Famous writers get to grips with DIY

In Competition No. 3151 you were invited to imagine famous authors reflecting on their struggles with DIY.

Highlights in a terrific entry included John Osborne on grouting, A.E. Housman on the torture of cutting your own hair and several accounts of W.B. Yeats’s botched attempts at sorting out the plumbing (‘things fall apart’). I much admired Mike Morrison’s reworking of Robert Frost’s ‘Mending Wall’ and also tip my hat to strong -performers -Patrick Massey, Dominica Roberts, Nick Hodgson, Bill Greenwell, George Simmers and Anne Parsons.

It was especially tough to choose the winners this week but those who made the cut appear below and pocket £25 each.

While we were shut in there was an outbreak of cleaning the barbecues. This you did personally, in an intimate way, which created the element of tragedy. Without the element of tragedy, there was only disgust and the hollow feeling you have when you watch a cowardly matador.