Victoria Lane

Competition 3462 invited you to submit a short story in which the protagonist lets an algorithm take charge of their life or an aspect of it. It was a smallish entry but a solid effort and mentions should go to Brians Murdoch and Allgar, David Harris, Nicholas Lee and Nick Syrett; there were other good ones besides. The £25 John Lewis vouchers go to those below. Ever the termagant, Liza attempted to make Greville, her boyfriend, jealous of the algorithm, whose recommendations, she said, proved its superior insight into her character. Knowing Liza liked, or at least bought, the sourly comedic novels of Rachel Cusk, the algorithm had suggested the brittle tragicomedies of Ivy Compton-Burnett.

Competition 3459 invited you to submit a passage that lavishly depicted a heatwave. The entries accumulated languorously, replete with detail – occasionally so excessive that one almost suspected the involvement of AI. Anyway it was enjoyable to wallow in these writings. Frank Upton, Sue Pickard, David Harris, J.C.H. Mounsey, John O’Byrne, Basil Ransome-Davies, D.A. Prince (and others besides) deserve honourable mentions, but the £25 vouchers go to those below. A summer Lord of Misrule, Heatwave hath come into his estate, evicting cloud, curtailing rainfall, consigning long trouser, counterpane and necktie to laughable if temporary obsolescence. Feel his warmth unbuttoning your apparel, loosening your morals.

Comp. 3458 invited you to submit a fictional character’s stepping-down letter. A new light was cast on various figures, from Joseph Houlihan’s Big Brother wanting more time with his family to Sylvia Fairley’s Miss Jean Brodie considering a non-ministerial position in the Scottish parliament: ‘I’m prepared to accept a modest salary and I shall let it be known that I own an adequate coffee machine, a good fountain pen that I’ve used for years and a reliable watch…’. Jeeves and Bond each made three appearances (nods to Nicholas Lee, John Moore, Ralph Goldswain and W.J. Webster). There were many very good entries, but the £25 vouchers go to those below.

Comp. 3456 invited you to mark 250 years since the birth of the United States with a poem. There were lots of entries – including from across the pond – and the standard was extremely high. A certain ambivalence towards Trump’s America seeped in, naturally enough. It pains me not to have room for Nick Syrett, Brian Murdoch, Basil Ransome-Davies, Adrian Fry, Janine Beacham, Sylvia Fairley, David Silverman, Angela Padwick, David Harris, Alan Millard, plus others. And for Max Guttman, whose entry begins: In ’76 we fought with mother England. Now, we fight each other. Americans are red or blue, and you hate me, and I hate you. The £25 vouchers go to those below. England’s oddballs sailed the seas To live in bolshy colonies.

Comp. 3455 invited you to supply some local response (in prose or poetry) to the absence of Glastonbury Festival, which is normally this weekend but is having a fallow year. You explored the perspectives of yokels, cows, King Arthur, the faerie folk and Wiccans, as well as a man who’d rather listen to Mozart in his garden. No room to mention all the runners-up but shout-outs to Joseph Houlihan, Brian Murdoch, Sue Pickard, Andy Simpson, Alan Millard, Paul Freeman, and lastly Basil Ransome-Davies: I shan’t be at my usual perch, Filled with financial hope, To sell my overpriced crap merch And, entre nous, some dope. The £25 vouchers go to those below.

Competition 3453 invited you to describe a new, infallible personal regime that promised to make one healthy, rich and irresistible. (Thanks to Frank Upton.) The crop was not vast but was full of inspiring ideas. Sue Pickard and D.A. Prince both attested to the benefits of rhubarb, while Paul Freeman recommended rabid flag-twirling. Joseph Houlihan’s Burn ’Em with Burnham© programme deserves a mention, as does Basil Ransome-Davies’s Planetary Absolutely New Infinite Church. The prizes go to those below. Only subscribe to my exclusive regime derived from the wisdom of the Victorian sensation novel and you will become wealthy, healthy and (temporarily if frequently) wed.

