In Competition No. 2407 you were invited to incorporate 12 words into a plausible piece of prose, using them not in an animal, vegetable or mineral sense.
Inadvertently, I made this competition more difficult than the genre usually is by giving you fewer choices of alternative meanings to play with. Consequently I have been lenient in my interpretation of the rules: I allowed capitals (Swede or Sergeant Pepper) and metaphorical uses (copper-bottomed). Two competitors used ‘brass’ in the sense of ‘prostitute’, which is a new one on me. Commendations to Margaret Joy and A. Roberts. The prizewinners, printed below (a stellar group), get £25 each, except for E.J. Davidson, a newcomer, I think, who scoops £30.
‘I seen that blonde in Heat magazine — a Swede she was — and I thought, “Trace, that’s the look for you, gal. Get rid of the salt-and-pepper bouffant, ditch the copper highlights, bleach the hairs in your mole, start to lead a more glamorous life.”’
‘That’s that Ulrika Wossname. She’s got some brass, that cow. Look what she done to Sven.’
‘Well, at least she didn’t let him squash her, like Kev and Lee squash us. We got to buck up our ideas, gal. Spend our lives looking after them two, cook for them, wash and iron, and all they want to do is monkey around down the Feathers, playing snooker and flirting with the barmaids. We scrimp and save and come Thursday we ain’t got a bean between us.’
‘You’re right, Trace. Anyway, I’d better go. Got to get Kev’s tea. He likes alphabetti spaghetti of a Tuesday.’
E.J. Davidson
The mole in the Met told me that ‘Tony’s copper’, Sir Ian Blair, couldn’t give a toss for the bad publicity. The lead from the top brass had been to pepper the Brazilian in the swede. That’s Met procedure. The mood in London was such that it wouldn’t be difficult to squash any criticism. The Met could cow the media into understanding its view. It might have to iron out one or two problems with ethnic minorities. Apparently, the family in Brazil didn’t have a bean, so they could be sorted — a monkey or two should do it. Anyway, Blair would pass the buck down the line to the fool in charge of the firearms unit if it all turned nasty.
M.J. Wake-Walker
‘No sensible Swede wants Jerry camped on his doorstep and the Swedish ambassador in Berlin is a very sensible Swede indeed. He’s been a mole for Allied Intelligence since ’38. Last month he tipped off our top brass that Goebbels is planning some monkey business up in Norway. His strategy is to subdue the resistance with propaganda, pepper them with negative images and defeatist disinformation and squash any opposition before they get their momentum going. Now Johnny Norwegian is a tough little customer. Difficult to cow his fighting spirit. He looks up to us like a big brother, or perhaps the local copper who’ll iron out any problems when there are scoundrels on the loose. Anyway, Winston wants the Marine Commando to buck him up a bit, and you Hawkins, old bean, are just the man to lead the mission.
David Jones
Bond came to. He felt a body lying across his leg. It was Randall, the former copper, and he was dead. Another of the Service’s top brass murdered.
The shed door opened. ‘My apologies for the squash. And now, Mr Bond, old bean, you play for your own life. The buck stops here.’
‘You can’t cow me, Vladic. But a round of golf would be delightful. Especially with a caddy like that.’ He smiled at Britt and the blonde Swede smiled back.
Vladic, using his favourite driver and five iron, seemed constantly to pepper the rough, but Britt always managed to find his ball in a convenient position. Monkey business from SPECTRE was to be expected.
Vladic built up a lead and Bond was now putting to save the game. Just as he swung his putter —
‘Moneypenny’s a mole, you know.’
The ball shot past the hole.
Nicholas Hodgson
‘Buck up, son, forget exam results, go and earn a few bob.’ So here he was at dawn in Shoreditch market, his employer’s iron grip on his shoulder to lead him around the stall. ‘Secret’s in the chat, and these …’ he whispered confidingly, pointing to a sea of superlatives on cards among the produce. ‘Pepper ’em wiv words and they miss the prices, see?’
He tugged at the proprietor’s sign above his head. ‘Gotta be so careful nowadays; local copper’s no problem but the cow from the council done me ’cos this almost brained a punter when it fell on his swede. Cost me a monkey. Yer can’t miss ’er, clipboard and a mole. Also, don’t tip apples, place ’em, or you’ll squash ’em. And watch the old girls — proper brass necks mostly, demandin’ discount like they ain’t got a bean! Also…’.
It was going to be a long day.
Robert Kingston
When Dotcom-mania first hit town, nobody could get enough of the action. As a teenager with IT smarts you could create a website, pepper it with keywords for maximum optimisation and get the investment mags to lead on how you would be a global cash-cow in three weeks. You could sell squash rackets online to a jock in Tasmania, monkey wrenches to a mechanic in the Serengeti and snowchains to a Swede in the Arctic Circle. You could download a cookie and have your own electronic mole reporting vital info about the user. Do that a million times and turn a stock that wasn’t worth a bean last Wednesday into tomorrow’s must-have security. With enough brass, enough chutzpah, you could make any Google-eyed investor with a buck to spare go yahoo. As racing certainties went, this was stone-cold, surefire, iron-clad, copper-bottomed. Or so everybody thought….
Michaela Rees
No. 2410: The Honest Truth
You are invited to write a story (maximum 150 words) with the above title, beginning, ‘The clock on the street corner said six but it was really five’ and ending, ‘And I’ll want payment for it in cash.’ Entries to ‘Competition No. 2410’ by 15 September.
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