Competition

Spectator Competition: Problematic

For Competition 3406 you were invited to cast a well-known fictional or non-fictional character, living or dead, in the role of agony aunt or uncle and provide a problem of your invention and their solution. There was very little to choose between an excellent crop. Unlucky losers include Bill Greenwell, Ralph Goldswain, Peter Smalley, Frank

Spectator Competition: Who’s who?

For Competition 3405 you were invited to submit a scene in which Doctor Who has regenerated into someone very unexpected. Plenty of interesting transformations resulted, featuring among others Paddington Bear, Mary Berry and two Jacob Rees-Moggs, but the winners of the £25 vouchers are below. The Doctor, regenerating as a tall, meaty-faced man in jeans,

Spectator Competition: Wild time

For Competition 3404 you were invited to design your own Midsummer rites. There were fewer entries than usual, all of them very good. I was sorry not to have room for Mark Ambrose’s ritual involving a small white ball (‘Eighteen is the sacred number. We assemble before dawn and climb the hill to a wooded

Spectator Competition: First thoughts

Competition 3403 invited you to provide an extract from a prequel to a well-known work of prose or poetry. It was a stellar haul this week, with prose and poetry represented equally. I was sorry not to have space for Ralph Goldswain’s ‘Eleventh Night’, Brian Murdoch’s The Lion, the Witch and the Trip to Ikea,

Spectator Competition: Quirk related

In Comp. 3402 you were invited to submit a poem or passage about an unusual predilection. The quirks ranged from wildly fantastical to having the ring of truth. Mike Morrison, Paddy Mullin, David Shields, Elizabeth Kay, Adrian Fry and Nick Syrett were close contenders, but the vouchers go to those below. In supermarket checkout queues,

Spectator Competition: Marvelling

For Comp. 3401 you were invited to submit a poem that included the line ‘My vegetable love should grow’ from Marvell’s ‘To His Coy Mistress’. There were lots of entries, some of them quite fruity (sorry). There are too many worthy runners-up to name names, but the£25 vouchers go to the winners below. My vegetable,

Spectator Competition: Tubular belles 

Competition 3400 invited you to write poems to mark YouTube’s 20th birthday. This challenge drew a large, accomplished entry which was both amusing and informative. Alex Steelsmith’s double dactylic submission was a strong contender for a place in the winning line-up, as were Bill Greenwell, Mike Morrison, Frank McDonald, David Silverman, Elizabeth Kay and Janine

Spectator Competition: That’s your cue

Competition 3399 called for a traditional bedtime story updated for the 21st century.We’re tight on space, so I’ll pause just to give a special mention to Ross Haggart before awarding the £25 vouchers to those below. ‘The sky is falling!’ cried Chicken-Licken. Ducky-Lucky, thinking this might be fake news, waddled off to do some fact-checking.

Spectator Competition: That’s your cue

Competition 3398 invited you to submit a poem about snooker as the world champion-ship was under way. The entries poured in! There were many excellent poems in both camps (snooker being either the best or the most boring thing ever). Among others, Anna Cox, D.A. Prince, Nick Syrett, Kavanagh Millard, Ralph Goldswain and Helen Baty

Spectator Competition: In out, in out

For Competition 3397 you were invited to recast the ‘Hokey-Cokey’ in the style of a poet of your choice. An appreciative nod to Tracy Davidson’s William McGonagall: ‘And the whole body should feel the vibration/ As your waggling appendage commits oscillation.’ High fives also go to David Blakey, Max Gutmann, J.S. White, Peter Smalley, Tom

Spectator Competition: Beautiful word

Comp. 3396 invited you to write a poem that endeavoured to romanticise tariffs. There was a fine haul, though a few had to be disallowed for straying from the brief. Praise to George Simmers, Frank McDonald, Janine Beacham, Sylvia Fairley, Tom Adam, Sue Pickard and Elizabeth Kay, among others, and a special mention to Tracy

Spectator Competition: Comrades

Comp. 3395 yielded many fine entries in which Animal Farm became a satire on office politics. Deserving of a mention: David Silverman for his White House version featuring a ‘prize wild boar, one E. Long-Tusk’ and ‘two American XL Bullies, Don and Shady’; and Sue Pickard’s scenario in which two workers, Pinko and Porky, ‘inspired

Spectator Competition: Vernal triolet

For Competition 3394 you were invited to submit a vernal triolet. In 1894, the poet Banjo Paterson wrote a heartfelt triolet in dispraise of the triolet and Brian Allgar did the same this week: I really hate the triolet, And, Spring or not, I find them hell. ‘Oh, tra-la-la, it’s cold and wet.’ I really

Spectator Competition: Wrong time

Competition 3393 went in search of – and found – basic laughs by inviting you to submit a passage of historical fiction sprinkled with anachronistic detail. I was thinking along the lines of the grey squirrel in Sharon Kay Penman’s The Sunne in Splendour (set during the War of the Roses), but it was generally

Spectator Competition: Out of the tomb

Comp. 3392 invited you to write ‘The Curse of King Thut’ (in poetry or prose) in response to the discovery of the tomb of the pharaoh Thutmose II, the first such since Tutankhamun’s. There were many imaginative curses, from the archaeologist Artemis Spendlove Jr’s tinnitus (Mark Ambrose) to the contents of the tomb turning out

Spectator Competition: Ode-worthy

For Competition 3391 you were invited to submit one of Keats’s odes rewritten as a sonnet or a limerick. Four out of the five odes composed by Keats in the spring of 1819 feature in the winning line-up, as does ‘To Autumn’, written in September of that year. Once again there were many more winners

Spectator Competition: Contrarian song

For Competition 3390 you were invited to come up with your own version of the Groucho Marx song ‘I’m Against It’, from the film Horse Feathers: Your proposition may be good But let’s have one thing understood: Whatever it is, I’m against it. Hats off to David Silverman, who got into specifics: (‘Conniving, skiving; Mo

Spectator Competition: Surreal estate

Comp. 3389 invited you to submit an estate agent’s blurb advertising a property development on Mars. There were many excellent entries, not all of them enticing. Sean Smith’s seemed potentially the most realistic, offering for £4.5 billion a 12 sq m dwelling with private sleeping quarters: ‘private on a rotational basis with other residents’. Nicholas Lee advertised

Spectator Competition: Stockpiling

For Competition 3388 you were invited to submit a poem written from the point of view of a prepper. While the topic of this challenge was a bit of a downer, the standard of your poems – inventive, sad and funny – was cheering. I was sorry not to be able to fit in Chris

Spectator Competition: Big bash

In Comp. 3387, for the centenary of the publication of The Great Gatsby and Mrs Dalloway, you were invited to submit a passage in which one goes to the other’s party. It was especially hard to whittle this one down. Deserving a mention: Mrs D.’s West Egg dream by Brian Murdoch (‘“Sod the temporal perspective