Competition: Odd job

In Competition No. 2720 you were invited to supply a piece of prose written by a well-known author working in an unlikely context.

Thanks to Brian Moore for drawing my attention to Samuel Beckett’s flirtation with a career in grocery trade journalism, as revealed in the great man’s recently published volume of letters: ‘I see advertised in to-day’s Irish Times an editorial vacancy on the staff of the RGDATA [Retail Grocery Dairy and Allied Trades-Association] Review at £300 per an. I think seriously of applying. Any experience of trade journalism would be so useful.’
    
It was a strong entry and I very much regretted not having space in the winning line-up for Gerard Benson, Shirley Curran and Adrian Fry. Those that did make the cut nab £25 each. W.J. Webster gets £30.

The game opened on a gropingly conversational note — scattered brisk exchanges, more or less robust, with neither side ‘holding the field’. But then Wagstaffe, so long an effervescence on Wolverhampton’s left flank, launched, as it were, into a bravura monologue. He was superb. Defenders advancing to check his flow with determined sallies of their own were left chopfallen in his wake. With his final stride he gained the very corner of the pitch and delivered, nonchalantly enough, a ‘cross’ of Euclidean precision. Dougan, who had been lurking near the goal in the hope of exactly such a moment, stiffened at the sight. The ball was — was most beautifully — there. He rose, with the magnificent yet precarious elevation of a tossed caber, and nodded. One-nil. But that ‘one’, let me be clear, transcended the merely numerical: it was, in fine, of a brilliance that will dazzle long in the recollection.

Henry ‘Chopper’ James reports from Molineux

W.J. Webster


It’s one of those days when the Hollywood hills are a misty blue-gray valance hiding the mountains and you know the rain won’t hold off for long and the idea of an omelette floats into your mind.