Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: the facts of life courtesy of Jeremy Clarkson

[Photo: Mike Flokis/Stringer] 
issue 17 June 2023

In Competition No. 3303, you were invited to submit an explanation of the facts of life by a person from the field of fact or fiction who might be deemed a surprising choice.

A commendation to A.R. Duncan-Jones, whose lesson harnessed the reverse chronology of Martin Amis’s Time’s Arrow: ‘Every ejaculation is premature. Well, it would be, wouldn’t it?… Quite apart from the disappointment and frustration, it’s also extremely embarrassing to find yourself ejaculating inside a girl that you’ve never even met.’

And to David Shields’s Gradgrind: ‘Sexual congress. Undertaken by one male and one female. Purpose: propagation of species. Method: introduction of sperm to ovum. Result: impregnation of female partner, followed by nine months’ gestation and, eventually, parturition.’

D.A. Prince and A.H. Harker also stood out, but the cash prizes go to the winners, below, who earn £30 apiece.

Good mounting, children. You’ll be ignited to know that it’s time for your sex edification lesson, now repulsory in all schools.

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