In Competition No. 2608 you were invited to submit a poem in praise of adjectives. While the inspiration for last week’s challenge was a verb-hating French doctor of letters, this time around you can blame Ezra Pound. In The Spirit of Romance he states, ‘The true poet is most easily distinguished from the false, when
In Competition No. 2607 you were invited to submit a piece of verbless prose (present participles used as adjectives or nouns were permissible). ‘Invaders, dictators, usurpers of our literature,’ boomed the French writer Michel Thaler in the preface to his verb-free novel Le train de nulle part, published in 2004. His hatred of the doing
In Competition No. 2606 you were invited to imagine Gordon Brown taking some tips on style from a writer of your choice and submit an extract from the resulting speech. I thought more competitors might have steered the Prime Minister in the direction of Milton or Dryden, given their spin-doctoring credentials. As it was, Shakespeare
In Competition No. 2605 you were invited to compose an anthem for a county of your choice. Some competitors played it straight but many chose to subvert the anthem’s traditional fawning tone. Northants, in particular, got it in the neck, with Greg Whitehead (who lives there) and John Brown (who doesn’t) struggling to find a
In Competition No. 2604 you were invited to submit a passage from a novel that is the product of a collaboration between two unlikely bedfellows. Hot on the heels of eminent literary partnerships past — Somerville and Ross, George and Weedon Grossmith — come such unlikely yet intriguing alliances as Eric Carle and Marcel Proust,
In Competition No. 2603 you were invited to submit a newspaper article on a subject of your choice currently in the news containing as many excruciating puns as possible. I’ve never been a big fan of puns but something of a pundemic broke out in a discussion thread on the web about swine flu —
In Competition No. 2602 you were invited to submit a poem in praise of urban living. The countryside’s praises have been well sung by poets; cities’ less so, although Wordsworth had his head turned by the early-morning view from Westminster Bridge. There are seven winners this week so I’ll pause only to offer warm commendations
In Competition No. 2601 you were invited to submit snippets of misleading advice for tourists visiting Britain. You were at your cruel and mischievous best this week; the entry was a magnificent compendium of misinformation. There were a lot of like minds out there. J. Seery’s ‘In public toilets it is considered rude not to
Lucy Vickery presents the latest competition In Competition No. 2600 you were invited to submit a poem containing the first or last line ‘Whenever you see a rhinoceros’. Inspiration for this comp came from Philip.mortimer (who signed himself with an email address only), who sent me a copy of a letter from Richard Jebb to
In Competition No. 2599 you were invited to step into the shoes of a well-known writer, past or present, and give their account, in verse or prose, of a career path they might have taken. The assignment was inspired by the Observer’s ‘My other life’ column, in which writers reveal their fantasy job. Jan Morris,
In Competition No. 2598 you were invited to provide pithy definitions of Hell. Thanks to Michael Cregan, who proposed this competition and reminded me of Kim Howells MP’s unpopular pronouncement that his idea of Hell was three Somerset folk singers. The folk tradition didn’t crop up in the entry, but you are clearly not fans
In Competition No. 2597 you were invited to submit a report written by a social worker on a character from Shakespeare. Congratulations all round: you were on top form. All the biggies — Hamlet, Lear, the Macbeths, Richard III — were subjected to the beady if sometimes myopic eye of social services. There were some
In Competition No. 2595 you were invited to submit a poem incorporating the titles of at least six Alfred Hitchcock films. On one of my aimless ambles along the information highways and byways, I stumbled upon a quote by Fellini describing The Birds as a ‘filmic poem’, which got me thinking about a Hitchcock-related comp.
In Competition No. 2594 you were invited to submit a short story beginning ‘It was the wrong number that started it…’ and ending ‘P.S. Sorry I forgot to give you the mayonnaise.’ In case you were wondering, the first line is the opening of City of Glass by Paul Auster and the final one is
In Competition No. 2593 you were invited to submit a Dear John letter in the style of a poet or author of your choice. These days, dispatching a loved one generally involves texting ‘u r dumped’ or ‘i h8 u’ and pressing send. This comp was prompted by a longing for a return to the
In the dog’s dinner that was Competition No. 2592 you were invited to submit a poem entitled ‘The Name’ in which each line either was an anagram of the name of a well-known poet or contained an anagram of the same. There are two winners in the first category; three in the second. The first
In Competition No. 2591 you were invited to submit an extract from either a gripping thriller or a bodice-ripping romance containing half a dozen pieces of inconsequential information. Your entries not only made me laugh out loud but also armed me with a mine of useless information with which to bring conversations to a grinding
In Competition No. 2590 you were invited to submit a poem in praise of a form of asceticism. But first, a revision to the brief for last week’s competition no. 2592. I meant to ask for a poem in which each line contains an anagram of the name of a well-known poet. It would be
In Competition No. 2589 you were invited to submit an extract from the school essay of a well-known figure past or present, aged eight, entitled ‘What I Did On My Holidays’. It was a large and vivid entry, and competition was hot for a place in the winners’ enclosure. Those narrowly pipped to the post
In Competition No. 2588 you were invited to submit spiced-up children’s stories or poems. In the interests of good taste, I steered you in the direction of sauciness rather than smut, but perhaps I needn’t have bothered. According to a book by the amateur historian Chris Roberts, sexual wickedness and political subversion lurk behind the