Competition

In Competition No. 2775 you were invited to submit an elegy on the death of the ash. A bleak topic for a comp, perhaps, but happily there are those who reckon that it is too early to start preparing the obituaries. Clive Anderson, president of the Woodland Trust, believes the species may well rise again. He writes: ‘Great stands of ash trees will be lost today, but they can grow back tomorrow,’ a hope echoed in what was a large and impressive entry. Commendations to David Silverman, G.M. Davis, Mary McLean and Roger Theobald. The winners below take £25 each, except for D.A. Prince, who pockets £30.

In Competition No. 2774 you were invited to supply an extract from the diary of a well-known historical figure that startlingly reverses received ideas about history and the person in question.   John Samson outs Oliver Cromwell as a closet Cavalier in love with all things Irish, while Steve Baldock’s extract from the diary of Jackson Pollock reveals the origins of the great Abstract Expressionist’s drip paintings to be in a ‘drunken paint fight’. Sandra Hardingham lifts the lid on a darker side of Florence Nightingale. It was an entertaining entry: commendations all round. The winners earn £25. The bonus fiver goes to Alan Millard.

In Competition No. 2773 you were invited to submit a poem entitled ‘On First Looking into a Rhyming Dictionary’. That class act Stanley J. Sharpless’s twist on Keats’ famous sonnet (which I found in E.O. Parrott’s How To Be Well-Versed in Poetry) was the inspiration for this assignment. Mr Sharpless begins: ‘How often have I searched for clever rhymes/ To ginger up some verse I’d scribbled down...’ And rounds off with this defiant couplet: ‘They tell me rhymes are out of fashion, now./ Who cares? I’ll go on rhyming, anyhow.’ Douglas G. Brown, David Silverman, Martin Parker and Ralph la Rosa shone in a large and varied entry but were narrowly outflanked by the winners below who take £25 apiece. G.M.

In Competition No. 2772 you were invited to liken a well-known figure, living or dead, to a foodstuff. This challenge fell on somewhat stony ground, producing a small if distinguished entry in which politicians featured strongly. Here’s a flavour of George Simmers’s Tony Blair pudding: ‘The inviting exterior has no real content, but is a glossy shell which quickly deflates, degenerating too soon into a brown mess with a bitter aftertaste...’ David Cameron hardly fares better. Tracy Davidson compares him to a sponge pudding: ‘The slightly blotchy, puffy top half struggles to maintain composure and consistency when faced with any heat.’ And for G.

In Competition No. 2771 you were invited to provide a rhymed witch’s spell to bring someone or something either good or ill. Most of you were in cursing mood (though Katie Mallett provided a welcome ray of sunshine: ‘I would cast a spell for happiness...’). Targets included nuisance callers, Bill Gates, leylandii, Downton Abbey and Alex Salmond. I was tickled by G. Chadwick’s curse, in monorhyme, on Boris Johnson’s barnet — ‘It’s why he polled the lion’s share/ May he start moulting everywhere...’ — and by Dorothy Pope’s ‘Spell to Make a Horrid Teacher Disappear’. Adrian Fry cast a potent cantrip on the creator of Harry Potter: ‘I am but a jealous muggle, J.K.

In Competition 2770 you were invited to submit a response, in the style of Alexander Pope, to the recently announced Turner Prize short list or to the contemporary art scene in general. Inspiration for this assignment came from the art critic Robert Hughes’s ‘The Sohoiad or the Masque of Art: a satire in heroic couplets drawn from life’, which was published in the mid-Eighties in the New York Review of Books. In it Hughes, under the byline Junius Secundus, lampoons the Manhattan art scene — ‘The pompous novelty, the well-hyp’d trick/ Delivered in the merest Augenblick’ — and those in its thrall: ‘The temper of the age decrees at once/ That none may tell the Dancer from the Dunce.

In Competition No. 2769 you were invited to supply the first paragraph/s of the imaginary sequel to a well-known novel. The literary sequel is thriving, fuelled by readers’ hunger to know more. In recent times, such distinguished names as P.D. James (Jane Austen), Andrew Motion (R.L. Stevenson), Sebastian Faulks (Ian Fleming) and Anthony Horowitz (Conan Doyle) have taken a literary baton and run with it. So it was unsurprising that the challenge pulled in the punters. In general the standard was high, though some entries read more like the synopsis of a sequel than its opening. Honourable mentions go to John Mounsey, Sylvia Smith, Alan Millard and Josh Ekroy.

