Victoria Lane

Competition 3425 was prompted by Gill Hornby, a biographer of Jane Austen, telling an audience at the Cheltenham Literature Festival that Jane’s sister Cassandra did the novelist’s reputation a favour by burning most of her letters, and if that hadn’t happened she might have been cancelled: ‘She has become this very vague, hazy figure, like God and Shakespeare…’. You were invited to ‘find’ a letter that had escaped the bonfire.     There was a strong response, though a few entries crossed into sacrilege. The best got something of the tone while casting her in an unexpected light. Tom Adam found her channelling thunderers de nos jours: ‘I grow quite weary of the Hampshire Chronicle.

Comp. 3423 invited you to submit a passage about a command or suggestion from literature being taken too literally. I was sorry not to squeeze in Alan Millard’s riff on John Donne’s ‘Go and Catch a Falling Star’: ‘The object in question can reach temperatures of almost 3,000˚F when entering the Earth’s atmosphere…’. A popular choice was ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be’; nods to Elizabeth Kay, Nicholas Lee, Simon Godziek, Max Ross.

For Competition 3422 you were invited to submit a poem or passage on the theme of ‘daylight saving’. In a very good batch, once again the poetry bubbled to the top. There are too many close runners-up to name names, and it seems best to maximise space for winners. The £25 vouchers go to the following.

For Competition 3420 you were invited to submit a poem or short story incorporating that sentence of Emerson’s: ‘The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.’ Dr Johnson may have been the first to mention spoon counting, saying (according to Boswell) that ‘if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses, let us count our spoons’. In a large and very good entry, in which poetry prevailed, Alex Steelsmith, J.C.H. Mounsey, Tracy Davidson, Frank McDonald, Brian Murdoch, Adrian Fry, Sylvia Fairley and a few others missed out by a whisker. Those below win the £25 vouchers.

For Comp 3419 you were invited to write a poem to mark National Vodka Day (4 October) or another spurious designated day, actual or invented. There were several good vodka poems, by Adrian Pascu-Tulbure, D.A. Prince, Tanya Dixon--Clegg, and Helen Baty – I was sorry not to be able to fit them in. Ditto David Silverman’s celebration of National Crisp Day (the ‘Feast of Crispian’), John O’Byrne’s Baked Beans Day, Alan Millard’s Gobbledegook Day, Bill Greenwell’s National Plagiarism Day, Andy Myers’s Breakfast Wine Day, Jayne Osborn’s No Talking About Your Ailments Day, Frank Roots’s Self-ID Day, George Simmers’s Lemon Meringue Pie Day (15 August), and others besides.      The £25 vouchers go to the following.

Comp. 3417 invited you to write an elegy to a piece of obsolete technology. This prompted a deluge of very good entries – too many to name all the runners up, though here are some of the lamented objects: mangles, steam engines, oil lamps, floppy discs, the trebuchet, cash registers, radiograms, gramophones, tape recorders, Ceefax, Betamax, proper cameras, the fish slice, the pipe knife and – most of all – the VHS and the typewriter. A special mention to Tom Adam’s relatable paean to the Nokia: I mourn that lump of plastic and its tiny little screen, With only ‘Snake’ to offer up a hit of dopamine. And Simon Godziek’s to the dial phone: Yes, you could receive and, yes, you could call But when all’s said and done, that’s about all.

Comp. 3416 invited you to marry romantasy (the romance-fantasy fusion now dominating fiction sales) with a third genre. Narnia, gritty realism and Holby City were in the mix. Some saw no reason to confine themselves to three, and we had romantasy sci-fi noir, as well as a Scandi noir-Richard Curtis romantasy-com. I’m sorry to leave out Sue Pickard, David Silverman, Basil Ransome-Davies, Nick Syrett, D.A. Prince, Bill Greenwell, Josephine Ruth and others. The voucher winners are below. ‘Don’t try to seduce me, mortal,’ breathed the Fae cowpoke. I had no intention of touching the varmint. He might be tall, sardonically sexy, cruel and cool, wear a black vampire-made Stetson, Elvish spurs, and leather chaps that clung to his sculpted thighs, but I was determined to hate him.

