Lucy Vickery

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’.

In Competition No. 2637 you were invited to take an existing word and alter it by a) adding a letter; b) changing a letter; and c) deleting a letter; and to supply definitions for all three new words. This challenge is a shameless rip-off of the legendary change-a-letter competition over at the Washington Post’s ‘Style Invitational’, where ingenious new permutations of this crowd-pleaser appear at regular intervals and attract a mammoth postbag. Judging by the bombardment of entries from some quarters, it proved equally popular with Spectator competitors, one of whom described it as ‘unnervingly addictive’. As often happens, there were many more worthy winners than there is space for.

In Competition No. 2636 you were invited to submit either a victory song or a loser’s lament composed by one who regularly enters this competition. All in all it was a lively and entertaining entry. And while there were fond references aplenty to the good old days — ‘Bono sub regno Jaspistou I’d gain,/ The occasional cheque for my toil, tears and pain...’ laments Martin Woodhead — when good sense and justice prevailed, the current incumbent stands accused of a litany of crimes, including having a tin ear and no sense of humour. Bill Greenwell, He Who Almost Always Wins, featured in many entries, as did several other serial winners, but Bill’s victory song narrowly missed the cut. Josephine Boyle and Chris O’Carroll were also unlucky.

In Competition No. 2635 you were invited to incorporate the following homophones into a poem bemoaning the general decline in standards of literacy: ‘elicit’, ‘illicit’, ‘lesson’, lessen’, ‘Dane’, ‘deign’, ‘dissent’, ‘descent’. From time to time, a challenge triggers rumblings of discontent in the competitive ranks, and to judge by the exasperated note accompanying one entry — ‘you can’t imagine how much I hate this comp’ — this was one of them.

In Competition No. 2634 you were invited to submit an obituary of a well-known figure, past or present, as they themselves might have written it. In a strong field, the entry was split fairly evenly between prose and poetry. Many poets have penned their own epitaph. Malcolm Lowry’s memorable six-liner begins thus: ‘Malcolm Lowry/ Late of the Bowery/ His prose was flowery/ and often glowery...’ Thank you, Gerard Benson, for drawing it to my attention. On the prose side, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare was a predictably popular subject. As befits one not short on self-belief, his obits are object lessons in accentuating the positive. I liked Michael Cregan channelling R.D.

In Competition No. 2633 you were invited to submit a poem lamenting the loss of a small but important object. As I dart around like a headless chicken attempting to track down the latest small but seemingly crucial missing item, the words of ‘One Art’, Elizabeth Bishop’s powerfully understated villanelle, ring in my ears: The art of losing isn’t hard to master so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster, Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t hard to master... These flurries of panic seem to punctuate my day with increasing regularity as time passes but to judge by your entries I am not alone.

In Competition 2632 you were invited to supply the wording of the classified ad that is least likely to elicit a response. Thanks to John Papworth, who suggested this challenge, and to W.J. Webster, who drew my attention to the winning entry in a similar competition that appeared in another publication some decades ago: ‘Halitosis? Acne? Dandruff? Send s.a.e. for free samples.’ Memorable stuff but yours were equally impressive. Inspired, perhaps, by the proximity of Valentine’s Day, many competitors submitted lonely-hearts ads of the alarmingly deluded ‘unattractive ageing loser seeks extremely attractive, much younger female’ variety. Funny to a point, but I preferred Basil Ransome-Davies’s more subtle but somehow equally scary approach.

In Competition No. 2631 you were invited to submit a poem on a subject of your choice in which the last two words of each line rhyme. There was an element of ambiguity in the wording of this challenge, and a handful of you read it as meaning that the last two words of a line should rhyme with the last two in the line below (rather than the last two words rhyming with each other). All entries were considered. I was actually thinking along the lines of George Herbert’s ‘Heaven’ (although in that poem the echo rhyme is given its own line),  and then of course there are the triple rhymes — a rhyme too far for some, perhaps — of Thomas Hood’s ‘A Nocturnal Sketch’, which a few competitors alluded to.

