In Competition No. 2610 you were invited to submit an extract from the diary of the partner of a famous person, past or present.
The puns came fast and furious this week. ‘I’ll make him a nice bombe for his tea tomorrow,’ writes Guy Fawkes’s other half (Juliet Walker), while Caligula’s long-suffering steed Incitatus (Frank McDonald laments that ‘…one can’t say neigh to an emperor’. But John Plowman took the biscuit. Francis Nisbet records an exchange with her husband Nelson about his purported infidelity: ‘I said he was in denial. He did admit he was — in Egypt.’ Ouch!
Honourable mentions to Josh Ekroy for an entertaining account, courtesy of John Bercow’s wife, of a fraught trip to John Lewis. But the winners, printed below, are rewarded with £25 each. Top prize of £30 goes to Alan Millard.
Peter can be so pedantic. This morning I mention the fog and he says, ‘Fog in what sense, my love?’ It’s always the same — never a straight answer. When I tell him how irksome he is he replies, ‘As in tiresome, tedious or oppressive, my dearest?’ Dearest indeed! I might be his dearest but daily he costs me ever more dear. We never communicate like ordinary couples. If I ask what he wants for breakfast all I get is an endless list of words he associates with ‘breakfast’ and by the time he’s finished whatever I cook is too cold to eat. Perhaps I should have realised my mistake at the altar when he asked the vicar if by ‘lawful’ he meant by ‘sufferance’ or by ‘claim’. Mother was right! He really can be annoying bothersome, exasperating, infuriating, irksome, irritating, maddening, provoking, tedious, trying, vexatious, wearisome, etcetera, etcetera…
Alan Millard (Mary Roget)
I know that my husband is endeed a good man in all things but his codpiece, but I will not let him have his cockerel crow on every dunghill that he chooses.
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