Competition

In Competition No. 2484 you were invited to provide the first 16 lines of an ‘Ode to Vegetables’. Thank you for the kind words that have been reaching me at the Charing Cross Hospital. Mike Morrison’s entry was particularly bracing: I’ve never known a patient quite like you,Jaspistos: no, you can’t have Irish stew ...‘May I have cheese on toast?’ No, you may not,It’s Hobson’s choice here, sunshine — that’s shallot!My challenge called for either the solemnity of an Erasmus Darwin or Auden in a light-hearted mood, but the results were disappointing. The prizewinners, printed below, are rewarded with £25 each, while the bonus fiver goes to Noel Petty.

To say ‘I’m sorry’ once can be emollient, but as everybody knows, to say it three times with arms flapping like a penguin is downright inflammatory. Most of your apologies were for sexual misbehaviour. Since there are so many other domestic sins just as exasperating as infidelity I found this surprising. The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each, and the bonus fiver goes to D.A. Prince. Dear, there’s so much — so where do I begin?(To you the smallest fault’s a mortal sin.)I’ve boiled your egg too hard (again!); your TimesIs creased (I read it first); the cat — her crimesAre also mine — slept on your scarf; the carhas yet another scratch; the Marmite jaris empty; yet again the toast is burned.

In Competition No. 2482 you were invited to supply an acrostic poem, involving questions and answers in which the first letters of the lines read SOCRATIC METHOD. Smartypants will have spotted that the title of this competition is an anagram of the required phrase. In hospital one undergoes much questioning as well as treatment. The other day a nurse with a clipboard asked me, ‘Are you apprehensive in this hospital?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Why?’ she inquired. ‘Aren’t most people in hospital apprehensive, because they’re ill but they don’t know how ill?’ ‘Oh,’ she said most un-Socratically, ‘that was rather a silly question, wasn’t it?’ ‘Yes.

In Competition No. 2481 you were invited to supply a poem or a piece of prose ending with Gore Vidal’s nasty gnome, ‘It’s not enough to succeed. Others must fail.’ I’m not an especially nice person, but I’ve never experienced the pleasant frisson of schadenfreude; in fact, Rochefoucauld’s remark to the effect that there is something not unpleasing in the misfortunes of our friends strikes me as a bum maxim. This week, verse outshone prose so brightly that the prose writers, led by Frank Mc Donald, are not among the prizewinners. These are rewarded with £25 each, while the bonus fiver goes to the loony Hugh King. I’ve conclusively proved that pigs fly,The Earth is quite flat,Stars are just holes in the sky,And Einstein’s a prat.

In Competition No 2480 you were invited to supply a song beginning, ‘Oh, what have you done to your ...?, the blank to be filled by a relative of your choice. When you’re young, relatives — barring the family, of course — are automatically ridiculous. ‘Oh, Aunt Jemima, look at your Uncle Jim./ He’s in the duckpond learning how to swim./ First he does the breaststroke, then he does the side./ Now he’s under the water, swimming against the tide!’ I used to sing that giggling when I was a lad. Now I’m an ancient Uncle Jim, it’s less of a hoot. The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each, and the bonus fiver goes to David Wood. Oh, what have you done to your Uncle Sydney?

The Beefeatress in question is not, as you might imagine, a middle-aged matron in the mould of Margaret Dumont but a 38-year-old lassie from Lochgilphead, Argyll, named Moira Cameron. (Those who got her forename wrong or thought she came from Fife are pardoned.) Special commendations to Jim Davies, Michael Brereton, W.J. Webster and David Schofield. The prizewinners, printed below, get £40 each, and the bonus fiver goes without hesitation to that vivid veteran Basil Ransome-Davies. When a girl has a yen to compete with the men for a uniformed job at the Tower She must fearlessly fight to establish her right and not weep like a baby or cower.

The rhyme scheme is from Auden’s ‘The Composer’. As eagle-eyed Basil Ransome-Davies, who spotted this, remarked, ‘It’s hardly the best of Auden, so compers have a chance of writing a superior poem.’ We shall see. Some objected to the word ‘adaption’, claiming their spellcheck didn’t acknowledge its existence. Auden was no slouch: the word is plainly recognised in my Chambers. I reckoned it was a difficult comp, so a large and skilful entry impressed me. Commendations are too numerous to mention. Just general congratulations. The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each, and the bonus fiver goes to George Simmers. Says God, ‘That’s one of my unfinished sketches —A planet I’ve decided to reject.

