In competition No. 2492 you were invited to write a piece of prose entitled ‘Irritable Vowel Syndrome’, without using the letter ‘u’.
This assignment should have been a piece of cake. After all, the wild and woolly Frenchman Georges Perec wrote a whopping 300-page novel, La Disparition, without using a single ‘e’. What’s more, Gilbert Adair translated it into ‘e’-free English — an heroic feat.
There was no getting away from Nancy Mitford this week, who popped up in lots of entries, including that of bonus-fiver recipient W.J. Webster. The other winners, printed below, net £25 apiece.
‘Open wide and say “Ah”.’
‘I don’t have a problem with my R’s, Doctor. It’s the old I.O. whatsits that give me grief. The bends.’
‘Bends?’
‘Can’t do them. Mrs Thatcher had the same problem, I believe. With the EC, as it then was, happily.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t follow.’
‘What comes between T and V?’
‘ele?’
‘No, no.
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