Diabolical

In Competition No. 2422 you were invited to write a poem or a piece of prose entitled ‘Dinner with the Devil’.

‘My meal consisted of an omelette made from eggs seven years past their sell-by date and stuffed with the minced brains of lunatics who never attended church on Sunday’ — Adam Campbell’s menu, reminiscent of Miss Thatcher’s recent gastronomic ordeals on television, struck the sort of flesh-creeping note that Dickens relished at Christmas. But the winners, printed below, were the ones who remained urbane and witty rather than horripilant. They get £25 apiece, and Adrian Fry has the bonus fiver. I wish you all as happy a Christmas as you can contrive.

His invitation said, ‘Come as you are’ and, forgetting he was Father of Lies, I did. He greeted me in full evening dress and we dined in a great hall heated (quite unnecessarily) by several of the roaring fires that are something of a fetish with him.