Spectator competition winners: Lady Macbeth’s recipe for wedded bliss

In what proved to be a popular comp, you were invited to submit the formula for a successful marriage courtesy of a well-known husband or wife in literature. Some time ago, I challenged you to do the same on behalf of well-known poets, and if you like your advice brief and to the point, there’s always Ogden Nash’s ‘A Word to Husbands’:

To keep your marriage brimming With love in the loving cup, Whenever you’re wrong, admit it; Whenever you’re right, shut up.

Your prescriptions were less pithy, but no less impressive for that. The winners take £30, and a fine display of Mr Polly’s ‘innate sense of epithet’ earns Alan Millard £35.

Alan Millard (Mr Polly) Like Zeooze’s Three Graces, there are three rules for nuptialious felicitation: choose shrewdaciously, nurture gallantously and abandon boldly.

The right choice is imperitous. Choose as you would a new bicycle. With lots of prospective fish in my sea like Minnie or Christabel, rectospectously I should have chosen someone avidorous for Chaucer, Bocashiew and chivelresque adventures.