Lucy Vickery

In Competition No. 3299, you were invited to supply a short story that takes as its title the title of a Beatles song. Haruki Murakami used Beatles tracks from the album Rubber Soul as names for both his 1987 novel Norwegian Wood and a short story, ‘Drive My Car’. But the Japanese writer has confessed that he was never ‘a fervent fan’. In high school and college, he says, he ‘didn’t buy a single record’ by the Fab Four. In a large and inventive entry, Ben Hale’s dystopian ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’, with its echoes of the film Logan’s Run,caught my eye, and I was moved by Frank McDonald’s poignant tale of the last surviving lemming.

In Competition No. 3298, you were invited to provide a book review in three haiku. When I saw that the unofficial poet laureate of Twitter Brian Bilston had tweeted some haiku book reviews, I thought I’d challenge you to do something along the same lines. The traditional Japanese haiku is a snapshot of a moment in time rendered in 17 syllables in three unrhymed lines of five, seven and five syllables (though these rules have not always been slavishly observed by western poets). Or, as the incomparable Stanley J. Sharpless put it: This is a haiku. Five syllables, then seven. Then five more. Got it? Some entries incorporated references to the natural world, which is a hallmark of the haiku. And there was a streak of subversive humour too. The winners take £20.

In Competition No. 3297, you were invited to provide a psychiatrist’s report on a well-known literary character. The germ of this challenge was an interview with Olivia Colman, who played Miss Havisham in a recent adaptation of Great Expectations, in which the actress said of her character: ‘It’s terrible what happens to Miss Havisham… If only she’d had a therapist or a really good friend to chat to, she might be in a much better place.’ Only John O’Byrne chose to put ‘Ms H’ on the psychiatrist’s couch, though. Far more popular subjects were Bertie Wooster, Holden Caulfield and – star of the show – Winnie-the-Pooh. David Silverman, Martin Williams, Joe Houlihan, Charlotte Marshall, Joshua Price and Nigel Johnson-Hill earn honourable mentions.

In Competition No. 3296, you were invited to provide a poem whose rhyme words are all at least three syllables. You riffed off W.S. Gilbert, Wordsworth and Dylan Thomas,among others, in limericks, double dactyls and villanelles, about subjects ranging from Gary Lineker to sex dolls. Philip Roe, Barbara Jones and Chris Ramsey shone, but the winners below take £25. The wisdom of Lord Bostock was, to say the least, debatable, For, shunning living ladies, he had purchased an inflatable. He took her home, unpacked her, and he used her energetically, Excitedly, delightedly, and finally frenetically. He never doubted she could bear the strain of his virility; She burst when he was in a pose of minimal   stability.

In Competition No. 3295, you were invited to submit a comically appalling final paragraph to the worst of all possible novels. From time to time, I set a challenge that owes a debt to the Victorian novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton – who enjoyed a brief burst of popularity in his day, before falling out of favour – and to the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which challenges participants to write an atrocious opening sentence to the worst novel never written. Brian Murdoch’s entry opens with a nod to the notorious first sentence (a favourite of Snoopy) of Edward B-L’s 1830 novel Paul Clifford: ‘It was a dark and stormy night’. The winners, below, take £25.

In Competition No. 3294, you were invited to provide the first 16 lines of an ode to a turnip or another similarly unglamorous vegetable. This assignment was prompted, of course, by Thérèse Coffey’s suggestion that we respond to shortages in salad vegetables by embracing the turnip. But I also had in mind the wonderful odes of Pablo Neruda, which celebrate the commonplace: onions, lemons, a piece of tuna in the market.  In a witty and well-made entry, echoes ranged from Pindar to Keats. Commendations to Hunter Liguore, Ann Drysdale and Richard Spencer. The winners earn £25.

In Competition No. 3293, you were invited to provide an extract from the autobiography of a well-known public figure which manages to make a very interesting life sound extraordinarily dull. I am grateful to Sarah Drury for suggesting this terrific challenge. Honourable mentions, in a modest-sized entry, go to Sir Alec Guinness’s Spam anecdote (Jonathan Taylor), Elon Musk’s account of founding the Boring Company (John O’Byrne) and tales from St Paul’s tent-making days in Tarsus (Revd Richard Coles). The prizewinners below take £25. The Battle of Rivoli was my twenty-second substantial victory (for my definition of ‘substantial’ see Appendix IV, ‘Definitions’), which puts me one ahead of the duc de Vendôme and only five behind Julius Caesar.

