Lucy Vickery

In Competition No. 2657 you were invited to imagine what merry band Chaucer might bring together if he were writing today. It was another bumper entry this week, and you fell into two camps. There were those who reasoned that were Chaucer writing today he’d probably use modern English. Others, though, couldn’t resist the lure of Middle English, which was used to great comic effect. As spelling in the 14th century was a fluid affair (despite Chaucer’s attempts to standardise it), I didn’t worry too much on that score. What was more important was to capture the wit and vibrancy of his writing, and many of you did so admirably. Commendations go to unlucky losers Marion Shore, Brian Murdoch, Gerard Benson, Bill Greenwell, Paul Griffin and G.W.

In Competition No. 2656 you were invited to submit a dialogue between two well-known figures from different centuries, each using the argot of the time. You responded to this challenge with your usual verve and skill, and I especially liked Frank McDonald’s conversation between Julius Caesar and Churchill (Templumcollis) on the trials of wartime leadership. The winners, printed below, get £30 each and the bonus fiver goes to Brian Murdoch for an entertaining exchange between literary giants about Britain’s woeful performance in sport and song, of the sort that is to be heard in pubs up and down the land. GC: ‘By Christes bludde and Goddes bones, saye me, Shakespeare, what men in Engeland nowadaye tell sootheliche of sporte and of playe.

In Competition No. 2655 you were asked to submit a poem about a mundane household task such as boiling an egg or changing a light bulb in the style of a poet of your choice. Pastiche always pulls in the crowds, and true to form the entries came flooding in. Commendations go to Virginia Price Evans, Paul Griffin, Martin Parker, Gee McIlraith and Tim Raikes, all of whom were unlucky losers. But a pat on the back all round: entries were almost uniformly magnificent and it was extremely tough to choose only a handful. The winners are printed below and earn their authors £25 each. The bonus fiver belongs to George Simmers.

In Competition No. 2654 you were asked to submit a piece of lively and plausible prose, the first word beginning with ‘a’, the second with ‘b’, and so on, throughout the alphabet. Then to start again from ‘a’ and continue up to a maximum of 156 words. This was a real stinker, I admit. There were slip-ups from experienced competitors (Mary Holtby, Nicholas Hodgson), and many entries petered out into exhausted and exasperated silence well before the 156-word limit (though there was no obligation, of course, to reach it). As Basil Ransome-Davies so eloquently put it: ‘Basta! You will go to hell for this one.’ Well, Bazza, you can blame Cervantes, who, John Whitworth tells me, invented this game.

In Competition No. 2653 you were invited to submit a poem, written in the metre of Longfellow’s ‘The Song of Hiawatha’, describing Hiawatha’s experiences at his computer. Longfellow’s epic, with its readily imitated metre, has spawned countless parodies. This is from the Literary Digest in 1925: ‘Have you ever noticed verses/ Written in unrhymed trochaics/ Without thinking as you read them,/ This was swiped from “Hiawatha”?’ And in an introduction (written in trochees) to his fine contribution to the genre, ‘Hiawatha’s photographing’, Lewis Carroll made the following observation: ‘In an age of imitation, I can claim no special merit for this slight attempt at doing what is known to be so easy.

In Competition No. 2652 you were invited to submit an extract from the autobiography of a sportsman packed with as many clichés as possible. The World Cup will no doubt provide a feast of words and phrases that have had the life squeezed out of them, as well as ample opportunity to mock players and pundits for their unimaginative use of language. But no less a literary giant than Kazuo Ishiguro has come to the defence of footballing clichés, describing them as poignant and beautiful. ‘At the end of the day’ was singled out by the Booker prize-winning author as an expression of stoic ruefulness that comes close to reflecting the true human condition.

