Decalogue

In Competition 2515 you were invited to supply Ten Commandments for a belief system, real or invented, of your choice.
As traditional authority figures and sources of identity crumble round our ears, people (who, when it comes down to it, quite like to be told what to do) are casting around for new rule books. Take, for example, Pastafarianism, or the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which was drawn to my attention by Brian Murdoch. Founded in the US by physics graduate Bobby Henderson in protest at the teaching of Intelligent Design in schools (religion masquerading as science, as Henderson saw it), it has eight ‘I’d really rather you didn’ts’, known as the Loose Canon. Or maybe one of this week’s winning entries ‘speaks to you’. Their authors get £25 each, and the bonus fiver goes to G.M. Davis.

Middle England
1. Thou shalt worship the Market and read the Daily Mail, which is the Revealed Truth thereof.
2. Thou shalt live if possible in the Home Counties, Cheshire or Spain.
3. Thou shalt favour the restoration of capital punishment and national service.
4. Thou shalt resist taxation while demanding quality state schools, prompt medical attention when needed, good local services and a policeman on every corner.
5. Thou shalt speak no language but English, especially if living abroad.
6. Thou shalt ignore the oppressive, state-regulated Highway Code.
7. Thou shalt not cheat unduly at golf or bridge.
8. Thou shalt not commit adultery unless able to stand the financial consequences of getting found out.
9. Thou shalt read, learn and inwardly digest ‘I am not a racist, but …’
10. Thou shalt faithfully spread the wisdom of thy creed with such vital precepts as ‘You can’t change human nature’ and ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.’
G.M. Davis

Shopping
1. You shall have no other gods but the High Street.
2. If you can get away with a low-budget lookalike, that’s fine; just remember, it’s not the real thing …
3. …and Prada can never be copied.
4. All days are for shopping, but Sunday is the High Day.
5. Don’t laugh at your mother’s old clothes — retro can be cool, with the right accessories.
6. Do not kill for any fashion items — even those labelled to-die-for (dry-cleaning blood stains is expensive).
7. Adultery requires a whole new wardrobe.
8. Do not shoplift — court appearances waste precious shopping time.
9. Take no thought for tomorrow, but max out on your credit/store cards today.
10. Don’t spend your shopping time on coveting — if it’s a must-have, what are you waiting for?
D.A. Prince

Post-modernism
1. If that’s all right with you.
2. You must not assume that these Commandments form a hierarchy imposed by a control-centred, masculinist, European, middle-class worldview.
3. If you are a white, middle-class male and were expecting these Commandments to be listed in order of importance, your view may be equally valid.
4. But it probably won’t be, as far as we can tell.
5. In deconstructing the ontology of Clause 4, your guess is as good as ours.
6. And anybody else’s guess is as good as yours.
7. Provided we can agree on the meaning of ‘guess’.
8. No self-respecting Post-modernists will agree on the meaning of ‘guess’.
9. In disagreeing about the meaning of ‘guess’, the editor’s trope is conclusive.
10. You must not presume that Post-modernism will indemnify you against reality checks such as traffic accidents, since vehicles (and laundry trucks especially) are harder to deconstruct than language. 
Simon Machin

On-line generation
1. Thou shalt have no other God but Microsoft.
2. Thou shalt not bow before the false idol that is Apple.
3. Thou shalt not take the name of Microsoft in vain until a reasonable royalty fee has been agreed.
4. Thou shalt observe the Sabbath, and on that day log in earlier.
5. Thou shalt honour thy father and mother, who are paying for the broadband connection.
6. Thou shalt not commit murder by turning off the PC without backing up first.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery. (Not that anyone would want to with you, anyway.)
8. Thou shalt not steal software by downloading it.
9. Thou shalt not carry ‘False witness’ or any other rubbish social-realism game on your laptop.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s ergonomic keyboard, or his scanner, or his 36-inch flat-screen gel monitor. You can covet his wife though; he won’t notice and she will be glad of the attention.
William Danes-Volkov

Mingcampbism
1. I am In Charge, if that is all right with you.
2. Do not speak very fast.
3. You are not obliged to wear suits, but There Again.
4. Remember: roughly 76.7 per cent of opinion polls are wrong.
5. Honour your grandmother, and don’t teach her to suck eggs.
6. A shirt and collar need not necessarily be the same colour.
7. There are two ways of pronouncing everything: Accept It.
8. No, no, no; as in the jazz bassist.
8. Do not forget the Olympic Games.
9. Think before you count your chickens if you want to get to No. 10, wait a moment, I beg your pardon.
Bill Greenwell

Mind your language
1. Thou shalt have no other sources but the OED.
2. Thou shalt not make printed images of any version of Holy Writ save that which is the Authorised Version, insomuch as modern translations clarify not, but have a vile sound withal.
3. Thou shalt not take the name of anything in vain, but shalt get it right.
4. Remember the subjunctive, to keep it wholly.
5. Honour thy mother tongue, that Shakespeare turn not in his grave.
6. Thou shalt not text, which killeth the language.
7. Thou shalt not steal words from foreign tongues, for who now remembereth what perestroika meaneth?
8. Thou shalt not adulterate the language with neologisms which confound the Greek with the Latin, even unto the word television.
9. Thou shalt not bear false syntax: let thy verbs be verbs and thy nouns be nouns.
10. Thou shalt not abandon words like covet, that thy vocabulary be not as that of a retarded gibbon.
Brian Murdoch
Competition No. 2518: Growing pains
You are invited to provide an extract from the adolescent diary of a famous historical figure (maximum 150 words). Entries to ‘Competition 2518’ by 25 October or email lucy@spectator.co.uk.