Competition

For Competition 3424 you were invited to write a short story for which ‘Conman’ could be the title, containing a dozen words of four or more letters beginning with con or man. This produced a larger-than-usual entry in which all were fairly evenly matched, making it tricky to whittle it down to the six below

Comp. 3423 invited you to submit a passage about a command or suggestion from literature being taken too literally. I was sorry not to squeeze in Alan Millard’s riff on John Donne’s ‘Go and Catch a Falling Star’: ‘The object in question can reach temperatures of almost 3,000˚F when entering the Earth’s atmosphere…’. A popular

For Competition 3422 you were invited to submit a poem or passage on the theme of ‘daylight saving’. In a very good batch, once again the poetry bubbled to the top. There are too many close runners-up to name names, and it seems best to maximise space for winners. The £25 vouchers go to the

For Competition 3421 you were invited to submit a reply from Slough to offset Betjeman’s rude lines on the subject. The poet Ian McMillan got in there first, springing to Slough’s defence in 2005 with ‘Slough Re-visited’: ‘Come friendly words and splash on Slough!/ Celebrate it, here and now/ Describe it with a gasp, a

For Competition 3420 you were invited to submit a poem or short story incorporating that sentence of Emerson’s: ‘The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.’ Dr Johnson may have been the first to mention spoon counting, saying (according to Boswell) that ‘if he does really think that there is

For Comp 3419 you were invited to write a poem to mark National Vodka Day (4 October) or another spurious designated day, actual or invented. There were several good vodka poems, by Adrian Pascu-Tulbure, D.A. Prince, Tanya Dixon–Clegg, and Helen Baty – I was sorry not to be able to fit them in. Ditto David

For Competition 3418 you were invited to provide a pompous leading article on a trivial subject. The ubiquity of ‘Hi’ replacing ‘Dear’; conjoined teabags; the apostrophe (ban it!); the semi-colon (save it!): all featured in a medium-sized, accomplished entry. The half-dozen below stood out and earn their authors the £25 John Lewis vouchers. Our readers

Comp. 3417 invited you to write an elegy to a piece of obsolete technology. This prompted a deluge of very good entries – too many to name all the runners up, though here are some of the lamented objects: mangles, steam engines, oil lamps, floppy discs, the trebuchet, cash registers, radiograms, gramophones, tape recorders, Ceefax,

Comp. 3416 invited you to marry romantasy (the romance-fantasy fusion now dominating fiction sales) with a third genre. Narnia, gritty realism and Holby City were in the mix. Some saw no reason to confine themselves to three, and we had romantasy sci-fi noir, as well as a Scandi noir-Richard Curtis romantasy-com. I’m sorry to leave

For Competition 3415 you were invited to submit a lost poem by a well-known poet which makes us see him or her in a new light. There is space only to commiserate with unlucky losers Elizabeth Kay, Alex Steelsmith, Sophie Hannah, Ralph Goldswain and D.A. Prince. The winners below take the £25 John Lewis vouchers.

For Competition 3414 you were invited to provide an extract from a well-known literary work rewritten to include appropriate product placements. Honourable mentions, in a top-notch entry, go to Max Ross, Ralph Goldswain, Hamish Wilson, John O’Byrne and Paula Cameron – and to Matt Quinn and Nick Syrett for a pair of excellent twists on

Comp. 3413 was prompted by J.G. Ballard’s story ‘The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race’ (itself inspired by Alfred Jarry’s ‘The Crucifixion Considered as an Uphill Bicycle Race’). You were invited to consider some event in a category to which it did not belong. It was harder than ever to

For Comp. 3411 you were invited to submit a passage or poem on the subject of dynamic pricing. Thanks to Paul Freeman for the suggestion, who deserves a nod for his entry too. So do Mike Morrison, Matt Quinn, Nicholas Lee, Elizabeth Kay, Frank Upton and others, and here’s John O’Byrne’s Larkinesque riff: I listen

For Competition 3410 you were invited to imagine a celebrated character from a children’s book in later life. There were a lot of entries for this one, most of them excellent, and many of them pretty bleak – including Tiny Tim becoming Jack the Ripper. A possibly controversial policy of allowing only one winning entry

For Competition 3409 you were invited to submit parental advice courtesy of famous writers. Kurt Vonnegut’s father’s advice to his son gave me the idea for this challenge: ‘Never take liquor into the bedroom. Don’t stick anything in your ears. Be anything but an architect.’ Your entries were witty and imaginative and there were many

For Competition 3408 you were invited to write poems about heatwaves. This comp was inspired by the weather! In the face of lethargy, rage, sleeplessness etc lots of you still managed to put fingers to keyboard with good results. It was almost too hot to choose, but the £25 vouchers go to the following. Long

For Competition 3407 you were invited to write about a historical event euphemistic-ally. This challenge was a little vague; Private Eye code was the inspiration but from the tone of the entries it could have been 1066 and All That. The standard was very high, with too many runners-up to name names, and the £25

For Competition 3406 you were invited to cast a well-known fictional or non-fictional character, living or dead, in the role of agony aunt or uncle and provide a problem of your invention and their solution. There was very little to choose between an excellent crop. Unlucky losers include Bill Greenwell, Ralph Goldswain, Peter Smalley, Frank

For Competition 3405 you were invited to submit a scene in which Doctor Who has regenerated into someone very unexpected. Plenty of interesting transformations resulted, featuring among others Paddington Bear, Mary Berry and two Jacob Rees-Moggs, but the winners of the £25 vouchers are below. The Doctor, regenerating as a tall, meaty-faced man in jeans,