In Competition No. 2651 you were invited to submit limericks that are also tongue-twisters. Thanks to J. Seery for suggesting this fiendish assignment. It is not easy to produce a true tongue-twister within the confines of the meter and rhyme scheme of the limerick. Perhaps the suggestion was inspired by Lou Brooks’s Twimericks: The Book of Tongue-Twisting Limericks, which I happen to have been reading to my young son. He finds my pitiful attempts at articulating ‘Flapjack Jack flipped flat flapjacks at Phil’ hilarious, but ‘Flapjack Jack’ is a piece of cake compared with some of your offerings. Gillian Ewing, Jane Dards and Virginia Price-Evans all reduced me to lisping incoherence.

In Competition 2650 you were invited to submit a letter from a publisher rejecting the Book of Genesis or Revelation. You lambasted both for a lack of coherent plot and narrative inconsistencies, and prescribed extensive editing. There were redeeming features, though: Paddy Briggs applauded the ‘geriatric sex narrative’ in Genesis, while J. Seery found much to commend — ‘Noah’s robust response to environmental challenge has current market appeal...’ — but ruled out publication on the grounds of ‘the author’s unwillingness to undertake the usual promotional tours’.

In Competition 2649 you were invited to submit a news bulletin on the outcome of the general election delivered by a well-known figure from history. Well done, everyone: it was a strong entry and a pleasure to judge. Narrowly missing a place in the winning line-up were Bill Greenwell, J. Seery, Shirley Curran, P.C. Parrish and John Whitworth. Those who made the final cut earn £25 each and Brian Murdoch nets the extra fiver. News reaches me in the Elysian Fields of the outcome of the senatorial competition in our remote province of Britannia. Every haruspex had correctly foreseen a triumvirate outcome with ensuing confusion, nor was this surprising, given the portents in the prior days and weeks.

In Competition 2648 you were invited to recast Kipling’s ‘If’ addressed to women. The nation’s favourite poem (rescued from a wastepaper basket, to which Kipling had consigned it in disgust, and reassembled by his formidable wife) was famously branded as ‘sententious’ by Orwell, but has illustrious champions none the less. Geoffrey Wheatcroft  argues that ‘it is only sententious if you have been taught to think so, if you see it as another admonition to play up, play up, and play the game, if you associate it with housemasters and scoutmasters and the sporting spirit. Not for the first time, it is easier to see what it really means if you aren’t English.’ It certainly brought out the best in you.

In Competition 2647 you were invited to invent new social types for the current decade. This assignment, which takes you into the terrain of anthropologists and marketing men, clearly failed to inspire, producing an entry of modest size that fell short of your usual standard. There were some harsh portraits of the digital generation. Josephine Boyle was kinder than most — ‘Fritter: Frivolous and romantically minded individual who tweets and twitters every passing thought and chance encounter’ — while Bill Greenwell appeared to indulge in some wishful thinking: ‘Wii-Frees: Parsimonious techno-hostile teenagers who insist on books with paper, Monopoly competitions, fresh vegetables and other curiosities from the previous century.

In Competition 2646 you were invited to submit a poem that might have been included in T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Dogs. Many of you followed Eliot’s lead and used long lines, so space is limited. I will pause only briefly, then, to commend this week’s stellar runners-up — Frank Osen, Brian Murdoch, George Simmers, Martin Elster and Shirley Curran —  before handing you over to the worthy winners, printed below. They get £30 each; Bill Greenwell nabs the bonus fiver.

In Competition 2645 you were invited to submit an example of impenetrable ministerial waffle. Lord Mandelson set the bar high with his bewildering statement, ‘Perhaps we need not more people looking round more corners but the same people looking round more corners more thoroughly to avoid the small things detracting from the big things the Prime Minister is getting right’, which scooped the Plain English Campaign’s 2009 Foot in Mouth award. But you stepped up to the mark admirably: I was reduced to judging in short bursts as my eyes glazed over and my brain threatened to shut down in the face of such magnificently opaque prose. The winners, printed below, pocket £25 each. W.J. Webster gets £30.