Competition 3452 invited you to write an ode to the World Cup. The entries flew in and many of them were magnificent. Tom Adam, Shirley Curran, Nick Syrett, Basil Ransome-Davies, Elizabeth Fry, Bill Greenwell, Andy Simpson, Janine Beacham (plus others) all ought to have qualified really, but so should Italy. In the event, the £25 vouchers go to those below. Jules Rimet should be living at this hour! To see the world uniting and at peace; To see how football still retains the power To honour the ideals of Ancient Greece: Of human dignity and harmony Of friendship between nations – see Iran Participating proudly in Group G!

Comp. 3449 invited you to psychoanalyse, in the manner of Freud/Jung etc, a 2026 phenomenon. In a small but accomplished entry, there were no takers for Married at First Sight Australia, but Ralph Goldswain deserves praise for his Naked Attraction offering. (‘The selection of a partner by staged undressing appears as vulgar exhibition; yet this is merely the manifest content. Its latent meaning lies in the managed collapse of repression.’) The £25 John Lewis vouchers go to those below. The phrase ‘filthy lucre’ provides an initial clue, harking back on a subliminal level to the notion of bartering, let us say, a grubby pig for something else.

Competition 3447 invited you to outdo Kingsley Amis in detailing a hang-over from hell, but in the style of another writer. Obviously writing about hangovers is an ancient tradition, and the conundrum was that excess was demanded but an excess of excess threatened to be unpleasant reading. I was sorry not to have room for John O’Byrne’s and Janine Beacham’s Dickensian hangovers; Ralph Goldswain’s and Brian Murdoch’s Shakespearean ones, Simon Godziek’s Raymond Chandler (‘My eyes feel like they’ve been peeled, and there’s something bigger than my head inside my head’), Roger Rengold’s Somerset Maugham, Elizabeth Kay’s Hemingway, and many others besides. The £25 John Lewis vouchers go to those below.

Comp. 3446 invited you to write a critic’s review of a fictional pub or restaurant or hotel etc. I bit off more than I could chew with this one perhaps. Some venues cropped up multiple times – Hotel California, Tolkien’s Prancing Pony, Hotel du Lac and Douglas Adams’s Restaurant at the End of the Universe – and in a large entry of a high standard there were too many runners-up to name names. The £25 John Lewis vouchers go to those below. The accommodation at Jamaica Inn is sadly lacking. While it offers a stripped-down, hipster vibe with peat fires, stone flags and pipe smoke, I had to endure creaking signs, bare floorboards, smelly turnips, noisy wagons at midnight, rowdy boozers and a locked room which I’m sure needs airing.

Comp. 3444 invited you to submit a Hilaire Belloc-style cautionary tale for our times. This one was last set in 2009 and the world’s pitfalls have changed a bit since then. There were many very good entries, covering a lot of bases. Commendations to Bill Greenwell, Frank Upton, Basil Ransome-Davies, Sue Pickard, J.C.H. Mounsey, Duncan Forbes and George Simmers (‘Young Eric told such dreadful truths/ He was the most disliked of youths’). The £25 voucher winners are below. ‘But why,’ asked Osbert, ‘should I try To think when I can ask AI?’ Identifying Osbert’s need His chatbot fulsomely agreed.

Comp. 3443 was inspired by Brian Bilston’s ‘Remembrance of Things Pasta’ which begins: She blew her fusilli,my pretty penne,when she found me watchingdaytime tagliatelle. You were invited to submit a poem containing repeated wordplay on a particular theme. There were cheeses, drinks, cakes, the shipping forecast, cars, technology… it was hard to choose. I must mention David Shields’s foot-ball teams and Sue Pickard’s fruity romance: ‘I knew that, kumquat may, I couldn’t let this mango.’ The winners are below. I’m a draw at the dance, a dab hand at romance,To the dames, I’m a ray of delight.I’m the true Cisco Kid, never short a few squid.I’m not koi, and my trousers are tight. I’m a dapper go-getter, and no one looks betta.

Comp. 3441 invited you to use the opening of Philip Larkin’s poem ‘Trees’ as a starting point for your own. Deserving of a mention are D.A. Prince, Sylvia Fairley, Basil Ransome-Davies, Elizabeth Fry, David Blakey and Nick Syrett, whose second verse I enjoyed a lot: How self-possessed they are, the drug Of springtime setting all to naught; There’s something just a little smug About some trees, I’ve often thought. The £25 vouchers go to the winners below. The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said . Sergeant Prescott phoned me: ‘Chief, We’ve found the vicar, and she’s dead.’ The snowdrops fleck the river’s marge, Like a secret that I almost knew.

