Victoria Lane

In Competition 3361 you were invited to submit a passage or poem whose meaning was affected by some missing, substituted or surplus letters. I should have said ‘corrupted’ as, perhaps predictably, many of the mistakes were rude and puerile (not a complaint). Ideally the correct version could be glimpsed, giving things an alternative--universe quality. Shout-outs to Max Ross (‘Autumn makes me think of Teats’), Ralph Goldswain (‘I ask you to eject me with a lardslide’) and Janine Beacham (‘I ponder the toad not taken, the beauty of the red, red nose, and what hips my hips have missed. Ah, the powder of worms!’). The winners receive £25. To understand the human bindFred used the walking cure.His famous crouch aimed to induceA candied chat, for sure.

In Comp. 3360 you were invited to submit a passage or poem in which a fictional villain offers their side of the story. There were multiple Satans, Jaws and Hannibal Lecters (chapeau to George Head’s version, just trying to solve the protein supply chain problem). There were also more Moriartys than you can shake a stick at – impossible to choose between them. Congratulations (and £25) to the following. Serpent, since when has it been serpent, only it sounds worse than snake, which is what I am, and, by the way, we can’t talk, can we, so how am I supposed to have told that woman to eat that apple? If it was an apple – the official Genesis Report didn’t say. Snakes don’t eat apples anyway, we eat small furry rodents, so maybe I asked her to try a juicy fieldmouse?

In Competition 3359 you were invited to present an account of a historical event as football commentary. There were enough Battles of Hastings and Waterloo to fill a page but it seemed necessary to include some other deciders. Since so much footballese relies on war metaphors, it all gets quite confusing. I was sorry not to have room for Brian Murdoch’sentry in which ‘the French WAGs back in the fanzone at Bayeux are already embroidering their win’. The following receive £25. 25 September 1066. Welcome to Stamford Bridge, where England face Norway. The winners will meet France at Hastings, knowing a win there would make the team of ’66 national heroes, whilst a defeat would be one in the eye for already under-pressure King Harold.

In Competition 3358 you were invited to submit a passage in which Gulliver travels to a Taylor Swift concert and recounts his impressions. By and large it was felt that he would succumb to fandom, though a few were more sceptical – George Simmers found him observing: ‘Of all the Laputan scientists none received more acclaim than the philosopher who had devised a scheme for the infinite accumulation of money. I asked how this was achieved and was told, cryptically, “Merch.”’ There were a lot of very lively entries, and those printed below win £25. Despair had almost overcome me after three days at sea, but on the fourth morning I spied a strange shore and made for it with the last of my effort.

In Competition 3357 you were invited to submit a passage or poem including the phrase ‘The sukebind is late this year’, or similar. In Stella Gibbons’s comic novel Cold Comfort Farm the sukebind is a mysterious vine that flowers in midsummer, driving people into a frenzy which often leads to mollocking. Hence the heightened tone of this week’s entries. There were too many contenders to fit everyone in but George Simmers, Sylvia Fairley, Jennifer Hill and Frank Upton deserve a mention, as do Basil Ransome-Davies, Chris O’Carroll and Josephine Boyle (for her poem in which Seth the Hollywood star says ‘MeToo didn’t help my career’). The winners get £25.

In Competition 3356 you were invited to imagine a conversation between some objects that don’t normally talk. This was inspired by the funny/spooky ‘Green Candles’ by Humbert Wolfe (a popular poet in the 1920s and 30s), which ends with these sinister lines: ‘I know her little foot,’ grey carpet said: ‘Who but I should know her light tread?’ ‘She shall come in,’ answered the open door, ‘And not,’ said the room, ‘go out any more.’ The cutlery was quite chatty, as were the pots and kettles. It was a shame not to have room for, among others, D.A. Prince’s doormat/car key exchange, Alan Millard’s quarrelsome fish and chips, Jane Smillie’s salt and pepper flirtation, and Adrian Fry’s No.

In Competition 3355 you were invited to write a romantic poem that did its best to gloss over something unlovely. I think I imagined odes to beautiful sewage-filled rivers and so on, but should have phrased the challenge more clearly, since many understandably decided a love poem was in order. Either way there was much to enjoy. Among the paeans of praise were hints at a jarring laugh, huge pimple, jug ears, body odour – and much worse.    I liked Elizabeth Kay’s poem detailing a beloved’s snores but it was disqualified for putting the snoring to the fore (‘The distinctive call of an eider duck/ Plus the sound of an airbed deflating/ Or the distant growl of the M25/ Then the huffing of two hedgehogs mating’).

In Competition 3354 you were invited to put yourselves in the shoes (or head) of a tech billionaire. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Elon Musk provided the most inspiration. Paul Freeman had him intent on world domination: That bozo Bezos and schmuck Zuck will serveas jesters to my court. They’ll daily tastemy food in case some traitor has the nerveto poison it. Their loss will be no waste. There were also some nicely random Jeff Bezos pensées courtesy of Basil Ransome-Davies. ‘Maybe I’m the Dylan of corporate technology. Or he is the Bezos of popular music?’ The winners are £25 closer to a billion.

Comp. 3353 invited poems about ‘dining and dashing’ – thanks to Paul Freeman for the suggestion. There was a very large postbag/inbox full of delicious offerings and I am especially sorry not to have had room for W.J. Webster condemning the crime for its name alone: ‘it isn’t just pedantic/ To say its source is transatlantic’. Josephine Boyle deserves a mention for her payoff: ‘But all deceptions have a price:/I can’t eat anywhere good twice.’ The winners get £25 (a paid-for pub lunch for one?) each.