In Competition No 2477 you were informed of a German firm that offers to say goodbye on your behalf to an unwanted friend or lover by telephone, letter or personal visit, and invited to describe one such operation from the viewpoint of either the victim or the messenger. If you look up Tata Ltd in the telephone directory you will find it, but beware: it is a huge conglomerate and may be puzzled by the service you require. The man you want is Herr Bernd Dressler, who no doubt has a niche on the internet. Sixty years ago I was in the unhappy position of being asked by a close female friend to meet my best chum at Paddington and tell him that a short-lived blaze was dead. Last year, for the first time, we three met again. My chum and I remembered the incident, but the lady didn’t.

In Competition No. 2476 (in error numbered 2477) you were invited to supply three haikus (rhyme optional) which form a single poem greeting the New Year.The traditional Japanese haiku has 17 syllables arranged in three unrhymed lines of five, seven and five syllables. Western poets have widened their scope to cover almost any mood. I like this one from the late D.J. Enright: Everest, Mont Blanc,Matterhorn, Mons Veneris —Hills so hard to climb. The prizewinners, printed below, get £18 each, and the bonus fiver belongs to John Whitworth. This is the year ofthe pig and is better byfar than the past one. This is the year thata consummate liar hadclaimed as his last one. This is the year wewill know if the bastard waspulling a fast one.

In Competition No. 2475 you were invited to provide entries from the diary of someone trying to escape from the Christmas season — and failing. Maybe you were all suffering from pre-Christmas exhaustion, maybe it was an unsuitable comp, or maybe I was in an atrabilious mood, but the entries were so substandard that, to cries of ‘Have a heart, ref!’, I rule that there are only three prizewinners this week. They are printed below, earning £30 each, D.A. Prince taking the bonus fiver. To fill in the extra space in a seasonable manner I append an entry from Mr Pooter’s ‘Diary’, followed by the last paragraph of Max Beerbohm’s parody of Chesterton, ‘Some Damnable Errors about Christmas’. 21 December: Damned mobile!

In Competition No. 2474 you were invited to expand a nursery rhyme mockingly in the style of a well-known poet. G.K. Chesterton did ‘Old King Cole’ as written by Tennyson, Browning, Yeats, Whitman and Swinburne, and Anthony Deane expanded ‘Jack and Jill’ to the tune of more than 50 hilariously Kiplingesque lines. These can be found in Apes and Parrots, an anthology by that keen cricketer, drinker and parodist, Sir John Squire. I am fairly well-read in poetry, but I am not a mind-reader, so I was puzzled by one or two competitors who omitted to mention whom they were parodying, for instance Martin Parker’s ‘Humpty Dumpty’, which was witty, but at whose expense? Commendations to G.M. Davis, Peter Scupham, Josephine Boyle and Frank Mc Donald.

In Competition No. 2474 you were invited to supply, following the format and formula of Lewis Carroll’s ‘The Mad Gardener’s Song’, three stanzas which could aptly be titled ‘The Deluded Politician’.This is my favourite Carroll poem. People often miss it because it comes not from the Alice books but from Sylvie and Bruno, much less read. Anyway, it sparked off probably the most enjoyable comp of the year, a delight and an agony to judge. The only minus factor was the general tendency to attach the delusions to the same man, our present Prime Minister. After all, there must be many politicians, here and abroad, who are equally out of touch with reality.

In Competition No. 2472 you were given ten words or phrases and invited to incorporate them, in any order, in a plausible piece of prose. Why, when I asked for a piece of prose, did four of you submit verse? Why did Mary Holtby, usually a skilled competitor, substitute ‘plague’ for ‘plaque’? Did D. Gibson think I would accept disposing of Plaque, Pique and Quid Pro Quo by making them three racehorses? And when I lay down ‘quip’ I am not prepared to accept ‘quipped’ or ‘equipment’. Still brooding over those who sadly disqualified themselves, I award Godfrey Bullard the top prize of £30 and the other prizewinners printed below £25 each. All credit to them; it wasn’t an easy challenge.