Competition 3438 was inspired by the 1986 film Clockwise, in which John Cleese is constantly impeded in his attempt to get to the headmasters’ conference to make a speech. ‘It’s not the despair, Laura. I can stand the despair. It’s the hope!’ he wails to a pupil at one point. There were lots of A+ entries, but the £25 voucher prizes go to those below. Oh what is life if, full of care, We have no time for bleak despair? No time for wallowing in gloom, To tap and scroll our looming doom; To hail the mounted quaint quartet, Pale, baleful on their steeds all set, Apocalyptic cavaliers, Piaffing through our Vale of Tears? Abandon Hope unto the end! Hope’s an imposter, a false friend!

Competition 3437 invited you to submit a passage or poem incorporating the line ‘Why, what’s the matter, That you have such a February face’, from Much Ado About Nothing. It continues ‘So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?’ – rain, muck, drizzle and sludge would be more appropriate to 2026. There was a healthy and varied crop of entries, and Elizabeth Kay’s vision of the platonic ideal of February was uplifting: snowdrops, hellebores and crocuses; blue tits exploring nestboxes. Wheatears, woodlarks and chiffchaffs, returning from Africa. Birdsong, with robins competing for territories. Hazel flowers, catkins and daffodils. The days are lengthening… The winners are below.

Competition 3435 invited you to write a poem that included Wendy Cope’s immortal line ‘A happier cabbage you never did see’, from ‘Being Boring’. This was a popular competition with more entries than usual (it’s always a mystery) and you grappled heroically with the challenge of making cabbage interesting. A mention must go to Janine Beacham for her opening lines about another brassica: O fat white cauliflower few can love, Why do you taste like an oven glove? Cheese sauce helps, but Lord above, Your flavour’s not up to much. Too many runners up to name names but here are the winners of the £25 vouchers. Edgily-veggiely Brassicaracea – A happier cabbage you Never did see.

Competition 3434 was prompted by the 400th anniversary of the retrospectively controversial purchase of Manhattan island by the Dutchman Peter Minuit from a local tribe, supposedly for 60 guilders ($24). You were invited to write a poem on the subject. The standard was really high and the whittling process tricky: mentions must go to A.H. Harker, Sue Pickard, Brian Murdoch, Joseph Houlihan, Ian Allen, Richard Warren, Nicholas Lee, George Simmers and Helen Baty, and there were other good entries besides. The £25 vouchers go to the following. Come nether man from Nether Land,Brung purse of beads and guilder,And all us tribe, we took him bribe:Him Big Chief of this wilder.

Competition 3432 invited you to submit a passage containing some AI-style ‘hallucinations’ (it would be just as anthropomorphic to call them lies). These are false assertions delivered in a perky tone, often with a smidgeon of flattery, in an answer that may contain enough correct information to give the user misplaced confidence. The yield was small but amusing and several entries managed to capture AI’s encouraging tone; the winners of the £25 John Lewis vouchers are below. ‘An apple a day’ refers to a mobile phone or computer invented by Isaac Newton, who discovered gravity in 1666 when a phone fell on his head. The fall of the apple, which is never far from the Tree of Knowledge, was recorded by the Beatles, a British pop group, in 1999.

Competition 3429 invited you to tell the story of the Nativity in the style of a well-known writer. There were very many excellent passages, enough to fill this column three times over, but as it is the £25 vouchers go to the following. Thanks for all your lovely entries this year and happy Christmas one and all. To begin at a new beginning: he was birthed, berthed in a barn with gert bulks of shifting, breathy beasts. Joseph would sooner have been up the pub, sheets to the wind, but it was no more the establishment to encourage the fulfilment of dreams than prophecies. At his own wordless dreamings, the little wet racket of a tike in the crib scarcely noticed his visitors that long night. Pompous Kings and grumbly shepherds (it was cold out, man) came and went.