Spectator competition winners; interesting lives made extraordinarily dull

In Competition No. 3293, you were invited to provide an extract from the autobiography of a well-known public figure which manages to make a very interesting life sound extraordinarily dull. I am grateful to Sarah Drury for suggesting this terrific challenge. Honourable mentions, in a modest-sized entry, go to Sir Alec Guinness’s Spam anecdote (Jonathan Taylor), Elon Musk’s account of founding the Boring Company (John O’Byrne) and tales from St Paul’s tent-making days in Tarsus (Revd Richard Coles). The prizewinners below take £25.

The Battle of Rivoli was my twenty-second substantial victory (for my definition of ‘substantial’ see Appendix IV, ‘Definitions’), which puts me one ahead of the duc de Vendôme and only five behind Julius Caesar. I am advised that I killed up to 14,000 of the enemy, many of them with canister shot, with a further 11,000 captured, taking more than 100 guns, numerous horses and other matériel. Leclerc (see Appendix III, ‘People’), with his laconic wit, remarked: ‘That should do it!’ One should never become complacent, but I feel confident that I can extend this chain of victories, even against less naïve opposition, with no small advantage to my personal reputation, indeed, I hear talk of naming a street in Paris after this victory.