In Competition No. 2630 you were invited to imagine that a literary giant of the pre-television age is guest TV critic on The Spectator, and submit an extract from his or her review. As Emma Woodhouse says, ‘One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.’ So what would the literary greats
In Competition No. 2629 you were invited to submit a palinode (a poem retracting a previously expressed opinion) on behalf of a well-known poet. Haunted by the success of his much-reproduced quatrain ‘The Purple Cow’, Gelett Burgess wrote a palinode to strike fear in the hearts of anthology-compilers: ‘Ah, yes! I wrote the purple cow,/
In Competition 2628 you were invited to submit a contemporary version of the 18th-century satirical song ‘The Vicar of Bray’. The model for the Vicar was purported to be Simon Aleyn, a 16th-century parish priest of Bray, who hung on to office by cheerfully reinventing himself to fit in with the prevailing orthodoxy. He found
In Competition 2627 you were invited to submit a rhyming prophecy for 2010. The entry was short on optimism but bursting with wit and ingenuity. Hats off to Mae Scanlan, a more-or-less lone Pollyanna in a sea of Cassandras, who foresees global peace and economic prosperity. She narrowly missed out on joining the winners, printed
In Competition No. 2626 you were invited to submit a thank-you letter for an especially hideous or inappropriate present, which manages to be diplomatic while fending off future offerings along the same lines. A respondent to a BBC poll on ungratefully received Christmas presents was given a ‘handsome but visibly used hair comb’ by an
In Competition 2625 you were invited to submit a poem in praise of any well-known person named John (a real person, living or dead, or a character from literature). The verse tributes poured in, to Johns I had heard of — Prescott, the Baptist, Donne — and those I had not: ‘John Harington, my jo,
In Competition 2624 you were invited to submit a poem in the style of the legendary William Topaz McGonagall on an issue of contemporary relevance to the Scots. Hailed by the TLS as ‘the only truly memorable bad poet in our language’, McGonagall built his reputation on appalling yet beguiling works of inadvertent comic genius.
In Competition 2623 you were invited to submit an extract from a novel or a play, of which one letter of the title had been changed, in the style of the original author. It was especially tough this week to whittle a large postbag down to just six. Oh, to have the space to share
In Competition No. 2622 you were invited to submit a rhymed curse penned by a motorist on a cyclist, a cyclist on a pedestrian or a pedestrian on either. Reading the entry brought to mind a question once posed by Matthew Parris: ‘Does cycling turn you into an insolent jerk?’ ‘You bet it does!’ came
In Competition No. 2621 you were invited to invent a new magazine combining two existing publications and provide an extract from it. It was with great reluctance that I disqualified Josh Ekroy’s poignant portrait of an angst-ridden budgerigar. The publications in question had to be real ones, and energetic attempts to track down Existentialist Monthly
In Competition No. 2620 you were invited to submit an argument, in verse, for the superiority of one vegetable over another. It was Pablo Neruda’s ‘Ode to the artichoke’ that got me thinking about the pecking order in the vegetable kingdom. Here’s a snippet: ‘The cabbage/ Dedicated itself/ To trying on skirts,/ The oregano/ To
In Competition No. 2619 you were invited to submit a short fable culminating in a mangled aphorism. The fabulous theme of this comp is a salute to Jaspistos, celebrated translator of fables, whose rendering of La Fontaine’s was deemed by the not-easily-pleased Geoffrey Grigson to have been unsurpassed, ‘earthier and sharper than Marianne Moore’s’. The
In Competition No. 2618 you were invited to submit a sequel to Betjeman’s ‘A Subaltern’s Love Song’. As a native of the home counties — born in Aldershot, raised in Camberley — I have a soft spot for Betjeman’s muse, who imparted a touch of glamour to this unlovely part of the world. The real
Lucy Vickery presents the latest competition In Competition No. 2617 you were invited, in the wake of Big Brother’s demise, to submit a proposal for a new TV reality show guaranteed to pull in the punters. This assignment was an invitation to plumb the depths of bad taste. And plumb them you did. I winced
Lucy Vickery presents the latest competition In Competition No. 2616 you were invited to continue Edward Lear’s self-portrait in verse — ‘How pleasant to know Mr Lear’ — or T.S. Eliot’s response — ‘How unpleasant to meet Mr Eliot’ — for a further 15 lines, substituting the name of the poet of your choice, or
Lucy Vickery presents the latest competition In Competition No. 2615 you were invited to provide a lesson in the facts of life courtesy of Mrs Malaprop or the Revd William A. Spooner. This comp produced an especially enjoyable entry, highlights of which deserve to be shared. Here’s Brian Murdoch: ‘In these days, when over-copulation has
In Competition No. 2614 you were invited to submit a press release by the tourist board of one of the following fictional holiday destinations: Lilliput; Wonderland; Oceania; Brave New World. The entry was split fairly evenly between the first three destinations, while the prospect of trying to entice visitors to what Huxley referred to as
In Competition No. 2613 you were invited to submit a cautionary tale for our times, in the style of Hilaire Belloc, about the consequences of too much time spent texting or on social networking sites. The grisly fates of Belloc’s creations — Jim, eaten feet upwards by a lion, and Mathilda, burnt to a crisp
In Competition No. 2612 you were invited to provide an extract from an issue of The Spectator from the year 2109. Back in the mid-1950s competitors were asked to look into their crystal balls and come up with content from The Spectator of 2080. In the report on the results, they were sternly berated for
In Competition No. 2611 you were invited to provide a poem to be recited on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square. Thanks to Juliet Walker, who suggested this challenge: it was a popular one that drew a large and bracing entry. What is more, I was unaware when I set it that there is already