In Competition 2371 you were asked to provide rhyming couplets describing imaginary animals, involving eight consecutive letters of the alphabet. ‘The progress of the Unipod,/ As you’d surmise, is rather odd.’ This perhaps unillustratable couplet by Jeremy Lawrence is one of many splendid offerings among the runners-up. Hugh King made me smile with ‘The Umpzov,
In Competition No. 2370 you were asked for a poem expressing either approval or disapproval of the habit of smoking. About smoking, as about many things, I am in two minds. On the one hand I smoke three small cigars a day after meals and would never go to dinner with hosts who didn’t offer
In Competition No. 2369 you were invited to submit extracts from an imaginary diary during a period of civil convulsion and anarchy in this country. Though I was thinking of future disturbances, I was quite willing to accept historic diaries and was pleased to get reports of unrest in the days of Boudicca, in King
In Competition No. 2368 you were asked for a poem entitled ‘At a cocktail party’. This sprung from my rereading of Auden’s delightful but rarely anthologised poem ‘At the Party’. Interestingly, not one of you described an occasion that was obviously enjoyable. Among the prizewinners (who get £25 each) Tim Raikes is the only guest
In Competition No. 2367 you were invited to supply an imaginary extract from the libretto of the flop musical Oscar Wilde. ‘I am going to stand my ground and fight,/ The things you two do just can’t be right,’ sang the Marquess to Bosie in that ill-starred production. Criticised for his lyrics, the author, Mike
In Competition No. 2366 you were invited to describe the opening of a bizarrely themed restaurant in this country. Berlin features its restaurant for anorexics and one for the blind where customers eat in pitch darkness, served by blind waiters; also a café run by an Argentinian where you eat what you’re given, then pay
In Competition No. 2365 you were invited to supply a piece, written in the style of a fashion editor, expressing enthusiasm for either see-through trousers for men or full plate armour for women. Two confessions (not apologies). First, I lifted this comp from a Spectator of over 40 years ago, and a very good one
In Competition No. 2364 you were invited to supply the opening, set in a club, to the sort of 19th-century tale mocked by H.E. Bates: ‘Four of us were having a sundowner when Carruthers, apropos of nothing, remarked …’. Bates also provided an appropriate ending: ‘It is not for us to judge. But I believe