Competition

Competition 3453 invited you to describe a new, infallible personal regime that promised to make one healthy, rich and irresistible. (Thanks to Frank Upton.) The crop was not vast but was full of inspiring ideas. Sue Pickard and D.A. Prince both attested to the benefits of rhubarb, while Paul Freeman recommended rabid flag-twirling. Joseph Houlihan’s Burn ’Em with Burnham© programme deserves a mention, as does Basil Ransome-Davies’s Planetary Absolutely New Infinite Church. The prizes go to those below. Only subscribe to my exclusive regime derived from the wisdom of the Victorian sensation novel and you will become wealthy, healthy and (temporarily if frequently) wed.

Competition 3452 invited you to write an ode to the World Cup. The entries flew in and many of them were magnificent. Tom Adam, Shirley Curran, Nick Syrett, Basil Ransome-Davies, Elizabeth Fry, Bill Greenwell, Andy Simpson, Janine Beacham (plus others) all ought to have qualified really, but so should Italy. In the event, the £25 vouchers go to those below. Jules Rimet should be living at this hour! To see the world uniting and at peace; To see how football still retains the power To honour the ideals of Ancient Greece: Of human dignity and harmony Of friendship between nations – see Iran Participating proudly in Group G!

For Competition 3451 you were invited to supply an acrostic poem praising or dispraising a public figure in which the word/s spelled out by the first letter of each line directly contradicts what the poem is saying.Messages that lurked, in a smallish but accomplished entry, included ‘Ursine delinquent’, ‘Tory turncoat’ and ‘Tit whisperer’. I’ll leave you to guess who they are skewering. Honourable mentions go to Shirley Curran, Richard Spencer and Sylvia Fairley. The £25 John Lewis vouchers are awarded to the submissions printed below. David Attenborough, here’s to you! A hundred years of service to the Earth: Vast plains and frozen wastes and oceans blue Echo their grateful praise for all they’re worth! A Nation’s Treasure? One hundred per cent!

For Competition 3450 you were invited to submit a short story written in words of one syllable. This challenge produced a pleasingly diverse entry, with echoes of Bulgakov, Orwell and Hemingway. It was especially tricky to whittle down a larger-than-usual post-bag to just six winners and I very much regretted not having room for Andy Simpson, Andy Myers, Peter Mullen and Mark Boullé. Other strong performers included W.J. Webster, Simon Godziek, Martin Brown, Samuel Finniear, John O’Byrne and Verity Kalcev. The £25 John Lewis vouchers go to the submissions printed below. ‘I hear,’ said Jim to his wife, Jean, ‘Bob Lime is dead.’ A bit deaf, Jean said ‘Who?’ ‘Bob Lime.’ ‘What, him as had a shop at – ?

Comp. 3449 invited you to psychoanalyse, in the manner of Freud/Jung etc, a 2026 phenomenon. In a small but accomplished entry, there were no takers for Married at First Sight Australia, but Ralph Goldswain deserves praise for his Naked Attraction offering. (‘The selection of a partner by staged undressing appears as vulgar exhibition; yet this is merely the manifest content. Its latent meaning lies in the managed collapse of repression.’) The £25 John Lewis vouchers go to those below. The phrase ‘filthy lucre’ provides an initial clue, harking back on a subliminal level to the notion of bartering, let us say, a grubby pig for something else.

For Competition 3448 you were invited to supply a joke in verse form.Apologies for an ambiguous brief; I was actually after an existing joke retold in verse form rather than expecting you to invent a new joke, but either approach was permissible. The challenge was a popular one and yielded a large and jolly entry. I appreciated Bob Turvey’s accompanying note – ‘Do you think my work stanza chance? – and David Shields’s Longfellowesque submission. Over to the winners, who each earn a £25 John Lewis voucher. When Faustus found his way to hell,They cheered him to the rafters,And said he might select the siteTo pass his ever-afters:A furnace-full of smouldering souls?A wasteland white as icing?With souls as cold as arctic rolls,Well… neither was enticing.

