Lucy Vickery

In Competition No. 2850 you were invited to invent proverbs that sound profound but have no meaning. This was an extremely popular competition, which attracted an enormous entry. It was a pleasure to judge, and cheering, too, to see lots of unfamiliar names in among the regulars. The best entries contain just the promise of a profound meaning — but frustrate the reader’s attempt to work out exactly what it is. I tried to weed out those submissions (some of them very amusing) that did express a clearly discernible deeper truth, but some may have slipped through the net. The following competitors deserve an honourable mention: ‘The shallow puddle floods no meadows’ (D.A.

In Competition No. 2848 you were invited to submit a poem commenting on Scottish independence in the style of William Topaz McGonagall. McGonagallesque long lines leave me space only to congratulate you on a vast and skilful entry before handing over to the man himself, hailed by the TLS as ‘the only truly memorable bad poet in our language’. Ralph Rochester takes the extra fiver; the rest nab £35. Bounteous Heavens, let us all rejoice! For the People of Scotland have been given a     Choice And there is to be a National Referendum For which we must thank the Scottish     Nationalists and London.

In Competition No. 2847 you were invited to submit a poem celebrating a famous duo. You wheeled out a colourful cast of pairings. Ray Kelley sang the praises of Flanders and Swann: ‘Never was there a sweeter fit/ of wit to melody, melody to wit’. Brian Allgar proposed a toast to that gruesome twosome Burke and Hare. And Martin Parker saluted south London kings of retail Arding and Hobbs: ‘Posh Knightsbridge had Harrods for nabobs and nobs./ The folks down at Clapham had Arding and Hobbs.’ Hugh King was impressive, as were Michael Swan and Alanna Blake, but they were edged out by this week’s overall champ, Chris O’Carroll, who takes £35, and his fellow winners, who pocket £30 apiece.

In Competition No. 2846 you were invited to invent the six rules for writing of a well-known author of your choice. Honourable mentions go to Hugh King, whose Revd W.A. Spooner urges writers to ‘be sure to merge all pisstakes’, and to J. Seery, who reckons Hemingway’s sixth rule would be: ‘It is you or the reader. Only one of you is going to walk away from this alive. Make sure it is you.’ I was prompted to set this task by a tweet that reminded me of George Orwell’s famous six rules, and W.J. Webster earns the bonus fiver for crafting an eloquent riposte to Orwell on the part of Henry James. The rest take £25 each. 1. Do not think that using three words where one will do is a cardinal sin.

In Competition No. 2845 you were invited to provide a hymn for atheists. This excellent, and topical, competition was suggested by John Whitworth, in response to the growth of organised atheism. Hymns do not feature at all at the Sunday Assembly, an atheist church founded last year in London. Instead the congregation sings along, in evangelical style, to pop songs by the likes of the Pointer Sisters, Stevie Wonder and Daft Punk. Perhaps they might feel inspired, by one of the entries below, to change their tune. Honourable mentions go to Sid Field, George Simmers, Barbara Smoker, Nick Grace, Richard Kelly and Samuel Johnson. The bonus fiver is Rob Stuart’s and the rest take £25 each.

In Competition No. 2844 you were invited to provide an extract from either a gripping thriller or a bodice-ripping romance containing half a dozen pieces of inconsequential information. I can now add the fact that Zanzibar is the world’s largest clove producer, and that 99 per cent of Estonians have blue eyes, to my cache of conversational titbits. Thanks, for those morsels of trivia, to J. Seery and Nicholas Hodgson. Basil Ransome-Davies takes £30; the rest nab £25. I was wearing out shoe-leather tracking Torpedo McCann across the city, learning why most American males prefer rubber soles. LA had expanded since it was bought by the US from Mexico in 1848 and I was building a thirst myself when he entered a saloon next to a tattoo parlour.

In Competition No. 2843 you were given a list of poets’ surnames — motion, bridges, wilde, gray, cope, hood, burns and browning — and asked to incorporate them into a poem or piece of prose. I gave you scope for showing off by inviting you to cram in extra names should you choose to. The award for class swot has to go to Albert Black, who pulled off the phenomenal feat of shoehorning 52 names into his entry. A nod to Frank McDonald, whose entry to another competition gave me the idea for this. Basil Ransome-Davies takes the bonus fiver; his fellow winners pocket £25 each. The bridge that burns can be the best of bridges. A pound of hope won’t buy an ounce of luck. Try Scotland, though you’ll have to cope with midges.

In Competition 2842 you were invited to compose the most off-putting book blurb that you could muster. There’s just space to say that I don’t think I’ll be rushing out to buy Jonathan Friday’s ‘groundbreaking exploration of the neglected beauty of bodily fluids and excreta’, which features ‘a striking array of scratch’n’sniff imagery’. G.M. Davis, nabs £30. The rest take £25. Like Ernest Vincent Wright and Georges Perec, Guillermo Pozoverde has written a lipogrammatic novel, an extreme one.