In Competition No. 2768 you were invited to  supply the profile for an online dating site of a Shakespearean character. Adrian Fry’s Lady Macbeth — ‘I’m a driven, passionate woman with NSOH’ — just missed out, as did Derek Morgan and Carolyn Thomas-Coxhead. The winners take £20 each, Noel Petty pockets the extra fiver. My name is Sir Andrew Aguecheek, knight of the realm, and I am your fellow for all manner of masks, frolics and follies. Indeed, such droleries are my profession, which my title to three thousand ducats annual enables me to indulge. As to my figure, I am tall, with long flaxen hair, and have been reputed to have the best leg in the county.

In Competition No. 2767 you were invited to imagine what the ‘famous last words’ of any well-known real or fictional character, alive or dead, might be/have been. Voltaire’s parting shot, when invited on his deathbed to forswear Satan, is purported to have been: ‘This is no time to make new enemies.’ Oscar Wilde’s final flourish varies depending on where you look but a strong contender is, ‘Either this wallpaper goes, or I do.’ Several of you offered counter-suggestions. Here’s Una McMorran’s: ‘That wallpaper — I’ve changed my mind!’ Richard Dawkins popped up time and again, and there was a great deal of further argy-bargy at Heaven’s gate courtesy of Angry Andrew Mitchell.

In Competition No. 2766 you were invited to submit a poem about a phobia. John Samson’s account of what strikes me as a perfectly reasonable fear of Ikea flatpacks stood out in what was another cracking entry. Bill Greenwell, Brian Allgar, Josephine Boyle and W.J. Webster also shone. The prizewinners are printed below and rewarded with £25 each; Alan Millard takes the bonus fiver. I have no need to dig or dive or delve Into the root or cause of my malaise, The legacy of London 2012 Will mar forever my remaining days; I fear those hostile promptings: ‘Let’s rejoice And follow in the footsteps of the best! Embrace some taxing torture of your choice And join the joggers, gymnasts and the rest!

In Competition No. 2765 you were invited to fill in the gap in ‘The Last —— on Earth’, and to submit a short story of that title. The challenge produced an excellent entry. I very much enjoyed J. Seery’s engaging opening: ‘The events at the Cheltenham supermarket at the end of the 24th century inducing the accelerated evolution of the foot are too well known to need  description, initiating, as they did, the decline and disappearance of shoemaking and mending and their artefacts.’ And I was sorry not to have room for Noel Petty’s poignant and plausibly titled ‘The Last Landline on Earth’ or John Samson’s entertaining wordplay.

In Competition No. 2764 you were invited to provide an example of a Spectator columnist stepping into a fellow columnist’s shoes. It was a smallish entry by comparison with recent weeks and the standard was somewhat uneven. Deborah Ross proved a popular if elusive target. You struggled valiantly to capture her voice but no one completely pulled it off though Brian Murdoch came closest. The bonus fiver goes to Noel Petty, who played a blinder. His fellow winners take £25 each. I have recently discovered a most ingenious and useful device. Since I am reluctant to deface the old rectory where I live with aerials, ‘dishes’ and the like, my access to television is necessarily restricted.

In Competition No. 2763 you were invited to submit a poem that is composed of lines taken from well-known poems, with no more than one line taken from any single poem. This was a brute of a challenge, but it did pull in the crowds. Semi-nonsense was fine as long as it was amusing but I was especially impressed by those who managed to knit together something that made sense. Commendations to Geoffrey Tapper, Gerard Benson, Margaret Howell and Gordon MacIntyre. There is no overall winner this week but those printed below earn a well-deserved £25 each. Then felt I like some watcher of the skies, With dream and thought and feeling interwound. With thoughtful pace, and sad, majestic eyes, My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

In Competition No. 2762 you were invited to leap on to the latest literary bandwagon and submit an extract from a racy retelling of a classic work of literature. There was a finely calibrated mix of gusto and restraint in the entry and I regretted not having space for Alan Millard’s saucy Great Expectations (‘“Es-Tel-La,” Pip repeated, letting the syllables slip from his tongue like drops of honey.’) Printed below are six of the best, which earn their authors £25 apiece. W.J. Webster takes the extra fiver. ‘Ah, Mrs Corney, ma’am,’ exclaimed Mr Bumble, easing back in his chair, ‘ you know how to make a man feel — (here he paused, glancing slyly down) — unbuttoned. You see the way to my heart.