Comp. 3413 was prompted by J.G. Ballard’s story ‘The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race’ (itself inspired by Alfred Jarry’s ‘The Crucifixion Considered as an Uphill Bicycle Race’). You were invited to consider some event in a category to which it did not belong. It was harder than ever to choose winners; Adrian Fry, Bill Greenwell, Paul Freeman, Martin Brown, Sue Pickard, J.S.R. Fleckney, Nicholas Stone and Sylvia Fairley are a few of the runners-up. The prizes go to those below. The Big Bang considered as a TV baking challenge The initial cosmic oven temperature was unbelievably high. Whoever was responsible for turning it on should have read the thermodynamic instructions with more care.

For Comp. 3411 you were invited to submit a passage or poem on the subject of dynamic pricing. Thanks to Paul Freeman for the suggestion, who deserves a nod for his entry too. So do Mike Morrison, Matt Quinn, Nicholas Lee, Elizabeth Kay, Frank Upton and others, and here’s John O’Byrne’s Larkinesque riff: I listen to prices surging. It’s like Dallas Blues, Or any ragtime number you care to choose; Syncopated malady, stiff C-sharp shock: This be The Economics, its sums ad hoc.     Poetry prevailed over prose this time, and the £25 vouchers go to the following. Like weasels with their beady eyes They know exactly when to strike And when we need what’s hard to find They’ll twist the knife and prices hike.

For Competition 3408 you were invited to write poems about heatwaves. This comp was inspired by the weather! In the face of lethargy, rage, sleeplessness etc lots of you still managed to put fingers to keyboard with good results. It was almost too hot to choose, but the £25 vouchers go to the following. Long drag the days of lop, of laze,Of no precipitation,Bar slathered factor fifty glazeOn perspiration. And long the nights; too hot, still light,Fans faintly stirring stifleWhile outside, drunks ferment a fightOf some mere trifle. Long seems the spell, Heaven or Hell,When England’s tropic.Waters run short, tempers as well,Heat’s misanthropic. The wave will break; cloudburst, rain slake.Upon our sudden wetting,We’ll eulogise that fearsome bakeAnd start forgetting.

For Competition 3407 you were invited to write about a historical event euphemistic-ally. This challenge was a little vague; Private Eye code was the inspiration but from the tone of the entries it could have been 1066 and All That. The standard was very high, with too many runners-up to name names, and the £25 vouchers go to the following. Life grew rather complex in 1789 when France experienced a regime malfunction. The financially embarrassed commoners, who kept popping their clogs due to nutrition deficiency, took against royals and aristocrats who did not rate highly on political awareness. Paying an unscheduled visit to the Bastille, the monarchy-resistant mob significantly devalued it as a property.

For Competition 3405 you were invited to submit a scene in which Doctor Who has regenerated into someone very unexpected. Plenty of interesting transformations resulted, featuring among others Paddington Bear, Mary Berry and two Jacob Rees-Moggs, but the winners of the £25 vouchers are below. The Doctor, regenerating as a tall, meaty-faced man in jeans, a plaid shirt and his mid-sixties, soon got clumsily busy for comic effect with screwdrivers, sonic and otherwise, setting about the Tardis console and causing Fleetwood Mac to play at excessive volume before sending us zagzigging erratically across spacetime on a far from grand tour. ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ he bellowed, overemphasising every word in apparent exoneration of his haphazard driving skills.

For Competition 3404 you were invited to design your own Midsummer rites. There were fewer entries than usual, all of them very good. I was sorry not to have room for Mark Ambrose’s ritual involving a small white ball (‘Eighteen is the sacred number. We assemble before dawn and climb the hill to a wooded glade’). Other runners-up: Tracy Davidson, Paul Freeman, Sue Pickard, George Simmers, Bill Greenwell and Joseph Houlihan. The £25 vouchers go to the following. Midsummer Saturday at Frizinghall begins early with the ritual of Waking the Sleepers, in which locals salute the rising sun with power tools, mowers, car alarms and pressure washers.

