Victoria Lane

In Comp 3368 you were invited to update a well-known story from the Bible to make it ‘speak to’ life in 2024. There were a few Good Samaritans, Prodigal Sons and Cana weddings, and a splendid trio of Noahs. A special mention goes to David Silverman’s version of Psalm 23, which didn’t fit the remit but offers alternative comfort in these troubled times: The Lord is my life coach – I shall not stress. He empowereth me with positive affirmations And leadeth me to wellness strategies, Building my emotional resilience. He teacheth me mindfulness techniques, Emotional regulation and cognitive reappraisal. Praise be to the multitudes of runners-up (too many to name) and the winners receive £25. Genesis unfolds in a world obsessed with instant gratification.

In Competition 3367 you were invited to write a formal poem about the Brothers Gallagher (Noel and Liam). This comp was set before we had quite reached Oasis saturation point; possibly we’re beyond that now. There were more entries than usual and they were roughly equally split between those that expressed great joy at the reunion and those that weren’t even remotely bothered. A shout-out to Brian Murdoch, Bob Newman and Edmund Carver – and the winners below get £25.

Competition 3366 took inspiration from the Bandar-log in The Jungle Book, those monkeys who chant: ‘We are great. We are free. We are wonderful. We are the most wonderful people in all the jungle! We all say so, and so it must be true.’ You were invited to riff on this last sentence. Donald Trump cropped up a bit, presumably because his utterances have a Bandar-log ring to them. There were a lot of excellent entries, and too many runners-up to namecheck everyone, but the winners get £25. Like wolves we keep within the pack, Cohesion’s our priority, We’ve no desire to stray off track Or break from the majority. We think as one, we act en bloc And follow where the others go, It’s never wise to run amok Or fight against the status quo.

In Competition 3365 you were invited to submit an extract from a PhD about an aspect of street culture. Obviously this was inspired by Rachael Gunn, aka Raygun, the Australian academic/Olympic break-dancer who wrote a PhD on the cultural politics of breakdancing. This intro has to be short to make room for all the long words. Respect to Bob Newman, W.J. Webster, Bill Greenwell, Mark Hunter Brown and others – and the winners get £25. Citius, Altius, Grooviest: An Investigation into the Classical Origins of Breakdance as an Olympic Sport. With an Excursus on Biblical Parallels.

In Competition 3364 you were invited to submit a piece of psychogeography exploring a mundane journey. A cartoon in the Guardian recently defined psychogeography as ‘walking around criticising gentrification’ – though it can be down on decline too. One rule of thumb is that if you can imagine Will Self saying it, it’s probably right. You rose magnificently and pretentiously to the challenge and if there were space and £25s enough, I could haveincluded three times the number of winners. If Huddersfield is the world, then B&M Bargains, trading at the great crossroads, is its Istanbul. And just as memories of Constantinople and of Byzantium haunt that extraordinary city, so in B&M we cannot avoid ghostly reminders that Marks and Spencers once occupied this site.

In Competition 3363 you were invited to write a poem about holidaymakers from a local’s perspective. Thanks to Paul Freeman for this suggestion. There was a lovely crop of entries and once again there were too many runners-up to single anyone out. The winners get £25. We hates and needs,Waters and feedsAnd sates the greedsO’ grockles. They loafs and basks,Int’rupts our tasksFool questions asks,Do grockles. In shorts, no shirts,They suncream squirts,Coarsely they flirts,Our grockles. They makes their hay,Comes, goes away:We makes ’em pay,The grockles.

In Competition 3362 you were invited to submit a passage from Shakespeare as rewritten by the sensitivity reader. The entries were on the whole excellent and it was painful to have to jettison so many: often it came down to a repetition of the same excerpt. A special mention to D.A. Prince (‘My partner’s eyes are theirs: I cannot share comparisons’), David Blakey for his Old Shepherd’s speech, and Robert Brydges for his revised Twelfth Night in which Viola ends up with Olivia, Sebastian with Antonio, and Orsino is left ‘betrothèd nor to maid nor man’. The winners get £25.

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).