In Competition No. 2471 you were given two opening lines and invited to supply an appropriate song or lyric. No room for chitchat this week. Commendations go to W.J. Webster, Keith Norman and G.M. Davis. The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each, and the bonus fiver lands in the lap of Brian Murdoch. Once I was only a wannabee,But now I’m a big celebrity,Because I’ve done realityOn Friday nights on the TV.Now although I’m only twenty-threeAnd I haven’t a single GCSE,I’m writing my autobiography(Well, somebody’s doing the words for me).It’s easy-peasy to get to beA really big celebrityAnd you don’t have to do much for your fee,You only have to let the camera see,When you have a wash or go for a pee(And your bra size has to be 42D).

In Competition No. 2470 you were invited to offer a votive poem to a pre-Christian deity.Venus, take my votive glass:Since I am not what I was,What from this day I shall be,Venus, let me never see. Matthew Prior’s 18th-century prayer by a fading beauty is hard to beat, but Ezra Pound comes close with his unexpectedly charming poem, ‘The Lake Isle’ (is he having a go at Yeats?), which opens: O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves,Give me in due time, I beseech you, a little tobacco-shop… The Golden Calf rewards its worshippers as follows: £25 each to five of the prizewinners printed below, and £30 to Virginia Price Evans, who prays as if she really means it.

In Competition No. 2469 you were invited to supply a poem in which the initial letters of each line, read down the page, reproduce the first line.Another comp that was last set nearly 30 years ago, when it was won by J. Crooks with the intriguing key line, ‘Moguls at the BBC’. This time round many of the key lines had a topographical slant. Examples were ‘Liverpool Central’, ‘The midges on Mull’, ‘On Morecambe sands’ and ‘Street maps reveal’. Two delightful openings were ‘A camel, please!’ (Piers Geddes) and Laura Garratt’s Pepysian ‘And so he went to bed’. The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each, and the bonus fiver goes, with an extra handshake for his clinching joke, to Hugh King.

In Competition No. 2468 you were invited to imagine that you fall asleep and wake up 20 years hence, and then report your impressions without moving from the place where you awoke. Brian Murdoch reported new stamps issued for the Queen’s 100th birthday and the 2012 Olympics postponed yet again, for the 17th time. Mike Morrison envisaged an aged Ken Barlow supervising a pedestrian crossing in Coronation Street and Madonna in the news for adopting a Lithuanian grandmother. Last week I read H.G. Wells’s The Sleeper Awakes in which the hero, after a nap of a mere 203 years, is faced with ‘the nightmare of Capitalism triumphant — higher buildings, bigger towns, wickeder capitalists, labour more downtrodden than ever and more desperate’. Read or reread it.

In Competition No. 2467 you were invited to write a poem in which all the rhymes are eye-rhymes, not ear-rhymes. Many years ago, even before Jaspistos cast his shadow on this page, a similar competition was set, with this difference: clerihews were demanded. Stuart Woods won with this: If Johann Sebastian BachHad remembered to attachBraces to his LevisHe wouldn’t have been so embarrassed while conducting a missa brevis. Thirty years on ingenuity still rules OK. I especially liked the rhymes ‘Aristophanes’ and ‘planes’, and ‘intuit’ and ‘suit’. The standard was so high that I expect there will be disappointment among the near-winners. Console yourselves with the assurance that you were appreciated.

In Competition No. 2466 you were invited to supply a poem or piece of prose ending with the phrase ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’ These words, according to Eric Partridge’s definition, are ‘applied in retrospect, jocularly or ruefully, to anything done impulsively with disastrous consequences, whether or not those were foreseeable at the moment of action’, like, I suppose, the self-castration of the priests of Cybele or the invasion of Iraq. I move aside to make room for six prizewinners, who get £25 each. The bonus fiver goes to Piers Geddes, who, if memory serves, is a newcomer. But if memory serves, it is often a fault.

The scissors-and-paste work involved in this, though laborious, is easy enough; what is difficult is to avoid sliding into nonsense. The trick is, in Dryden’s phrase, to ‘deviate into sense’ as often as possible. John C.H. Mounsey began promisingly: ‘I met a traveller from an antique land,/ A cricket cap was on his head./ “Hold off! Unhand me, grey-beard loon!/ Charge for the guns!” he said’, but lost the plot afterwards. Coincidence corner: two of you used the first line of ‘Ozymandias’ as an opener, and two others did the same with ‘Boys and girls, come out to play’. What are the odds against that?