Faking it

In Competition No. 2443 you were invited to supply a letter from someone on holiday pretending they are having a good time when in fact they are not.

This was tricky because some of the incidents described were beyond the pretence of enjoyment. Simon Massey, for instance, led off with: ‘See Naples and die, they say. Well, you know how literal your father is — or was, as we shall now have to get used to saying.’ I was amused by Adrian Fry’s hotel in Chechnya — ‘wonderfully intimate: local couples can’t afford more than a couple of hours here but certainly enjoy it’ — and J.H. Smith’s unBellocian hiking holiday: ‘George prefers 12-mile walks but has happily compromised on a seven-miler every day of the fortnight as long as we agree not to stop at a pub.’ The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each, and the bonus fiver is Rosemary Fisher’s.