In Competition No. 2900 you were invited to write a short story that ends on a condiment of your choice. The germ of this comp was the writer Richard Brautigan’s wish to end a short story with the word ‘mayonnaise’, an ambition he fulfilled in his 1967 novel Trout Fishing in America. Actually, strictly speaking,
In Competition No. 2899 you were invited to write a poem commemorating the birth of Princess Charlotte of Cambridge. The impetus for this comp was Carol Ann Duffy’s failure to deliver the goods. This made some people very cross, but as the official website of the British Monarchy makes clear, modern laureates are under no
In Competition No. 2898 you were invited to give an update on one of the children in Cautionary Tales who lived to tell the tale. Belloc’s gallery of kiddie delinquents suffered particularly unpleasant comeuppances — being eaten, feet upwards, by a lion, and so on. Of those who did escape with their lives, weepy Lord
In Competition No. 2897 you were asked for a job application by a well-known writer, living or dead. Inspiration for this comp came from a young Hunter S. Thompson’s characteristically unorthodox pitch for a position at the Vancouver Sun. An unflattering portrait of his relationship with a previous employer — ‘The man despised me, of
In Competition No. 2896 you were invited to take Kipling’s ‘If’ and recast it on behalf of a politician on the campaign trail. In an interview with the New Republic in 1985, Mario Cuomo said that politicians campaign in poetry and govern in prose. And Hugo Rifkind, in conversation on Radio 4 with the poet
In Competition No. 2895 you were invited to submit a poem describing a meal with a well-known poet. Sylvia Fairley tucked, somewhat reluctantly, into albatross with Coleridge, D.A. Prince shared cocoa with Wendy Cope and Rob Stuart enjoyed a curry with Dante. Well done, all: it was a top-notch entry. The winners take £25. Frank
In Competition No. 2894 you were invited to submit a paean to a famous racehorse. Thanks to David Pearn, who suggested what proved to be an excellent competition. P.C. Parrish, Roger Theobald and Peter Goulding impressed, but I could almost hear the thunder of hooves as I read Chris O’Carroll’s bonus-fiver-winning entry. His fellow winners
In Competition No. 2893 you were invited to suggest suitable Desert Island Discs for a historical figure, living or dead. Your choice of castaways was somewhat narrow — Richard III, Henry VIII, Tony Blair and Jeremy Clarkson popped up again and again. This meant a fair amount of repetition: King Richard was the most popular
In Competition No. 2892 you were invited to submit an irregular quatrain in which you bring together two people from the world of the arts and then add a couplet describing the consequences. Two competitors paired Tolkien and Graham Greene, with not dissimilar results. Here’s D.A. Prince: If J.R.R. Tolkien Met Graham Greene Would a
In Competition No. 2891 you were invited to think of the most boring lecture topic possible and submit an extract from that lecture. Christopher Gilbert gamely -submitted an extract from a real lecture he is due to deliver on the impenetrable-sounding topic of heteroscedasticity. But Brian -Murdoch, observing that it was all ‘a bit near
In Competition No. 2890 you were invited to imagine that one of the major newspapers has ceased publication and provide a verse lament for it. In his 2004 book The Vanishing Newspaper Philip Meyer predicted that the final hard-copy newspaper will plop through someone’s letterbox in 2043. So who’ll be the first to go? Over
In Competition No. 2889 you were invited to submit an extract from an imaginary novel written from the perspective of a female chauvinist author. There are man-haters everywhere, it seems, from children’s telly to high culture. Charges of sexism have been levelled against the creators of the Daddy Pig character in Peppa Pig. Daddy is
In Competition No. 2888 you were invited to submit a poem in the style of a well-known poet, the first letters of each line spelling out the poet’s name. I liked Jerome Betts’s follow-up to Oliver Goldsmith’s ‘The Deserted Village’ and Bill Greenwell’s Spenserian stanza in the manner of Wendy Cope — a parody within
In Competition No. 2887 you were invited to describe your idea of heaven or hell in verse. Nietzsche famously said that in Heaven ‘all the interesting people are missing’ and most of you seemed to agree that paradise might not be all it’s cracked up to be. There’s just space to commiserate with Peter Goulding
In Competition No. 2886 you were invited to submit a Pepys’-eye view of modern life. Pepys’s candid and minutely observed diary entries hum with a seemingly inexhaustible lust for life and your attempts to capture this spirit were impressive. His perpetual randiness, in particular, loomed large in the entry (as one of Pepys’s biographers Richard
In Competition No. 2885 you were invited to write a sonnet beginning ‘Shall I compare thee to a [trisyllable of your choice]’. A competitor emailed to ask if I’d meant a single trisyllabic word or a three-syllable phrase. I meant the former but perhaps that wasn’t clear so I allowed both. Objects of comparison ranged
In Competition No. 2884 you were invited to submit a poem in praise or dispraise of beards. The beard has been rehabilitated since the dark days of Mr Twit, Jimmy Hill and The Joy of Sex. It will, as Ekow Eshun points out in his insightful essay ‘Welcome to Beardland-ia’, one day stand as ‘the
In Competition No. 2883 you were invited to cast a well-known writer, living or dead, in the role of agony aunt or uncle and provide a problem of your invention and their solution. Mark Shelton’s Ted Hughes begins his reply to the question ‘how can I be more confident with girls?’ thus: ‘Stoat does not
In Competition No. 2882 you were invited to submit a blues song written by a well-known politician contemplating the impending general election. The ghosts of Robert Johnson, B.B. King and Big Bill Broonzy stalked the entry, which was smallish but accomplished. Basil Ransome-Davies’s submission was a clever twist on Kris Kristofferson’s ‘Sunday -Mornin’ Comin’ Down’
In Competition No. 2881 you were invited to do as Carol Ann Duffy has done and provide an amusing poem about a piece of government legislation. The first line of her poem ‘22 Reasons for the Bedroom Tax’, ‘Because the badgers are moving the goalposts’, is, of course, a reference to environment secretary Owen Paterson’s