Spectator competition winners: P.G. Wodehouse’s Guide to Manly Health and Training

For the latest competition you were invited to take inspiration from the recently published Walt Whitman’s Guide to Manly Health and Training and supply an extract from a similar guide penned by another well-known writer. While Whitman extols the benefits of stale bread and fresh air and cautions against eating between meals, Fiona Pitt-Kethley’s John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester advocates a rather less ascetic approach: ‘Swiving’s the only manly exercise/ To tone the glutes and work the inner thighs/ No bench presses, go press a wench instead./ Roll up your yoga mat and go to bed.’ In a small but distinguished entry Mike Morrison takes £30; his fellow winners are rewarded with £25 each.

Mike Morrison/Ernest Hemingway A man must live on the grand scale. To be of this world is to perform a five-act opera. Learn from me the script. Half measures are for women and boys alone. It is essential to your wellbeing that you pursue big game hunting, sea fishing.