Ego Trip

In competition No. 2386 you were invited to provide an extract from an imaginary autobiography of a boaster.

The dramatic critic James Agate unabashedly called his diaries, in nine volumes, Ego. Cellini was a bit of a braggart, but the autobiographer’s cake is surely taken by Frank Harris, just ahead of George Moore, though I incline to believe that more of the former’s related sexual conquests were true than the latter’s. I suspect that straightforward pounces between stops in Victorian railway carriages were successful more often than we might imagine. Speaking absolutely candidly, to tell you the honest truth, as the politicians say, this competition was disappointing. Few of you struck the right note. The winners, printed below, get £25 each, and Paul Griffin collects the extra fiver.

Winston hadn’t rung for a couple of days. He knew I was busy at Biggin Hill, and doing what I could for Brief Encounter.