In Competition 3352 you were invited to submit a passage about snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, or vice versa. Hitler, the Hindenburg, tiddlywinks and chess all featured, as did Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak, and it was sad not to have room for D.A. Prince’s cat having victory literally snatched from its jaws. Other mentions should go to the two Franks (McDonald and Upton), to Basil Ransome-Davies, to Kelly Scott Franklin and to Brian Murdoch for his retelling of David and Goliath in which David mainly excels at his own PR. The entries below win £25.
Arrived late for interview, unkempt, barren of optimism following earlier failures. Disdained to apologise. Panel the usual Mount Rushmore of antediluvian officials: civil servant, judge, bluestocking. Questioned on my curriculum vitae, I responded loudly if tersely, précising rather than embroidering its damning contents: succession of borstals, military career distinguished by initiative misconstrued insubordination, British Intelligence career squandered achieving ends democracy can’t sanction utilising means only psychopaths dare deploy. Even my brief sojourn as an impatiently vindictive – punctilious, my gloss – traffic warden for a local authority was raised, as were eyebrows. Unanimity of appalled silence from panel. On my feet making for door when nuclear attack warning sirens commence a mournful wailing outside. Panel Chair coughs. Brusquely concedes no time for subsequent interviews. Notes my sociopathic tendencies, almost managing to convey approval. Appoints me, with immediate effect, Governor (Southern England) with requisite draconian emergency powers. Skies outside redden, darken. I beam.
Adrian Fry
Paris proved a formidable fencing opponent. Encountering him outside the Capulet family crypt, Romeo had anticipated a quick victory. But the other youth was a strong, disciplined swordsman, and Romeo had to spend precious minutes lunging and thrusting in the dim light before his foe lay dead. Only then did he put aside his blade, enter the tomb, produce the poison he had brought with him from Mantua and turn to address his valedictory words to his dead bride. As he began to speak, Juliette startled him by opening her eyes and sitting up. ‘The Friar’s potion has done its work,’ she exclaimed happily. ‘I have passed through the profound sleep of a counterfeit death and find myself now restored to life with my beloved husband.’
‘And I am saved from the sin of self-murder,’ Romeo exclaimed, throwing his arms around her in an embrace filled with passion and promise.
Chris O’Carroll
The hare was a remarkable creature but with a tendency to boast. ‘I can top 35mph, even 50mph over a short stretch. That’s 80km per hour, or 22.2 metres per second,’ he bragged, demonstrating an astonishing command of English, for a hare, and a grasp of mathematics at least at Key Stage 2 level. The tortoise was not impressed. He could also speak, and was if anything more intelligent, in areas of problem–solving, verbal reasoning and strategy. He challenged the hare to a race. The hare accepted. ‘See ya later, slowcoach,’ he yawned, trotting down the track. With 60 metres to go, he perhaps unwisely decided to take a nap. The tortoise overtook him. ‘Slow and steady…’ he sang to himself. Of course the hare’s other superpower was his remarkable hearing. Woken by the singing, he jumped up, securing his win in 2.85 seconds. Running faster wins the race.
David Silverman
I can win this challenge with a villanelle
If I conquer careful rhythm and master rhyme
And make sure the final verse goes really well.
It’s important to project, not undersell,
And stick close to this poetic paradigm:
I can win this challenge with a villanelle
I tend to get all shy at ‘show and tell’
But I’m working hard to get it right this time
And make sure the final verse goes really well.
May I use a stupid rhyme like ‘William Tell’?
I’ll just hope the judges won’t deem it a crime
And make sure the final verse goes really well.
Almost there and this is feeling mighty swell:
I won’t blow it now, there’s hardly any time,
I can win this challenge with a very nicely
put-together poetic effort.
Joseph Houlihan
The pressure’s unbearable at this stage of the game, the wall of noise, you’re within touching distance, you can scent victory. You’ve got yourself in a good position, leaning forward at just the right angle to make contact, holding your ground. And you’re keeping an eye on the opposition, checking where they are, trying to prevent a last-minute counter attack. But then you fall foul of the off-side rule, some bloke sees an opening, comes up on your right flank, barges straight through and all you can do is watch hopelessly from the sidelines and it’s boom! Back of the net. Two pints of lager, an Aperol spritz and just to add insult to injury, a packet of dry roasted peanuts. And you have to admit to yourself, not for the first time, that you just haven’t got what it takes. You lack that one essential quality, bar presence.
Sue Pickard
I have been a jobbing comma too long. But now – now I’ve wangled a place in what is apparently a conspicuous paragraph in a James novel! It is the professional summit of a comma to occupy a space in the Master’s work, sedulously dividing phrase from phrase, like so, you see. What prestige! I had to brown-nose it a little with the punctuation police, I can tell you (and had, excuse me, to cut a dash, its impudence being appalling). I await the specifics. Perhaps a sinecure in a classic reprint of The Bostonians? Or a theatrical flourish in a labyrinthine sequence of qualifications, say, in Daisy Miller? Perhaps a new discovery, a short story, unearthed, as it were, to join the canon. News! Why, here it is! Yes – it is a title quite unknown to me. I prepare then, proudly, to join a leading sentence in Fifty Shades Darker.
Bill Greenwell
No. 3355: Blissfully ignoring
You are invited to submit a romantic poem that does its best to gloss over something unlovely (16 lines maximum). Please email entries to competition@spectator.co.uk by midday on 19 June.
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