In Competition No. 3292, you were invited  to provide a poem to mark the death of Betty Boothroyd. The formidable Lady Boothroyd – the Guardian obituarist’s description of her exuding ‘warmth and wit’ and ‘a whiff of glamour’ was spot-on – brought out the best in you. There were neat acrostics from David Silverman and David Shields, and head--turning double dactyls from Richard Spencer and Alex Steelsmith. Here are Mr Steelsmith’s final two quatrains: Eulogists speak of herHonourability;Countless admirers, whileRaising a cup, Picture her shatteringParadisiacalCeilings of crystal whereTime’s never up. It was a struggle to whittle down a large and stellar field, and Janine Beacham was only just nudged out of the prizewinning line-up.

In Competition No. 3291, you were invited to provide a profile of a well-known person in which their qualities are compared to items of food or drink. A commendation to Chris O’Carroll for his gastronomical portrait of Jeremy Clarkson – ‘…the scorching sarcasm he deploys in lieu of wit manages to combine the sadistic fire of Ghost Peppers, Carolina Reapers and the like with the sorry shapelessness of a bland swede mash or a gummy tangle of damp pasta…’ – and £25 to the winners. Mr Lee Anderson is a giant cock-on-a-stick, Goose Fair’s abiding sweet treat, a sticky Nottinghamshire delicacy with a bit of bite – not something to chew over, more something ready to snap.

In Competition No. 3290, you were invited to recast the Lord’s Prayer as a sonnet. The late Frank Kermode reckoned that any schoolboy can write a sonnet, but this challenge was a deceptively simple one; as Nick MacKinnon observed: ‘the Lord’s Prayer is very efficient’. Nonetheless, it drew a large and witty haul, in which some competitors chose to put more of their own spin on the original than others, making a pleasingly varied entry. Jennifer Zhou, Ann Drysdale, John Wood, George Simmers, David Silverman, Lachlan Rurlander and Simon May stood out, but the £20 prize goes to the seven below. Our Father, Sister, Mother – gender-freecelestial deity, by all extolled,it’s said one day you’ll visit us to seeif we conduct our lives as we’ve been told.

In Competition No. 3289, you were invited to provide an extract from a politically correct version of a work by an unreconstructed male novelist or poet.  An honourable mention to Alex Steelsmith for his reimagining of ‘Song of Myself’ by Walt Whitman, celebrated poet but also author of the long-forgotten Manly Health and Training in which he prescribes a meat-only diet, naked sunbathing and the avoidance of the draining company of women. Here is a snippet:  My pronouns are They, Them and Theirs.(I am large, I contain multitudes.

In Competition No. 3288, you were invited to supply a sonnet on an embarrassing ailment. To make space for as many winners as possible, I’ll keep it brief: in an amusing and accomplished entry, the sonnets below nosed ahead of the pack and earn their authors £15. They flee from me that sometime did me seekOr make excuse to end our conversation;They turn away when I begin to speakOr greet me with a look of consternation.I wondered many times about the causeNor could I fathom why I should feel shame;I asked myself why I got no applauseWhen I said something, but no answer came.And then one day a visit to the docRevealed the cause of each departing friend;The fetid breath I breathed produced a shockAnd brought a meeting to a speedy end.

In Competition No. 3287, you were invited to supply a review of a film, novel, poem or play in the style of a writer for whom the theme might be deemed an appropriate choice. Thanks to Philip Stevens for suggesting this terrific challenge, which attracted a sizeable and stellar entry. Honourable mentions to Moray McGowan’s Kafka on The Very Hungry Caterpillar (‘There is a story here, but it needs something more radical, perhaps even wildly implausible, to make it more realistic.’), Chris O’Carroll’s T.S. Eliot on James and the Giant Peach and Russell Chamberlain’s Jeremy Clarkson on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. In an especially hotly contested week, the winners below snaffle £25 apiece.