In Comp. 3402 you were invited to submit a poem or passage about an unusual predilection. The quirks ranged from wildly fantastical to having the ring of truth. Mike Morrison, Paddy Mullin, David Shields, Elizabeth Kay, Adrian Fry and Nick Syrett were close contenders, but the vouchers go to those below. In supermarket checkout queues, not being in a dash And now retired with time to spare, I always pay by cash. Aware that those behind me have a thousand things  to do There’s nothing that delights me more than holding up the queue. Behaving as a pensioner should and making others curse, I’ll fumble through my pockets in a search to find my purse.

For Comp. 3401 you were invited to submit a poem that included the line ‘My vegetable love should grow’ from Marvell’s ‘To His Coy Mistress’. There were lots of entries, some of them quite fruity (sorry). There are too many worthy runners-up to name names, but the£25 vouchers go to the winners below. My vegetable, love, should grow, not end up on your plate, at least until it’s won first prize at the village fète. I’ve never nurtured one so vast, nor hosed a hue so green – how can you think of eating it like some mere runner bean? But at my back I hear you mutter It’s just a courgette, after all… Hands off! – such plants once rooted in Eden, before the Fall.

Competition 3398 invited you to submit a poem about snooker as the world champion-ship was under way. The entries poured in! There were many excellent poems in both camps (snooker being either the best or the most boring thing ever). Among others, Anna Cox, D.A. Prince, Nick Syrett, Kavanagh Millard, Ralph Goldswain and Helen Baty deserve a nod, as does Philip Riseborough: A one-four-sevenWhat heaven, what heaven! The £25 voucher prizes go to those below. When TV’s snooker balls were greyTed Lowe would help us follow playwith, ‘First he’ll take that easy green(mid-grey, near pocket, centre-screen).But that could leave him very tightbehind the red (third ball from right).

Comp. 3396 invited you to write a poem that endeavoured to romanticise tariffs. There was a fine haul, though a few had to be disallowed for straying from the brief. Praise to George Simmers, Frank McDonald, Janine Beacham, Sylvia Fairley, Tom Adam, Sue Pickard and Elizabeth Kay, among others, and a special mention to Tracy Davidson for her opening: How do I tariff thee? At varied rates. I tariff greatly those I cannot stand, And those who would not buy a US brand, Or place our poisoned chicken on their plates. The prizes go to those below. Loveliest of fees! My tariff vow – So fondly made – to disallow For you, my darling MAGA bride, The things that foreigners provide.

Comp. 3395 yielded many fine entries in which Animal Farm became a satire on office politics. Deserving of a mention: David Silverman for his White House version featuring a ‘prize wild boar, one E. Long-Tusk’ and ‘two American XL Bullies, Don and Shady’; and Sue Pickard’s scenario in which two workers, Pinko and Porky, ‘inspired by a motivational speaker, Major Boar’, wreak havoc. Also William Linfoot, J.C.H. Mounsey and Nicholas Lee. The £25 vouchers go to those below. Napoleon had opted to WFH that morning, drafting a presentation for a forthcoming mandatory Inclusion and Wellbeing workshop.

Competition 3393 went in search of – and found – basic laughs by inviting you to submit a passage of historical fiction sprinkled with anachronistic detail. I was thinking along the lines of the grey squirrel in Sharon Kay Penman’s The Sunne in Splendour (set during the War of the Roses), but it was generally assumed that subtlety would get lost and the absurder the better: the anachronisms were more larded in than dusted on. I especially liked Janine Beacham’s vision of Henry VIII enjoying a strawberry gelato while he ‘considered a dalliance with that most charming teenaged babe, Catherine Howard’. Profound thanks to all who entered, and here are the winners. ‘OMG!’ cried pretty Nell Gwyn. ‘I didn’t see Your Maj hiding down there.

Comp. 3392 invited you to write ‘The Curse of King Thut’ (in poetry or prose) in response to the discovery of the tomb of the pharaoh Thutmose II, the first such since Tutankhamun’s.