Competition | 21 May 2011

Lucy Vickery presents this week’s Competition

In Competition No. 2696 you were invited to submit a dialogue in verse between two body parts, composed on the occasion of a hangover.
Kingsley Amis described the opening of Kafka’s Metamorphosis as the best literary representation of a hangover, though many might argue that the crown belongs to Amis himself for his hilarious account of Jim Dixon’s self-inflicted wretchedness. My favourite is Ogden Nash’s opening to ‘They Won’t Believe, on New Year’s Eve, That New Year’s Day Will Come What May’: ‘How do I feel today? I feel as unfit as an unfiddle,/ And it is the result of a certain turbulence in the mind and an uncertain burbulence in the middle.’
Your evocations struck a chord, too — especially W.J. Webster’s, which earns him  the bonus fiver. His fellow winners, printed below, get £30 each.

‘Oh, seat of all wisdom, how do you explain
That time after time you groan, “Never again!”?
Why won’t you refrain from the grape and the grain
When all they deliver is nausea and pain?’
‘What liverish spite! Your words make it plain
That production of bile is your natural domain.