The mod acrostic

In Competition No. 2482 you were invited to supply an acrostic poem, involving questions and answers in which the first letters of the lines read SOCRATIC METHOD.

Smartypants will have spotted that the title of this competition is an anagram of the required phrase. In hospital one undergoes much questioning as well as treatment. The other day a nurse with a clipboard asked me, ‘Are you apprehensive in this hospital?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Why?’ she inquired. ‘Aren’t most people in hospital apprehensive, because they’re ill but they don’t know how ill?’ ‘Oh,’ she said most un-Socratically, ‘that was rather a silly question, wasn’t it?’ ‘Yes.’

Commendations to Paul Griffin and Frank Mc Donald. Prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each, and the bonus fiver goes to G.M. Davis.

Should art be autotelic, or for use?

Only for pleasure; all else would be abuse.

Can it not point us to the wise and good?

Rarely — and there’s no reason why it should.