The request for tributes in verse to a once-popular foodstuff that has fallen out of favour generated a large and lively postbag. Bill Greenwell’s entry (Spangles!) brought to mind childhood pleasures, as did Sid Field’s (Creamola) and Jayne Osborn’s (Angel Delight). But I still shudder at the memory of spam fritters, and Alan Millard’s valiant
In Competition No. 2912 you were invited to submit a tribute in verse to a once-popular foodstuff that has fallen out of favour. Bill Greenwell’s entry (Spangles!) brought to mind childhood pleasures, as did Sid Field’s (Creamola) and Jayne Osborn’s (Angel Delight). But I still shudder at the memory of spam fritters, and Alan Millard’s
The latest challenge, to submit a thriller in three text messages, seemed straightforward enough but it turned out to be a tough assignment that stretched veterans and newcomers alike. As in all forms of micro-fiction — the mini-masterpiece attributed to Hemingway, ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn’, springs to mind — it’s all about the
In Competition No. 2911 you were invited to submit a thriller in three text messages. This one seemed straightforward enough but it turned out to be a tough assignment that stretched veterans and newcomers alike. As in all forms of micro-fiction — the mini-masterpiece attributed to Hemingway, ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn’, springs to
My request for poems by a pet who is cheesed off with its owner generated an entertaining parade of bullied, misunderstood and condescended-to creatures. The contempt in Basil Ransome-Davies’s closing couplet, written from the perspective of a bolshie moggy, speaks for the majority: He wants affection, he can kiss a duck. It’s what my mother
In Competition No. 2910 you were invited to submit a poem by a pet who is cheesed off with its owner. The contempt in Basil Ransome-Davies’s closing couplet, written from the perspective of a bolshie moggy, was echoed throughout the entry by a hacked-off parade of bullied, misunderstood and condescended-to pets: He wants affection, he
Michael Gove has suggested that civil servants take inspiration from George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh, Jane Austen and George Eliot, when writing correspondence. The recent invitation to compose a memo generated by either the Department of Education or the Ministry of Justice as it might have been written by a writer you would like to
In Competition No. 2909 you were invited to follow in the footsteps of Michael Gove, who has urged civil servants to take inspiration from George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh, Jane Austen and George Eliot, and submit a memo generated by either the Department of Education or the Ministry of Justice as it might have been
The latest challenge was a shameless rip-off of the annual Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest which asks for ‘the opening sentence to the worst of all novels’ (Edward Bulwer-Lytton is often described as ‘the worst writer in history’). What a joy it was to wade through the morass of florid, convoluted prose, over-elaborate metaphors and inconsequential tangents.
In Competition No. 2908 you were invited to submit a comically appalling opening to an imaginary novel. Thanks are due to the inventor of the annual Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest from whom I have pinched the idea for this challenge (Edward Bulwer–Lytton is often described as ‘the worst writer in history’). It was a pleasure to
Transport for London’s efforts to use verse to encourage Tube users to mind their manners produced poems whose rhyme and scansion would have made William McGonagall blush. So it was over to the experts: competitors were invited to imagine that poets, living or dead, had been recruited to improve on the unlovely likes of: ‘We
In Competition No. 2907 you were invited to imagine that poets, living or dead, had been recruited to compose verse discouraging antisocial behaviour on the underground. This challenge was prompted by the results of Transport for London’s real-life efforts to use poetry to prompt Tube users to mind their manners: the poems in question feature
Given the kerfuffle caused by the recent publication of Craig Raine’s ‘Gatwick’ in the London Review of Books, I thought it might be interesting to invite competitors to compose their own poem about an encounter in an airport. Raine’s poem brought the Twitter bullies out in force to broadcast their disgust at an elderly poet
In Competition No. 2906 you were invited to write a poem about an encounter in an airport. Craig Raine’s poem ‘Gatwick’ caused a right old kerfuffle when it was published recently in the London Review of Books. The Twitter bullies came out in force to broadcast their disgust at an elderly poet sharing his lustful
In Competition No. 2905 you were invited to write a sonnet whose lines begin with the letters R,O,Y,G,B,I,V,V,I,B,G,Y,O,R, in that order. Thanks to Frank McDonald for suggesting this gem of a competition. I ummed and ahed over what was a vast and accomplished entry trying to whittle it down to a winning seven. It wasn’t
To mark the beginning of Wimbledon, competitors were invited to take as their first line ‘There’s a breathless hush on the centre court’ and continue for up to 15 lines in the style of Sir Henry Newbolt’s 1897 poem ‘Vitaï Lampada’. Newbolt’s poem (which he came to resent, describing it as a ‘Frankenstein’s monster) draws
In Competition No. 2904 you were invited to take as your first line ‘There’s a breathless hush on the centre court’ and continue for up to 15 lines in the style of Sir Henry Newbolt’s poem ‘Vitaï Lampada’. There is just space to congratulate the winners and to commiserate with unlucky losers John Whitworth, who
A spoof Farrow & Ball paint-colour chart doing the rounds on social media was the inspiration for the latest challenge. Competitors were invited to see if they could outdo the rather unappealing likes of ‘economy mince’, ‘provoked wasp’, ‘magnum of Tizer’ and ‘day at Thorpe Park’ by submitting an article from an interiors magazine featuring
In Competition No. 2903 you were invited to provide an extract from an article in an interiors magazine featuring some paint-colour names of your own invention that rival the ludicrousness of the real-life likes of ‘potentially purple’, ‘salty tear’ and ‘likeable sand’. High points in a patchy entry were Adrian Fry’s ‘Dresden licht’, John O’Byrne’s
In Competition No. 2903 you were invited to supply a poem incorporating a dozen cricketing terms. English poets love cricket: Housman, Betjeman, Chesterton and Sassoon all wrote about the game. And then, of course, there is Harold Pinter, who encapsulated it so beautifully in two lines: I saw Len Hutton in his prime, Another time,