In Competition No. 2630 you were invited to imagine that a literary giant of the pre-television age is guest TV critic on The Spectator, and submit an extract from his or her review. As Emma Woodhouse says, ‘One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.’ So what would the literary greats of the past have thought of 21st-century viewing habits; what, I wonder, would Miss Austen herself have made of a dripping Colin Firth emerging from the lake at Pemberley in a telly adaptation of Pride and Prejudice? In a small but impressive entry, the poets were in fine voice. Here’s a snippet from Frank McDonald as Chaucer describing the debut of SuBo: ‘One juriste yclept Simon, smoothe lyke oil,/ asked “What’s yer name?

In Competition No. 2629 you were invited to submit a palinode (a poem retracting a previously expressed opinion) on behalf of a well-known poet. Haunted by the success of his much-reproduced quatrain ‘The Purple Cow’, Gelett Burgess wrote a palinode to strike fear in the hearts of anthology-compilers: ‘Ah, yes! I wrote the purple cow,/ I’m sorry now I wrote it!/ But I can tell you anyhow,/ I’ll kill you if you quote it!’ This week the equally oft-anthologised ‘Sea Fever’, ‘Dover Beach’, ‘If’ and ‘This Be the Verse’ produced some robust recantations in an entry of record-breaking size.

In Competition 2628 you were invited to submit a contemporary version of the 18th-century satirical song ‘The Vicar of Bray’. The model for the Vicar was purported to be Simon Aleyn, a 16th-century parish priest of Bray, who hung on to office by cheerfully reinventing himself to fit in with the prevailing orthodoxy. He found a defender, though, in the 1930s, in the shape of George Orwell, who was moved, by a magnificent yew he had planted in the churchyard at Bray, to write in an essay entitled ‘A Good Word for the Vicar of Bray’, ‘a beautiful tree, which has rested the eyes of generation after generation and must surely have outweighed any bad effects which he produced by his political quislingism’.

In Competition 2627 you were invited to submit a rhyming prophecy for 2010. The entry was short on optimism but bursting with wit and ingenuity. Hats off to Mae Scanlan, a more-or-less lone Pollyanna in a sea of Cassandras, who foresees global peace and economic prosperity. She narrowly missed out on joining the winners, printed below. It’s £25 each and an extra £5 to Noel Petty. Happy New Year! January opens sunny, Bankers vote for parsimony, BBC sacks Ross (‘not funny’), Burmese colonels all resign. Waving fields of green shoots sighted, City overtake United, Ferguson says ‘Great! Delighted!’, Climate change declared benign.   GDP continues palmy, Scientists turn back tsunami, Afghans form a model army, Taleban apologise.

In Competition No. 2626 you were invited to submit a thank-you letter for an especially hideous or inappropriate present, which manages to be diplomatic while fending off future offerings along the same lines. A respondent to a BBC poll on ungratefully received Christmas presents was given a ‘handsome but visibly used hair comb’ by an eccentric if well-meaning relative. One can only imagine his efforts to shoehorn his features into the appropriate blend of delight and gratitude. It helps, of course, if the giver of the gift is not present for the unveiling, but this still leaves the thorny problem of the thank-you letter. Which is where you come in. The entry was a masterclass in tact and diplomacy. The winners, printed below, are rewarded with £25 each.

In Competition 2625 you were invited to submit a poem in praise of any well-known person named John (a real person, living or dead, or a character from literature). The verse tributes poured in, to Johns I had heard of — Prescott, the Baptist, Donne — and those I had not: ‘John Harington, my jo, John,/ You’re a hero to my mind/ For inventing water closets,/ Great good for all mankind...’ (Josephine Boyle). R.S. Gwynn’s fine contribution was inspired by a multitude of Johns; from Braine and Wain to Lennon and Dryden. And snapping equally insistently at the heels of the winners were David Silverman, Janet Kenny, Sylvia Fairley, Mark Weeks and Susan McLean, with an uplifting celebration of John Thomas.

In Competition 2624 you were invited to submit a poem in the style of the legendary William Topaz McGonagall on an issue of contemporary relevance to the Scots. Hailed by the TLS as ‘the only truly memorable bad poet in our language’, McGonagall built his reputation on appalling yet beguiling works of inadvertent comic genius. Neither plagued by a lack of self-belief nor hampered by self-awareness, the handloom weaver from Dundee forged ahead with his art in the face of universal mockery and derision. He has had the last laugh, though: his star burns brightly still more than a century after his death. The sincerity of the original voice (which no doubt accounts for its considerable charm) is difficult to capture in parody.