Competition | 19 September 2009

In Competition No. 2613 you were invited to submit a cautionary tale for our times, in the style of Hilaire Belloc, about the consequences of too much time spent texting or on social networking sites.

The grisly fates of Belloc’s creations — Jim, eaten feet upwards by a lion, and Mathilda, burnt to a crisp — both thrill and appal children. I remember being puzzled, though, by a moral universe in which Algernon, who narrowly fails in his attempt to shoot his sister with a loaded rifle, gets off with a light reprimand; while Rebecca, for the relatively innocuous crime of slamming doors, perishes miserably, flattened by a marble bust of Abraham.

In this age of child-centred parenting, Franklin Hide, shaken and hit till it hurt by his uncle, would no doubt be straight on the blower to Childline, but that didn’t stop you inventing some magnificently cruel and hideous comeuppances for 21st-century transgressors.