Lucy Vickery

In Competition No. 2780 you were invited to write, in the spirit of Aesop or La Fontaine, a rhymed fable involving animals. Plato wrote in Phaedo that Socrates whiled away the hours in captivity turning some of Aesop’s Fables into verse. La Fontaine did the same, of course, though not from behind bars, some 2,000 years later. The challenge attracted a large entry. Some of you followed in the footsteps of Socrates and La Fontaine and translated the Phrygian fabulist’s content into poetry; others started from scratch and invented their own cautionary tales, often with a modern twist. Godfrey Ackers, Alanna Blake and Brian Allgar narrowly missed out on a spot in a hotly contested winning line-up. The prizewinners, printed below, are rewarded with £25 each.

In Competition No. 2779 you were invited to submit Maud’s reply to Tennyson. It was Joyce Grenfell’s magnificently ball-breaking riposte to the invitation to ‘Come into the garden, Maud’ that inspired the challenge, and in general your responses referenced this section of the poem. You were on equally feisty form, having little truck with the narrator’s lurking in the bushes and talking to flowers. Honourable mentions go to unlucky losers Crispian Cartwright, Graham King, Douglas G. Brown, Frank Kershaw and Roger Theobald. The winners earn £25; W.J. Webster takes £30.   Alfred, dear, you are very sweet To wait at the gate all night, But I have danced quite off my feet, And dawn offers little delight.

In Competition No. 2778 you were invited to express your regret, in verse, for New Year’s resolutions not kept. The challenge produced an entertaining outpouring of contrition. I enjoyed John MacRitchie’s twist on the Frank Sinatra classic: ‘I’ve packed my case too full,/ Made dreadful curries, in a Thai way,/ Each year, my diets flop,/ Who cares what I weigh?’ Commendations, and commiserations, to unlucky losers Juliet Walker, Tim Raikes, Mae Scanlan, Douglas G. Brown, Jayne Osborn and G.W. Tapper. The winners, below, get £25 each. Top prize goes to Brian Allgar, who pockets the extra fiver. Happy New Year!  I swore I’d give up sex and saturnalia; That was my optimistic resolution.

In Competition No. 2777 you were invited to take inspiration from pupils at a Cambridge school who may escape punishment for minor offences if they can come up with a quick and clever excuse. Juliet Walker showed impressive ingenuity: ‘Yes, I did have my pet rat in my pocket, and I’m sorry if he frightened Miss, but she talks about “living history” and I’m just recreating the conditions in the trenches.’ As did Mark Ambrose: ‘The blankness on the paper is my answer to the existential problem posed by Sartre in the question.’ A skilful bending of the truth was called for here rather than outright outlandish lies. Could do better is the judge’s verdict on the overall standard, though there were some admirable exceptions.

In Competition No. 2776 you were invited to supply a poem reflecting on the Nativity written from the point of view of the donkey or the ox who (according to artists’ portrayals of the event, at least) bore witness to it. From the mid-1970s, the poet U.A. Fanthorpe wrote poems as Christmas greetings to her friends in which she reworked various aspects of the Christmas story. One of these, ‘What the Donkey Saw’, gives an ass’s-eye view on proceedings that fateful night in the poet’s typically wry and witty style. An enjoyable one to judge, this. The extra fiver goes to G.M. Davis. The rest take £25. Happy Christmas! We oxen are old hands, not prone to panics. Take one night last December.

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.