Alcohol-free

In Competition No. 2428 you were asked for a piece of prose incorporating, in any order, 12 given words, using them in a non-alcoholic sense.

Despite the fact that some of you occasionally groan at this type of comp, it always pulls in a big number of punters. The combination of sidecar and bishop generated a fair amount of gas (in the American sense) and gaiters. Shrub, since you ask, is a drink of mixed alcohol and fruit juice. I did not, of course, accept it or any other given word with a capital letter used as a surname. The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each, Richard Ellis takes the extra fiver and David Jones has an honourable mention.

Bond stared out at the wooded Transylvanian landscape. It was St Agnes Eve. A bitter chill was in the air. A rum old world, espionage, Bond thought. He turned to the table, pushing forward his bishop. ‘Check!’ Blofeld frowned.

‘I call it my screwdriver,’ Bond said. He burped, the sauce rising in his gullet. Blofeld’s cooking still packed a punch …. Through the window he thought he saw — no, did see — a shrub move. Then two, then a third. His spirits sank. Blofeld was talking. ‘Have you read Macbeth, Mr Bond? A cautionary tale.’ So Blofeld had planned it. The same way he had planed the sidecar ‘accident’ as they were leaving the port.

‘Macbeth? Just moonshine.’ He bent forward and — plonk! — tipped over Blofeld’s king.