Competition 3447 invited you to outdo Kingsley Amis in detailing a hang-over from hell, but in the style of another writer. Obviously writing about hangovers is an ancient tradition, and the conundrum was that excess was demanded but an excess of excess threatened to be unpleasant reading. I was sorry not to have room for John O’Byrne’s and Janine Beacham’s Dickensian hangovers; Ralph Goldswain’s and Brian Murdoch’s Shakespearean ones, Simon Godziek’s Raymond Chandler (‘My eyes feel like they’ve been peeled, and there’s something bigger than my head inside my head’), Roger Rengold’s Somerset Maugham, Elizabeth Kay’s Hemingway, and many others besides. The £25 John Lewis vouchers go to those below.

Comp. 3446 invited you to write a critic’s review of a fictional pub or restaurant or hotel etc. I bit off more than I could chew with this one perhaps. Some venues cropped up multiple times – Hotel California, Tolkien’s Prancing Pony, Hotel du Lac and Douglas Adams’s Restaurant at the End of the Universe – and in a large entry of a high standard there were too many runners-up to name names. The £25 John Lewis vouchers go to those below. The accommodation at Jamaica Inn is sadly lacking. While it offers a stripped-down, hipster vibe with peat fires, stone flags and pipe smoke, I had to endure creaking signs, bare floorboards, smelly turnips, noisy wagons at midnight, rowdy boozers and a locked room which I’m sure needs airing.

For Competition 3445 you were invited to provide a sonnet to a previously overlooked body part.In a stellar week – high fives, all round – the £25 John Lewis vouchers are awarded to the authors of those entries printed below and honourable mentions go to Caroline Burke and Mike Greenhough. Much have I dabbled in the realms of gut And many goodly small intestines seen, Worthy of praise in ode or sonnet, but Excepting Baudelaire’s beloved Spleen, And many a heart that aches or breaks or worse, So rarely do we see a fine intestine Nor colon celebrated in blank verse; No humble organ do we see expressed in Rhyme – till now. Behold, the Duodenum! Gastroscopies have nought to show more fair, Ah!

Comp. 3444 invited you to submit a Hilaire Belloc-style cautionary tale for our times. This one was last set in 2009 and the world’s pitfalls have changed a bit since then. There were many very good entries, covering a lot of bases. Commendations to Bill Greenwell, Frank Upton, Basil Ransome-Davies, Sue Pickard, J.C.H. Mounsey, Duncan Forbes and George Simmers (‘Young Eric told such dreadful truths/ He was the most disliked of youths’). The £25 voucher winners are below. ‘But why,’ asked Osbert, ‘should I try To think when I can ask AI?’ Identifying Osbert’s need His chatbot fulsomely agreed.

Comp. 3443 was inspired by Brian Bilston’s ‘Remembrance of Things Pasta’ which begins: She blew her fusilli,my pretty penne,when she found me watchingdaytime tagliatelle. You were invited to submit a poem containing repeated wordplay on a particular theme. There were cheeses, drinks, cakes, the shipping forecast, cars, technology… it was hard to choose. I must mention David Shields’s foot-ball teams and Sue Pickard’s fruity romance: ‘I knew that, kumquat may, I couldn’t let this mango.’ The winners are below. I’m a draw at the dance, a dab hand at romance,To the dames, I’m a ray of delight.I’m the true Cisco Kid, never short a few squid.I’m not koi, and my trousers are tight. I’m a dapper go-getter, and no one looks betta.

For Competition 3442 you were invited to supply the opening of a memoir that would discourage the reader from reading on. You rose to the challenge of producing writing that was comically appalling with gusto. Sue Pickard’s entry narrowly missed out on a place in the winning line-up. Here she is, writing from the point of view of the Sleeping Beauty: ‘I found freedom in dreams. Let me describe them to you in detail. All one hundred years of them.’ Jeremy Carlisle also impressed: ‘For your illumination I will shine a torch into the cave of my heart.

Comp. 3441 invited you to use the opening of Philip Larkin’s poem ‘Trees’ as a starting point for your own. Deserving of a mention are D.A. Prince, Sylvia Fairley, Basil Ransome-Davies, Elizabeth Fry, David Blakey and Nick Syrett, whose second verse I enjoyed a lot: How self-possessed they are, the drug Of springtime setting all to naught; There’s something just a little smug About some trees, I’ve often thought. The £25 vouchers go to the winners below. The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said . Sergeant Prescott phoned me: ‘Chief, We’ve found the vicar, and she’s dead.’ The snowdrops fleck the river’s marge, Like a secret that I almost knew.

