Competition

In Competition No. 2862 you were invited to submit a poetic preview of when the lights go out. Submissions were impressively varied this week, and kept me thoroughly entertained. Honourable mentions go to Katie Mallett, who had Betjeman in mind (‘Fetch out the candles, Norman…’), and to Sylvia Fairley, who was in double-dactylic mood: ‘Jittery-tickery/

In Competition No. 2861 you were invited to submit misleading snippets of advice for British tourists travelling abroad. A previous invitation to unleash a tide of misinformation on unsuspecting foreign visitors to the UK elicited such gems as Brian Allgar’s ‘Foreign visitors are always welcome to stroll through Buckingham Palace, and the Queen herself will

In Competition No. 2860 you were invited to submit a short ode on the death of a pet in unusual circumstances. I was prompted to set this challenge by Thomas Gray’s charming and witty cautionary tale ‘Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes’, which he wrote in

In Competition No. 2859 you were invited to submit an offputting party political broadcast by the Tories, Labour, the Lib Dems, the Greens or Ukip. Basil Ransome-Davies wasn’t alone in revealing the ruthlessness that lurks beneath the tree-hugging veneer of the Greens. He gets an honourable mention, as does Adrian Fry, who recruited Jimmy Savile

In Competition No. 2858 you were invited to imagine that a well-known figure from 20th-century history was a secret poet and to submit a recently discovered example of their versifying. Politicians featured prominently in the entry: there were poignant lines from the pens of Edward Heath and Michael Foot, and here is Adrian Fry’s John

In Competition No. 2856 you were invited to recruit a well-known author of your choice to give Phil Neville a masterclass in the art of football commentary. After his commentary debut, unkind comparisons were drawn between Neville’s style and a speak-your-weight machine, and when the England physio was stretchered off injured, a Twitter user speculated

In Competition No. 2854 you were invited to invent a title for a new cookery book, with a fresh angle, and supply a publisher’s blurb. When it comes to the market for bizarre cookery books, a quick trawl of the web reveals that there is already stiff competition out there. The Star Wars Cookbook (may

In Competition No. 2853 you were asked to incorporate the following words (they are real geological terms) into a piece of plausible and entertaining prose so that they acquire a new meaning in the context of your narrative: Corallian, Permian, Lias, Kimmeridge, Oolite, Cornbrash, Ampthill. The inspiration for this comp came from a bit in

In Competition No. 2852 you were invited to step into the shoes of a well-known writer of your choice and submit a poem or piece of prose in praise or defence of something you would not expect them to champion. You were on top form this week. Martin Parker reveals a lighter side of Leonard

In Competition No. 2851 you were invited to mark Jeremy Paxman’s departure from Newsnight by supplying an extract from an interview with a politician or statesman in which the interviewer doggedly but unsuccessfully attempts to get a straight answer to a straight question. There’s space only to announce that the winners take £30 and W.J. Webster

In Competition No. 2850 you were invited to invent proverbs that sound profound but have no meaning. This was an extremely popular competition, which attracted an enormous entry. It was a pleasure to judge, and cheering, too, to see lots of unfamiliar names in among the regulars. The best entries contain just the promise of

In Competition No. 2849 you were invited to submit a poem in praise or dispraise of the BBC. The entry felt a bit flat this week and you seemed to be lacking in any real conviction either way. Roger Theobald’s opening lines pretty much reflected the general mood: ‘To praise or dispraise: well, if that’s

In Competition No. 2848 you were invited to submit a poem commenting on Scottish independence in the style of William Topaz McGonagall. McGonagallesque long lines leave me space only to congratulate you on a vast and skilful entry before handing over to the man himself, hailed by the TLS as ‘the only truly memorable bad

In Competition No. 2847 you were invited to submit a poem celebrating a famous duo. You wheeled out a colourful cast of pairings. Ray Kelley sang the praises of Flanders and Swann: ‘Never was there a sweeter fit/ of wit to melody, melody to wit’. Brian Allgar proposed a toast to that gruesome twosome Burke

In Competition No. 2846 you were invited to invent the six rules for writing of a well-known author of your choice. Honourable mentions go to Hugh King, whose Revd W.A. Spooner urges writers to ‘be sure to merge all pisstakes’, and to J. Seery, who reckons Hemingway’s sixth rule would be: ‘It is you or the

In Competition No. 2845 you were invited to provide a hymn for atheists. This excellent, and topical, competition was suggested by John Whitworth, in response to the growth of organised atheism. Hymns do not feature at all at the Sunday Assembly, an atheist church founded last year in London. Instead the congregation sings along, in

In Competition No. 2844 you were invited to provide an extract from either a gripping thriller or a bodice-ripping romance containing half a dozen pieces of inconsequential information. I can now add the fact that Zanzibar is the world’s largest clove producer, and that 99 per cent of Estonians have blue eyes, to my cache

In Competition No. 2843 you were given a list of poets’ surnames — motion, bridges, wilde, gray, cope, hood, burns and browning — and asked to incorporate them into a poem or piece of prose. I gave you scope for showing off by inviting you to cram in extra names should you choose to. The