In Competition No. 3286, you were invited to submit a toe-curling Valentine poem to Harry, or to the love object of your choice. Meghan and her frightful poems were the inspiration for this assignment but perhaps we should cut her some slack; as Carol Ann Duffy has said, love poetry is the hardest to write. Mindful that some may be heartily sick of the Sussexes and their shenanigans, I widened the brief, and while most of you had Harry in your amorous sights, other love objects ranged from Sergei Lavrov to Nicola Sturgeon. Honourable mentions, in a smallish and patchy entry, go to Richard Spencer, Robert Schechter, Susan Firth and Nicholas Lee. Also eye-catching were John O’Byrne’s tri-ple haiku to Alexa and David Shields’s Betjeman-inflected Valentine to Jacob Rees-Mogg.

In Competition No. 3285, you were invited to supply an extract from the libretto of a musical based on the life story of a politician. Berlusconi: A New Musical, which comes to Southwark Playhouse next month, is described enticingly on the theatre’s website as ‘a hilarious, naughty, noisy exposé of the original perma-tanned media mogul and populist politician… like Evita on acid’.  Tim Rice didn’t get much of a look-in in the entry, swept aside by the spirits of Sondheim, W.S. Gilbert, Irving Berlin and Oscar Hammerstein. Opening the show is Basil Ransome-Davies’s riff on Frank Loesser’s ‘If I Were a Bell’ . He and his fellow winners pocket £30. An honourable mention goes to Sue Pickard.

In Competition No. 3284, you were invited to supply a topical short story that begins with the last line of a well-known novel and ends with the first. Much has been written about the rise of AI bot ChatGPT (from zero users to several million its first two weeks!), and reader Alistair Kelman fed it the last and first lines of Nineteen Eighty-Four to see how it would fare with this challenge. There’s no room to share the result, alas, but I can say that while it won’t be winning any prizes for now, the bot’s performance was a marked improvement on that of a predecessor, GPT-2, set the same task a few years ago. So watch this space. Brian Murdoch described this as ‘an interestingly difficult assignment’ which was evidently a good thing judging by the mammoth entry.

In Competition No. 3283, you were invited to submit ‘A Peer’s Lament’. There was a smattering of references to Baroness Mone, whose travails prompted this challenge. But of course members of the Upper House have plenty to worry about besides, as winningly detailed in a lively and varied entry that contained echoes ranging from Poe, Belloc, Thomas Hood and W.S. Gilbert to Boney M. The winners earn £25. By these drivellers of babble-on who wouldn’t weep? No wonder so many just drift off to sleep When others talk nonsense that leaves us agog With claptrap as clear as a thick London fog. There are those like the ‘Churchill dog’ stuck in a car Who nod as if listening then rush to the bar.

In Competition No. 3282, you were invited to submit a short story narrated from an un-usual perspective. The seed for this challenge was Kim Stanley-Robinson’s cli-fi novel Ministry For the Future, described by the New Yorker as ‘both harrowing and heartening’. One of its chapters is narrated by a carbon atom, another by the market; a literary device informed by Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory (the idea that non-human entities have agency). Honourable mentions go to Bob Pringle, Joe Bogle, Martin Leigh, C-A Herstedt and Frank Upton. The winners, printed below, are awarded £25 each. When first I began to clear, Haggie realised he was – somehow – still alive. Very little else was, so it seemed.

In Competition No. 3281, you were invited to provide 16 lines of cheerful welcome to 2023 in the metre of Tennyson’s ‘In Memoriam’. ‘Ring out the old, ring in the new,’ wrote the poet in ‘Ring out, wild bells’, part of ‘In Memoriam’. Hats off to all: it was a terrific entry – cheery but with the occasional gratifying sting in the tail. The winners take £25. Ring out wild bells for ’23,    Forget the country’s woeful state:   With luck, inflation will deflate,In time we’ll all be Covid-free. Ring out the old, ring in the new    As PMs come and PMs go,    Though all is blue, the wind may blow –Bring changes of a different hue.

In Competition No. 3280, you were invited to submit an updating of W.H. Auden’s ‘Night Mail’ entitled ‘Email’. ‘Night Mail’ was written to accompany a section of the excellent 1936 documentary about the London to Glasgow Postal Special directed by Basil Wright and Harry Watt (who described Auden as looking like a ‘half-witted Swedish deckhand’). Auden used a stopwatch as he was writing to ensure that each snippet of spoken verse fit the shot on which it commented. ‘We were experimenting to see whether poetry could be used in films,’ he said, ‘and I think we showed it could.