Competition

In Competition No. 2715 you were invited to condense the plot of a well-known novel into 16 lines or fewer. In the interest of making space for the winners, I will follow your lead and keep it brief. Honourable mentions to G. McIlraith, Robert Schechter and Michael Grosvenor Myer, who pulled off the impressive feat

In Competition No. 2714 you were invited to supply a poem that begins ‘’Twas brillig…’ and continue, in the spirit of Lewis Carroll, using your own neologisms. ‘Jabberwocky’ has, of course, spawned countless parodies and been translated into many tongues. Frank L. Warrin’s frabjous French version, ‘Le Jaseroque’, appeared in the New Yorker in 1931.

This was an enjoyable comp to judge: I have some sympathy with the actress Celia Imrie’s (who played Mrs M) view that, given the current trend towards the use of dull and overused verbal short cuts, the much-mocked Malaprop’s attempts to improve herself by expanding her vocabulary are actually rather creditable. Printed below are the

In Competition No. 2712 you were invited to come up with your own additions to the ever-lengthening list of modern maladies. The assignment was prompted by reports in the Daily Mail and New York Times of the growing epidemic of Fear of Missing Out. Scourge of Generation Facebook, FOMO has at its roots the relentless

In Competition No. 2711 you were invited to cook up a recipe for marital bliss on behalf of a poet of your choice. It was agony to whittle an especially fine entry down to the half-dozen printed below. Inevitably, some good ’uns missed out. Space permits only a hearty congratulatory slap on the back all-round.

In Competition No. 2710 you were invited to supply a poem reflecting on travelling by Tube. Not something, perhaps, that would inspire many of us to heights of lyricism, though T.S. Eliot evokes subterranean travel to powerful effect in Four Quartets. Here he is, in ‘East Coker’, on the experience of stopping in a tunnel,

Competition: Dead end In Competition No. 2709 you were invited to take as your opening line ‘When I am dead, cremate me’ and continue, in verse, for up to a further 15. This assignment was suggested by Frank McDonald and inspired by an exchange in the film Wilde between Queensberry and Wilde. Asked by Queensberry,

In Competition No. 2708 you were invited to submit an obituary of either God or Homo sapiens. There is space only to congratulate the winners, printed below, who get £25 each, and to share this delightful and pertinent limerick by Gerard Benson: There was nothing, then dinosaurs, then There were mammals and finally men, Who

‘To ______, or not to ______, that is the question…’ In Competition No. 2707 you were invited to fill in the blanks and continue for up to a further 15 lines. The challenge elicited a topical response from many competitors — ‘to hack or not to hack…’ agonised George Simmers — and dilemmas of the

Four letter word In Competition No. 2706 you were invited to submit an entertaining and plausible piece of prose using words of only four letters. ‘This must hold some sick joke!’ wailed Shirley Curran. ‘Lucy, show more pity next time,’ pleaded Barry Baldwin. But you are clearly a masochistic lot; despite the howls of protest

Lucy Vickery presents this week’s Competition In Competition No. 2705 you were invited to submit an updated version of Betjeman’s ‘How to Get on in Society’. Sir John’s lampooning of suburban pretenders whose attempts to transcend their class served only to root them more firmly in it was his contribution to the U/Non-U debate that

Lucy Vickery presents this week’s Competition In Competition No. 2704 you were invited to submit extracts from a less than happy literary collaboration between male and female contemporaries where the joints clearly show. D.A. Prince (Orwell/Wodehouse) and Bill Greenwell (D.H. Lawrence/Pam Ayres) impressed but strayed from the brief. The winners, in a strong field, are

In Competition No. 2703 you were invited to submit a hymn entitled ‘All Things Dull and Ugly’. Long lines mean space is tight so I’ll keep it short. George Simmers nabs the bonus fiver; £25 each to his fellow winners. All things dull and ugly, all creatures gross and     squat, All things vile or

Lucy Vickery presents this week’s Competition In Competition No. 2702 you were to invited to submit an imaginary example of an embarrassingly overblown author’s dedication or an extract from an equally nauseating acknowledgments page. It seems that these days writing is a far from lonely pursuit and gratitude is routinely heaped by authors on battalions

In Competition No. 2701 you were invited to take the opening line of ‘Adlestrop’, substitute a location of your choice, and continue for up to a further 15 lines. The result of a brief, unscheduled stop at a Cotswold station just before the first world war, ‘Adlestrop’ has spawned many imitators. Jimmie Pearse’s fine parody,

Lucy Vickery presents this week’s Competition In Competition No. 2700 you were invited to submit an example of pretentious wine-writing. Peter Mayle’s account in the Observer of his first formal wine tasting, in London’s St James’s, gives a flavour of what I was looking for: ‘The first wine, so he [the wine merchant] informed us,

Lucy Vickery presents this week’s Competition In Competition No. 2699 you were invited to submit an ‘Ode to an Expiring Frog’ or to any other creature that is not long for this world. Inspiration here comes of course from the magnificent Mrs Leo Hunter, embodiment of provincial literary pretension and authoress of this poignant piece:

Lucy Vickery presents this week’s Competition In Competition No. 2698 you were invited to submit a short story that begins, ‘Of course he knew — no man better — that he hadn’t a ghost of a chance, he hadn’t an earthly.’ and ends ‘And Reginald came slowly across the lawn.’ The given words are the

Lucy Vickery presents this week’s Competition In Competition No. 2696 you were invited to submit a dialogue in verse between two body parts, composed on the occasion of a hangover. Kingsley Amis described the opening of Kafka’s Metamorphosis as the best literary representation of a hangover, though many might argue that the crown belongs to