Competition | 23 January 2010

In Competition No. 2630 you were invited to imagine that a literary giant of the pre-television age is guest TV critic on The Spectator, and submit an extract from his or her review.

As Emma Woodhouse says, ‘One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.’ So what would the literary greats of the past have thought of 21st-century viewing habits; what, I wonder, would Miss Austen herself have made of a dripping Colin Firth emerging from the lake at Pemberley in a telly adaptation of Pride and Prejudice?
In a small but impressive entry, the poets were in fine voice. Here’s a snippet from Frank McDonald as Chaucer describing the debut of SuBo: ‘One juriste yclept Simon, smoothe lyke oil,/ asked “What’s yer name?” and she said “Susan Boyle.”’ And a cutting couplet as Pope might have written it, courtesy of G.M. Davis: ‘Here freaks abound, a bottom feeding shoal/ Of phantom selves, devoid of sense or soul.’ But this week’s star of the show is Noel Petty, who pockets £30. His fellow winners get £25 each.

Your editor having assured me that ignorance is no barrier to criticism, I ventured at hazard and came upon a kind of collective viva voce wherein students at the university underwent an examination at the hands of an inquisitor. The examiners perhaps wisely eschewed questions on Greek and Latin, allowing the students to manifest impressive knowledge of physical disportments and prodigious abilities in the identification of low music. Neither of these faculties would appear to furnish them with the requisite resources either to administer physic or preach a sermon on the Trinity. The inquisitor’s chief concern was to discompose the students, berate their deficiencies, and demonstrate his superior learning. Nonetheless, I found it impossible to witness this seductive spectacle without crying out such answers as fell within my cognizance, the only witness to my vanity being Boswell, who did little other than scribble in his little book the while.