Competition No. 2521: Tall tale
You are invited to submit an anecdote by a dinner-party bore that culminates in the dubious claim: ‘And that is how I came to eat a cucumber sandwich with the King of Norway’. (150 words maximum.) Entries to ‘Competition 2521’ by 15 November or email lucy@spectator.co.uk.
In Competition 2518 you were invited to provide an extract from the adolescent diary of a famous historical figure. Teenagers today publish their diaries online as blogs. How they can bring themselves to do this is beyond me — my own adolescent outpourings, a predictably toecurling blend of tormented introspection and pretentious pseudo-philosophy punctuated by quotations from Nietzsche and Leonard Cohen — were kept firmly under lock and key.
Simon Machin gives a tantalising glimpse into the world of a pubescent Napoleon: ‘Puffed Caporals behind the stables with Soult. “I’ll be a Marshall one day,” he said. Yeah! Like I’ll be Emperor, doh! …’ while Brian Murdoch’s hormonally charged 15-year-old Queen Victoria frets about the size of her bum as much as about the prospect of becoming queen. It is nice to see some unfamiliar names in the winners’ enclosure this week. Those printed below get £25 each, while teacher’s pet W.J. Webster bags the bonus fiver for the second week running.
Up betimes and mighty troubled at finding fresh eruptions on my cheeks, notwithstanding the pothecary’s poultice of bat dung and monkshood. For breakfast eat two fat herring, but with no appetite, being full of discontent at my complexion. Later, I came upon pretty Martha stooping to the grate and did touch her netherly; a little afeared, I confess, lest she raise a wail. Yet she but turned me a glance and murmured ‘O Master Samuel’. I have a mind to hazer plus con ella anon. After dinner, to the back-room at the Cocke with Thomas, Digby and Daniel to rehearse our consort of viols. But Daniel did vex me exceedingly, saying my Te amat illa, yez, yez, yez is a commonplace thing; which brought us both to very high words, I calling him at last a crackwit onanist; so he flung out in a pet. Home to supper.
W.J. Webster (Samuel Pepys)
1856, June 29: Confusing month! Spent sixteenth birthday pondering, under the greenwood tree (good title for a novel?). Decided to grow a moustache. Dorchester ‘Celebrations’ on the 20th — Chinese lanterns, flags, battle re-enactments etc., but no sighting of red-haired Lizbie, lovely Louisa or ‘lady on horseback’. (She would have noticed my moustache!) After that the 21st, the longest day of the year — especially in Bockhampton, fondling my upper lip and feeling nothing but fluff! There must be some lotion, somewhere, to speed up moustaches. And today — a stroll along Dorchester’s South Walk wearing my new broad-collared shirt and artistic cravat in the hope of espying ‘lady on horseback’ but no luck! Still, no harm done — hoping it might be so (possible last line for a poem?). Must try writing, someday, when my full-grown moustache attracts, if not three, at least two willing women!
Alan Millard (Thomas Hardy)
Monday: Some chaps have taken the area in the Common Room normally used by my fag for their own use. I know better than to poke my nose into other people’s business, although strictly speaking as Head of the CR it is my duty area.
Tuesday: Am going to have a bit of a chat with Trumpinton-Withers major, on his suggestion, about the position of Smith minor’s bed in the dorm. He (T-W Ma) demands that it move a yard nearer the door, as he (T-W Ma) has to have room for himself and his chaps to gather there and eat tuck.
Wednesday: T-W Ma has given me a chit to give to Matron telling her that he has moved Smith minor’s bed out of the dorm altogether. This is probably the best outcome.
Josh Ekroy (Neville Chamberlain)
Monday: These dreams I have — cra-zee! Jumbo sausages, lighthouses, mossy caves, marrows, waves pounding on a beach. Things you never see in Vienna. Except the sausages, of course. Such nonsense! I suppose it’s all part of growing up.
Tuesday: Top marks in the school test as usual. Mother hugged me and gave me a big kiss. Father said sehr gut, but coldly. Does he feel threatened by my genius? I would love to know what makes people tick. It’s almost as if they are covering up.
Wednesday: Mutti called me ‘Jakob’ today. Of course that’s Papa’s name and he said ‘What a foolish slip, Amelie.’ But I liked it.
Thursday: What a mad, fantastic dream! I was cooking sausages and Mutti asked me for one and called me ‘Jakob’ again! Papa got quite angry, and after that I can’t remember. Dreams are so silly.
Basil Ransome-Davies (Sigmund Freud)
Monday: Walked home in snow. Asked Papa if we can have a puppy. Mama brought new dresses for Sophie and Henriette. Nothing for me. I hate girls. Read Plato. Boring.
Tuesday: Asked Papa what proletariat meant. Didn’t know. Cut stick from hedge with knife. Gardener angry. Papa sacked him. Read Aristotle. Boring. Herman sick after supper.
Wednesday: Nanny went away. Papa said she was avaricious. Mama said Papa was exploiting the working class again. Papa swore. Read Bacon. Boring.
Thursday: Old man next door dead. Saw coffin. Read Descartes. Boring. I want a book with things happening in it. I hate History and girls.
Friday: We are going to have a puppy! I can look after it. Will call it ‘Manifesto’. Read Shakespeare. Boring. Manifesto will be here tomorrow. Am going to breed dogs when I grow up.
William Danes-Volkov (Karl Marx)
Monday: Bored! Again! What this country needs is a public holiday, a festival, a something for young people to do to lighten up the gloom between All Hallows Eve and Christmas.
Tuesday: Dad, king of the gloom-deepeners, wants me to go to university to study something called chemistry. It’s the new alchemy, he says. No more seeking the philosopher’s stone, the elixir of life or sensible things like that. It’s all practical. ‘Like what?’ I ask. That usually throws him. Not today. ‘Like finding a way to demolish buildings without using pick-axes, hammers, crowbars,’ he says. He’s obviously bedlam-bound.
Wednesday: To placate Dad have agreed to go to university to read alchemy lite — or chemistry as they call it — politics and theology. No better curriculum leading to total obscurity could be devised.
Thursday: Big row about having a gap year in the Low Countries as soldier of fortune.
J. Seery (Guy Fawkes)
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