For Competition 3440 you were invited to supply a diplomatic thank-you letter for an unwanted gift. According to a recent poll, a fifth of people have been given a present they don’t like (Marmite-scented deodorant, anyone?) with many admitting to feigning gratitude if not delight. It helps, of course, if the giver of the gift is not present for the unveiling, but this still leaves the thorny issue of a thank-you letter. Which is where you come in. The entry was a masterclass in tact. Commendations to Harriet Elvin, Alan Millard, Richard Wyndham and Sue Pickard. The £25 John Lewis vouchers go to the winners below. My dear Crispin, Thank you so much for your so apposite present.

For Competition 3439 you were invited to build an undiscovered poem around a phrase lifted from an earlier poet. The £25 John Lewis vouchers go to the authors of those entries printed below. Wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous? Not at all!For I, William McGonagallDo tell the tale of the fearsome monster of Loch NessWhich many attempt to suppress. And many do scoff and more do mock itBut in the taverns and dwellings of fair DrumnadrochitAmong the proud Highlanders are those who professTo have set their eyes on the elusive creature of Ness. For in the Year of our Lord Five Hundred and Sixty-fiveWhen the blessèd Saint Columba was very much alive,It is told that he sighted the magical beastie of Ness –Though the truth of this legend is anyone’s guess.

Competition 3438 was inspired by the 1986 film Clockwise, in which John Cleese is constantly impeded in his attempt to get to the headmasters’ conference to make a speech. ‘It’s not the despair, Laura. I can stand the despair. It’s the hope!’ he wails to a pupil at one point. There were lots of A+ entries, but the £25 voucher prizes go to those below. Oh what is life if, full of care, We have no time for bleak despair? No time for wallowing in gloom, To tap and scroll our looming doom; To hail the mounted quaint quartet, Pale, baleful on their steeds all set, Apocalyptic cavaliers, Piaffing through our Vale of Tears? Abandon Hope unto the end! Hope’s an imposter, a false friend!

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.

For Competition 3436 you were invited to submit a poem whose first line is ‘O my love is like [fill in the gap]’ and continue for up to a further 16 lines. This Valentines challenge was an extremely popular one which drew a mammoth entry. Commendations to Pamela Haddon, Joyce Bateman and Gillian Emerson. The £25 John Lewis vouchers go to the authors of those entries printed below. O my love is like a Wordsworth verseIn ‘Lucy’s-copped-it’ mode –With constitution of a hearseUpon the Grasmere road. His face is furrowed, grey and grim,His smiles are in abatement –To say I rarely fancy himWould be an understatement.

Competition 3435 invited you to write a poem that included Wendy Cope’s immortal line ‘A happier cabbage you never did see’, from ‘Being Boring’. This was a popular competition with more entries than usual (it’s always a mystery) and you grappled heroically with the challenge of making cabbage interesting. A mention must go to Janine Beacham for her opening lines about another brassica: O fat white cauliflower few can love, Why do you taste like an oven glove? Cheese sauce helps, but Lord above, Your flavour’s not up to much. Too many runners up to name names but here are the winners of the £25 vouchers. Edgily-veggiely Brassicaracea – A happier cabbage you Never did see.

Competition 3434 was prompted by the 400th anniversary of the retrospectively controversial purchase of Manhattan island by the Dutchman Peter Minuit from a local tribe, supposedly for 60 guilders ($24). You were invited to write a poem on the subject. The standard was really high and the whittling process tricky: mentions must go to A.H. Harker, Sue Pickard, Brian Murdoch, Joseph Houlihan, Ian Allen, Richard Warren, Nicholas Lee, George Simmers and Helen Baty, and there were other good entries besides. The £25 vouchers go to the following. Come nether man from Nether Land,Brung purse of beads and guilder,And all us tribe, we took him bribe:Him Big Chief of this wilder.