Spectator competition: when prose and poetry meet (plus: verse in the manner of Revd W.A. Spooner)

The challenge to pick a well-known poem and write a short story with the same title using the poem’s opening and closing lines to begin and end the piece drew a smallish entry. Rob Stuart wasn’t alone in choosing ‘Adlestrop’ and the poems of that great storyteller in verse Robert Frost were also popular. I liked Mike Morrison’s use of the first line of Eliot’s ‘Whispers of Immortality’ as a springboard into an intriguing snapshot of the lexicographer Noah Webster. Equally impressive was Josh Ekroy’s imagining of an alternative and far-from-uneventful life for Mr Bleaney. Other star performers were Max Ross, Sid Field, John O’Byrne and Ashani Lewis. The winners earn £25 each. G.M. Davis takes £30.

G.M. Davis/‘The Old Flame’ ‘My old flame, my wife!’

I’d untied the knot in Reno five years before, so he was only half-right as well as half-cut.

Neither was any surprise with Hank. But I was on my own at the JFK taxi stand and when he suggested it I couldn’t think of a good enough reason not to share a cab.

First stop, a bar for martinis.