Lucy Vickery

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.

In Competition No. 2754 you were invited to submit an example from the Selected Poems of a contemporary politician. Politician-poets have met with varying degrees of success. While Jimmy Carter's efforts prompted literary heavyweight Harold Bloom to pronounce him 'in my judgment literally the worst poet in the United States', the youthful dabblings of Barack Obama have been judged more kindly. Closer to home, Dominique de Villepin has published several well received collections of poetry. So how did your chosen victims fare? Step forward, Dennis Skinner, George Galloway, Nicolas Sarkozy and Tony Blair. Brian Murdoch as Alex Salmond channelling William McGonagall takes £35. The rest get £30.

In Competition No. 2753 you were invited to submit a new national anthem for Greece. The entry was split between those who present Greece’s woes as being mostly self-inflicted and a more sympathetic bunch, who acknowledge the wider forces that may have helped to bring this once great nation to its knees. Both camps are represented in the winning line-up. W.J. Webster takes the bonus fiver. His fellow winners pocket £25 each. Hellas! Hellas! All Hellenes cry ‘Hellas!’ Our great descent is known to all Who’ve heard of Europe’s story, From giants too many to recall Who laid our claim to glory. Here history first got its name, We gave the epic birth; Geometry owes us its frame, We even measured Earth.

In Competition No. 2752 you were invited to submit a short story ending with the phrase: ‘It is not all pleasure, this exploration.’ Dr Livingstone’s pronouncement, written in 1873 a few days before his wretched death, is putting it mildly. His final days had been plagued by pneumonia, malaria, foot ulcers, piles, rotting teeth, leeches, hostile African tribesmen and a large blood clot in his gut. Several competitors wove Livingstone in, but the postbag was impressively wide-ranging: crime rubbed shoulders with horror and sci-fi, and there was even a smattering of erotica — very much the genre du jour. Commendations to Lance Levens and Frank Osen, £25 each to the winners and £30 to Josephine Boyle. I am inquisitive: I love discoveries. Usually.

In Competition No. 2751 you were invited to paint a portrait in verse of Ladies’ Day at Royal Ascot. In his Turf column last year, Robin Oakley wondered what the poet who, in 1823, described ‘the Thursday goings-on as “Ladies Day ...when the women, like angels, look sweetly divine”’ would make of today’s proceedings. Well, the entry is a fulsome tribute to the Ladies of 2012, urging us to delight in the life-enhancing antics and ensembles that raise them hats and shoulder pads above their ‘angelic’ predecessors. The winners pocket £25 apiece. Brian Allgar gets £30. The ladies are charming, although it’s alarming To see how they jostle and chatter — ‘And guess what he said, dear...

In Competition No. 2750 you were invited to submit a poem in praise of one of the deadly sins. The challenge was prompted by the following surprising admission by Taki in a High Life column earlier this year: ‘Lust, gluttony, pride, wrath and sloth I am rather proud to be guilty of, especially the first and the last.’ Though lust didn’t get much of a look-in in the entry, you were with Taki on sloth, which, along with gluttony, produced all six winners. Marion Shore and John O’Byrne were on pithy, witty form; commendations also go to Barbara Wilcock Bland, Janet Kenny, Carolyn Thomas-Coxhead and Derek Robinson. The winners get £25 each. Bill Greenwell nabs £30.

In Competition No. 2749 you were invited to submit a poem, written by a poet laureate from the past, to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Thirteen out of the 19 former laureates featured in the entry. Unsurprisingly, the most popular were Betjeman and Tennyson, with Wordsworth and Hughes coming a close second. Alfred Austin and Colley Cibber, poorly rated and oft-mocked, spawned a handful of strong submissions. I liked George Simmers’s twist on Southey’s ‘After Blenheim’; equally impressive were Ann Alexander, Brian Murdoch and W.J. Webster, all of whom captured well the voice of Ted Hughes. The winners, printed below, get £25 each. The bonus fiver goes to Mary Holtby as John Dryden, the only holder of the office of laureate to be sacked.

In Competition 2748 you were invited to submit snippets of misleading advice for tourists visiting Britain. For those who are less than enthusiastic about the impending Games and the resulting hordes that will descend on the capital and beyond, this week’s postbag provides a potent arsenal of sadistic misinformation guaranteed to add an interesting twist to any Olympic visitor’s trip. It was another cracking performance all round. The winners are printed below and earn a fiver per snippet. London cab drivers prefer to be paid with an Oyster card. Wherever you go, you will find the hip, creative, boho crowd at your local Wetherspoon’s. Call a number on any of the promotional National Lottery cards left in telephone boxes to see if you have won a prize.

In Competition No. 2747 you were invited to encapsulate a well-known poem in four lines. These digests perform a valuable service to the time-starved reader of today, and How to be Well-versed in Poetry, edited by E.O. Parrott, contains some fine examples. Who needs to plough through Chesterton’s ‘Lepanto’ when we have John Stanley Sweetman’s four-line gem: ‘Don John/ Fought on./ Gave Turks/ Works’? Your contributions were just as good and, to judge by the flood of entries, the assignment was an addictive one. Commendations go to Robert Schechter, Michael Grosvenor Myer, Marion Shore and Tabitha Syrett., while the winners earn £7 for each entry printed.

In Competition No. 2746 you were invited to submit a sonnet using the following rhymes: pig, bat, cat, wig, jig, hat, rat, fig; lie, red, sob, die, bed, rob. This is a rerun of a brute of a competition that was set back in the 1950s, and the daft rhymes are those given as an illustration of the verse form by the Concise Oxford Dictionary of that time. The final rhyme proved especially bothersome, frequently scuppering otherwise excellent entries. Nonsense verse was the obvious way to go but a fair few forged ingenious alternative routes. It was a large entry and the standard was high. Well deserved commendations go to Peter Smaill, Janet Kenny, Jenny Hill, Paul Evans, James Bench-Capon, John Beaton, D.A. Prince and Noel Petty.