In Competition 3352 you were invited to submit a passage about snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, or vice versa. Hitler, the Hindenburg, tiddlywinks and chess all featured, as did Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak, and it was sad not to have room for D.A. Prince’s cat having victory literally snatched from its jaws. Other mentions should go to the two Franks (McDonald and Upton), to Basil Ransome-Davies, to Kelly Scott Franklin and to Brian Murdoch for his retelling of David and Goliath in which David mainly excels at his own PR. The entries below win £25. Arrived late for interview, unkempt, barren of optimism following earlier failures. Disdained to apologise. Panel the usual Mount Rushmore of antediluvian officials: civil servant, judge, bluestocking.

In Competition 3351 you were asked to send in an election manifesto in verse (lucky timing). The entries threw up plenty of bold ideas for strategists to pick over, though a degree of cynicism was in evidence – the general mood captured by Basil Ransome--Davies’s ‘Opportunist party’: ‘If you favour easy answers,/ Vote for us, the British chancers’. I’m sorry not to have had room for Alan Millard’s Cross Your Fingers party, Bill Greenwell’s Horny-Handed Sons of Toil, Adrian Fry’s Bigots of Britain, Frank Upton’s moon-is-green-cheese promises, Sylvia Fairley’s manic-festo, and more. A special mention for Chris O’Carroll’s last-ditch Tory plea: ‘Vote with us for a Parliament that’s hung.’ Those first past the post win £25.

In Comp. 3350 you were invited to write a refutation of a well-known line from literature. Ian Jack once imagined quibbling with Jane Austen over ‘a truth universally acknowledged…’: ‘“Universally”, Miss Austen, even among pederasts with good fortunes, or among the heathen races?’ Poetry dominated, which is reflected in the winning entries (£25 to each). Pats on backs to Tracy Davidson, D.A. Prince, Nicholas Lee, Sylvia Fairley and others. The unexamined life is most worth living:I implore you, feel the gusto in the Now.There’s so much to do, and Time is unforgiving,You’ll never figure why we’re here, or how.

Competition 3349 invited you to write a poem riffing on the line ‘I have measured out my life with coffee spoons’, from ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, but substituting something else for the spoons. You came up with rubbish collections, brands of jeans, obsolete technology, library fines, biros, toothpaste tubes, meds, lovers, visits to Wetherspoons, moons, macaroons. It was a large and brilliant entry, painful to whittle down when the marking time came. Those who for space reasons alone haven’t made the final cut were too numerous for any names to be picked out, while those who have win a pony (of the £25 variety).

In Comp. 3348 you were invited to submit an extract in which Charles Dickens writes about today’s London. It was perhaps a slightly smaller haul than usual but full of nuggets. In Dorothy Pope’s rendition, the great author is gratified to discover that ‘my Oliver is playing in one of the many theatres’; while Paul Freeman has him excelling at pub darts. I especially liked Janine Beacham’s Ghost of London Present: ‘I see Mrs Cratchit shopping at Sainsbury’s, and running a GoFundMe page’; also Frank Upton’s grime scene: ‘“Listen fam, I goin’ to shank that yute for you,” promised Mr Wellbeloved, with a theatrical gesture of hand and fist…’ Other honourable mentions go to Bill Greenwell, Frank McDonald, Mark Ambrose and John Paul Davis.

Comp. 3347 invited you to write a hard-boiled nursery rhyme. This inevitably led many to think of Humpty Dumpty, hence his multiple appearances (the consensus is he didn’t fall, he was pushed). Philip Marlowe was smouldered at by various femmes fatales including Little Bo Peep and Miss Muffet. A special mention goes to David Silverman’s scandi-noir Måry Had a Little Lamb/Five Little Ducks: ‘D.I. Lund surveyed Nyhavn from the discomfort of an Ektorp chair. One candle lit the gloom, which was decidedly un-hyggelig.’ Some strayed from the brief enjoyably. The winners, printed below, get £25 each. There was no ducking it: I had to go down to the woods today and boy, was I in for a big surprise.

The last time I stayed in Courchevel it was in a tatty roadside chalet a long way down the mountain. One detail sticks: pickled cockles piled high on a platter at the closing banquet, à la Fanny Cradock. That was more than a decade ago. This time, we were staying at 1,850 metres, which is another world. The resort, always chichi up top, has undergone a kind of wholesale rebranding in recent years and now the high end of Courchevel is ridiculously high-end. There’s Prada and Chanel and Gucci and Cartier. Three of France’s 16 ‘palais’-designated hotels are here. There are 12 Michelin stars (more per square metre than anywhere else in the world), dished out among seven restaurants, including two for Pierre Gagnaire at Les Airelles.

Why didn’t I know about the Tarn Valley? I’d often been right next door. But here, north-east of Toulouse, between the baking fields of Gers and the rocky mountains around Carcassonne, is this best-kept secret. It’s a lush region of great rivers, rolling green hills and towns with magnificent red-brick gothic architecture and is sometimes referred to as the Triangle d’Or (mostly by estate agents). The sea is three hours away in either direction, which is a boon, meaning that even in August it was eerily devoid of tourists. If the points on the triangle are the towns of Gaillac, Albi and Cordes sur Ciel, in between are any number of really beautiful bastide villages.