In Competition 2644 you were invited to submit the views of an inanimate object, in verse, on its owner/s. Highlights of a large and entertaining entry included Gillian Ewing’s outraged iron — ‘She doesn’t use me half enough,/ But when she does she treats me rough...’ — and Mary Holtby’s unjustly accused oven, in fine indignant voice: ‘Victim of the botched assault,/ Soon I learn it’s all my fault, Great to hear a hopeless sloven/ Blame her inoffensive oven...’ There were harsh words, too, from Mike Morrison’s bicycle: ‘The Cornish-pasty headpiece/ Black Spandex bondage kecks/ That total tosser T-shirt/ And aviator specs...’ Congratulations, one and all.

In Competition 2643 you were invited to submit what might have been just another dull news story from a local paper had you not spiced it up with a number of misprints. The wording of the challenge inevitably produced entries that were in a smutty vein and there were plenty of instances of ‘erection’ for ‘election’, ‘copulation’ for ‘population’ and ‘bums’ for ‘buns’, which got a bit wearing after a while but is no doubt my own fault — as one competitor put it: ‘Well, you did ask us to spice things up...’ It was plausible misprints rather than malapropisms that I was after, and D.A. Prince’s local ‘dress shops savouring silk and satan...

In Competition 2642 you were invited to submit a homage, in verse, to an educational institution. A century or so ago Balliol man Hilaire Belloc wrote with great affection: Balliol made me, Balliol fed me, Whatever I had she gave me again; And the best of Balliol loved and led me. God be with you, Balliol men. How times have changed. Here is Jerome Betts’s entry for this week’s competition: Hail, Alma Mater on the Isis! Your three long years of essay-crisis Prepared for all I now possess — A mortgage, debts, and constant stress! From Trinity College, Oxford, to the University of Bootle, from Bridge Road Infants to Harvard; you lavished praise on your chosen seat of learning.

In Competition 2641 you were invited to submit an adaptation by W.S. Gilbert of a scene or a soliloquy from Shakespeare. It is quite a challenge to match Gilbert’s wit and metrical mastery, but that did not put you off — this was an extremely popular competition. The entry was more than twice the usual size and of a stellar standard, so honourable mentions all round. G.M. Davis, Frank Osen and Penelope Mackie came especially close to making the final cut. Long Gilbertian lines mean that space is short, so I’ll step aside for the winners, printed below, who get £30. The bonus fiver is Bill Greenwell’s.

In Competition No. 2640 you were invited to provide the publicity blurb for one of the following implausibly titled but real books: I was Tortured by the Pygmy Love Queen; How to Write a How to Write Book, or Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter. These enticingly titled tomes have all, at one time or another, been shortlisted for the annual Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year, previous nominees for which include The 2009–2014 World Outlook for 60-Milligram Containers of Fromage Frais and Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality. The award, dreamed up in 1978 to fend off boredom at the Frankfurt book fair, attracted a record-breaking number of entries this year. In the face of stiff competition, Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes stormed home to take the title.

In Competition No. 2639 you were invited to submit a dialogue, in verse or prose, between a well-known writer and one of his or her creations. The entry was vast and bursting with wit. Barry Baldwin’s dialogue, in which Godot quizzes his creator on, among other things, why he wasn’t allowed to appear at the end of the play, was a cracker. There is just space to congratulate W.J. Webster, Chris O’Carroll, Adrian Fry, Paul Griffin, Sid Field, Martin Parker and Robert Schechter, who were unlucky to miss out on a place in this week’s winning line-up. They were edged out by the entries printed below, which earn their authors a well-deserved £25 each. Basil Ransome-Davies scoops the bonus fiver.

In Competition No. 2638 you were invited to submit a poem in praise of insomnia. It is undoubtedly a challenge to find redeeming features in unwanted wakefulness. But you are a resourceful bunch, and came as close as it is possible to come to convincing me that an inability to sleep has its consolations. Next time sleeplessness strikes, then, I will embrace the opportunity to tap the riches of the World Service as I indulge in a spot of online shopping and gorge on brandy and pies unwatched by critical eyes. Or, as Barbara Smoker so eloquently puts it, ‘By minimising midnight mini-death,/ I’ll stretch life’s life until my final breath’.