grip,
When frost no longer cleaves to glass,
And ice spikes dwindle, drip by drip.
Grey clouds may still spread daylight gloom
But that’s no reason you should lour:
Don’t dwell on missing roses’ bloom,
When all around bright snowdrops flower.
Why match the weather with your face
And let the greyness tinge your soul?
Life’s better lived without ill grace,
Accepting what’s beyond control.
W.J. Webster
No. 3440: No thanks
You are invited to supply a diplomatic thank-you letter for an unwanted gift (150 words maximum). Please email entries to competition@spectator.co.uk by midday on 4 March.
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