In Competition No. 2977 you were invited to submit a Christmas carol with a topical twist. ‘In the bleak midwinter’ just about captures the general tenor of the entry, although George Simmers injected a lighter note with his invitation to ‘Deck Ed Balls with boughs of holly…’ and W.J. Webster, too, was looking on the
In Competition No. 2976 you were invited to submit an extract of a speech in which a well-known figure from history comments on a pressing item on today’s news agenda. Rob Stuart gave Pythagorus’ view on the new Toblerone (not a fan); Frank Upton offered Thomas Crapper’s perspective on transgender public conveniences; and Michael
In Competition No. 2975 you were invited to supply your own nine-line twist on Robert Herrick’s ‘Upon Julia’s clothes’: Whenas in silks my Julia goes Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows That liquefaction of her clothes. Next, when I cast mine eyes and see That brave vibration each way free, O how that
In Competition No. 2974 you were invited to submit a resignation letter from God. Despite mankind’s attempts to kill Him off, God has continued to bounce back. ‘The Almighty,’ as Terry Eagleton puts it in his book Culture and the Death of God, ‘has proved remarkably difficult to dispose of.’ But what if He
In Competition No. 2973 you were invited to give your thoughts, in verse or prose, on who the Person from Porlock might have been — assuming, of course, that there was such a person. Many thanks to John McGivering, who suggested this excellect competition. Some fingered, as De Quincey did, Coleridge’s doctor and laudanum source.
In Competition No. 2972 you were invited to supply an ode on a Grayson Perry urn. Frank McDonald wasn’t keen: ‘Do Grayson Perry urns deserve an ode?/ Has modern art not shamed the Muse enough?/ That looks for beauty in a tortured toad/ And loads our galleries with frightful stuff?’ Elsewhere, the entry was chock-full
In Competition No. 2971 you were invited to submit poems written by Jeremy Corbyn. The seven printed below take £20 apiece but oh, for more space: there were so many terrific entries. Honourable mentions go in particular to Brian Murdoch, Paul Carpenter, John Whitworth, Rip Bulkeley and Josh Ekroy. Shall I compare thee to Teresa
In Competition No. 2970 you were invited to supply an extract from an Ig Nobel Prize-winner’s speech that describes the ‘achievement’ (invented by you) being honoured. The Igs are spoof awards handed out annually at Harvard for scientific achievements that manage to be both hilarious and thought-provoking. In 2014’s Neuroscience category, for example, the award
In Competition No. 2969 you were invited to submit a poem about autumn in the style of the poet of your choice. It was a stellar entry so I’ll keep it brief to make way for an extra winner. Those printed below take £20 each; D.A. Prince nabs £30. High fives all round. Oh Autumn,
In Competition No. 2968 you were-invited to take the title of a short story by Ted Hughes, How the Whale Became, substitute-another animal or fish for ‘whale’ and provide a tale with that title. This comp was an absolute delight to judge. There were oodles of well-turned entries bursting with charm. Well done. Special mention
In Competition No. 2967 you were invited to submit an article written by the author of your choice under the headline ‘If I were Prime Minister’. In a fascinating 1959 essay written for The Spectator under that headline, Ian Fleming proposed, among much else, a combination of ‘benevolent Stakhanovism’ in the workplace and the conversion
In Competition No. 2966 you were invited to filter popular nursery rhymes through the prism of political correctness. Some years ago, CBeebies came under fire when it took all the fun out of ‘Humpty Dumpty’ by changing the words to give it a happy ending. And it wasn’t just Humpty;-Little Miss Muffet and the spider
In Competition No. 2965, an enormously popular one, you were invited to write a poem about a verse form, written in that form. It was Edna St Vincent Millay’s sonnet-about-the-sonnet ‘I will put Chaos into fourteen lines’ that inspired this challenge but there are other similar examples — Robert Burns’s fine ‘A Sonnet upon Sonnets’,
In Competition No. 2964 you were invited to suggest a really bad idea for one, or several, of the following: a children’s book; an Olympic sport; a television sitcom; a reality TV series. Reading the entry brought back fond if painful memories of Alan Partridge’s Inner-City Sumo — ‘We take fat people from inner cities,
In Competition No. 2963 you were invited to submit a poem about the North or the South or one comparing the two. -Tennyson’s lines ‘bright and fierce and fickle is the South,/And dark and true and tender is the North’ (from ‘The Princess: O Swallow’), which inspired this challenge, produced a wide-ranging and exhilarating entry
In Competition No. 2962 you were invited to supply a poem about a body part of an author of your choosing. This challenge was inspired by the engaging title of a book by John Sutherland: Orwell’s Nose. In 2012 Sutherland permanently lost his sense of smell. Shortly thereafter, he set about rereading the works of
In Competition No. 2961 you were invited to submit limericks that might have been written by Boris Johnson in an attempt to smooth ruffled feathers on the international stage. Boris has said that ‘it would really take me too long to engage in a fully global itinerary of apology’ to all those who have taken
In Competition No. 2960 you were invited to submit a poem on the theme of summer in which the last two words of each line rhyme. It was only after the entries started coming in that I realised that my sloppy wording meant that the brief was open to interpretation. In most submissions, the last
In Competition No. 2959 you were invited to submit a poem on a political theme entitled ‘May day’. There was a good turnout, but the mood was overwhelmingly bleak despite the efforts of a relentlessly optimistic few, Tim Raikes and Alanna Blake among them. But there was much to admire, including a neat riff from
In Competition No. 2958 you were invited to submit a conversation between St Peter and a well-known figure who is demanding admission to heaven. Although the brief asked for a dialogue, Janice Harayda’s Donald Trump made the cut despite St Peter not getting a word in edgeways. Given that Trump doesn’t come across as the