In Competition No. 2760 you were invited to submit an example of the kind of treacly inspirational poetry that adorns the office walls of a life coach and might be quoted by motivational speakers. Banality and triteness are not as easy to churn out as you might think. ‘I found this extraordinarily difficult,’ confessed Gerard Benson. ‘I gained a new respect for Ella Wheeler Wilcox [‘Laugh, and the world laughs with you;/ Weep, and you weep alone’] and her like.’ Still, there were some magnificently nauseating offerings. D.A. Prince leads the field and is rewarded with the bonus fiver. Her fellow winners take £25 each. (But remember, unlucky losers, there is no such thing as failure, only early attempts at success.

In Competition No. 2759 you were invited to submit a well-known poem rewritten by another well-known poet. You were outstandingly good this week and there are lots of unlucky losers. Honourable mentions to Graham King, Janet Kenny, Jerome Betts, Barbara Smoker and Gerard Benson and a hearty pat on the back all round. Those printed below earn £25 each; Noel Petty takes the extra fiver. The church tower casts an ever-lengthening shade And evening cloaks the dismal rural scene. Beneath these stones the hamlet’s dead are laid. How devilish dull their living must have been! No claret, cards or courtesans repaid Their tedious agricultural routine. I fancy, though, if I’d been humble clay I’d still have found some fun along the way.

In Competition No. 2758 you were invited to submit a horoscope for Cancer or Leo written by a well-known literary figure past or present. I regretted not having space for William Danes-Volkov’s horoscopic Hemingway: ‘Maybe someone else will listen to you in the cold air of Friday in the high mountains, or maybe money will come your way; only a few pesos perhaps, but enough to buy a tortilla from the woman with the troubles of which she does not speak.’ Equally impressive were Basil Ransome-Davies, Frank Upton and Margaret J. Howell. The winners below earn £25 each. Brian Allgar takes £30.

In Competition No. 2757 you were invited to introduce a note of unwelcome reality into a song from a musical. Thanks to Brian Allgar for suggesting this corker of a competition, which attracted a large entry. You might have taken as your model ‘Pore Jud is Daid’ from Oklahoma!, which, as Josephine Boyle points out, is not without gritty realism: ‘He looks like he’s asleep, It’s a shame that he won’t keep. But it’s summer and we’re running out of ice.’ Frank Upton, W.J. Webster, Paul Evans and Alexander Faris just missed out on joining the winners, printed below, who are rewarded with £25 each. Alan Millard pockets the bonus fiver.

In Competition No. 2756 you were invited to submit your contribution to the booming genre of Scandinavian crime fiction. Guidance is at hand courtesy of Barry Forshaw, author of Death in a Cold Climate: A Guide to Scandinavian Crime Fiction, who has compiled a list of ten tips on how to write a masterpiece of Nordic noir. First and foremost, he says, know your landscape: ‘make sure you evoke your locale with maximum atmosphere, be it the endless forests and big skies of Sweden, Finland’s lakes...’ Other Scandi staples, such as torture, mutilation, alienation and conspicuously Nordic knitwear, featured strongly in an entry that by and large nailed the genre nicely. Winners get £25 each, with Alanna Blake taking the bonus fiver.

In Competition No. 2755 you were invited to submit an 'Ode to rain'. No doubt you saw this one coming, what with monsoon June and July's 50 shades of grey skies. In any case, the lively and entertaining postbag the challenge elicited was certainly a welcome antidote to the ongoing misery of being semi-housebound or repeatedly soaked to the skin. Gerard Benson, Katie Mallett, Mae Scanlon, Roger Theobald and Basil Ransome-Davies were unlucky to miss out on a place in the winning line-up. Those that did make the cut are printed below and rewarded with £25 apiece. Mary Holtby pockets the bonus fiver. A one-off award this week for the most aptly named competitor goes to Mick Poole.