In Competition 2835 you were invited to submit a profile for an online dating website for a well-known politician, living or dead. Unlucky loser John Samson’s Oliver Cromwell might, I suppose, appeal to those who like the masterful type: ‘That ye should seek matrimonial harmony by reading such vainglorious publications doth render thee unworthy of
Spectator literary competition No. 2837 This week let’s have a poem about the horrors of a reunion dinner. Please email entries of up to 16 lines to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 26 February. The recent invitation to give a classic of children’s literature the hard-boiled treatment produced a flood of entries that were a joy
In Competition 2834 you were invited to submit an extract from a classic of children’s literature rewritten in the style of hard-boiled crime fiction. My word, you were good this week. The entries came flooding in and were a joy to judge. Much-loved children’s classics, filtered through the prism of gritty 1930s urban America, were
Spectator literary competition No. 2836 This week you are invited to come up with suitable collective nouns for the following: tweeters; hackers; hoodies; WAGs; environmentalists; bankers; MPs; contrarians. Entries to be emailed, please, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 19 February. The recent call for extracts from the adolescent diary of a well-known public figure, living
In Competition 2833 you were invited to submit an extract from the adolescent diary of a well-known public figure, living or dead. There wasn’t much between you this week and it was tough boiling the entry down to just six. Those who narrowly lost out include Pervez Rizvi, P.C. Parrish, Mark Shelton and John Whitworth,
Valentine’s Day is looming and love is in the air. So our competition this week is a profile for an online dating website for a well-known politician, living or dead. Please leave entries (of up to 150 words) in the comments, below, or email to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 12 February. Last week, you were
In Competition 2832 you were invited to compose an address to an item of food. The assignment was inspired by Burns’s ‘Address to a Haggis’, but you were not obliged to write in his style. Albert Black went for a Kipling-Burns mash-up and other competitors drew on Shelley and Shakespeare. The winners take £25 each
Spectator literary competition No. 2834 This week it’s Enid Blyton meets Dashiell Hammett. You are invited to submit an extract from a classic of children literature of your choice rewritten in the style of hard-boiled crime fiction. Entries of up to 150 words should be emailed to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 5 February. The most
In Competition 2832 you were invited to compose what might be a quintessential opening paragraph from the pen of either Graham Greene, Frank Kafka, Jane Austen or Tolkien. It was a tall order to channel such literary genius, but on the whole you did it pretty well. Greene, with his immediately distinctive voice, was by
Spectator literary competition No. 2833 This week’s task is a fashionably confessional one. We live in an age of emotional incontinence, where spilling the beans to as many people as possible seems to be all the rage, so let’s have an extract from the teenage diary of a well-known public figure, living or dead. Please
In Competition 2830 you were invited to choose, from different authors, two characters who have the same job or position and give an excerpt of not more than 150 words from their conversation on meeting. The assignment brought forth an entertaining cast of literary pairings, with gentlemen’s gentlemen, sleuths, teachers and doctors featuring most strongly,
Spectator literary competition No. 2832 This week’s assignment is a nod to Robert Burns and his magnificent ‘Address to the Haggis’, which begins: Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain o’ the pudding-race! Aboon them a’ yet tak your place, Painch, tripe, or thairm: Weel are ye wordy o’a grace As lang’s my arm.
In Competition 2829 you were invited to imagine what Philip Larkin might have made of the news that Hull has been anointed 2017’s City of Culture. Despite its unpromising image, this city-of-culture-in-waiting has nurtured a wide range of creative talents: from poets such as Andrew Marvell and Stevie Smith, to the actor Tom Courtenay, the film
In Competition 2828 you were invited to submit a retrospective verse commentary on 2013. Reasons to be cheerful are, apparently, somewhat thin on the ground. Alanna Blake’s opening couplet captures the general mood of the entry: The year is past, it’s maybe best To let the poor thing lie at rest. The arrival of a
Spectator literary competition No. 2830 This week you are invited to choose, from different authors, two characters who have the same job or position (e.g., Shakespeare’s Quince and Lewis Carroll’s Carpenter, Mr Collins and Mr Slope, Holmes and Philip Marlowe) and give an excerpt of not more than 150 words from their conversation on meeting.
In Competition 2827 you were invited to submit a Christmas list, in verse, in the style of the poet of your choice. This challenge called on you not only to pull off a convincing pastiche of a particular poet but also to come up with a plausible Christmas wish list for them. There
If, like me, you are allergic to pantomime (‘Oh, no you’re not!’; ‘Oh, yes I am!’) then help is at hand: the Gruffalo is in town and strutting his stuff, to the delight of legions of tiny fans, at the Lyric, Shaftesbury Avenue until 12 January. Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s much-loved verse fable tells
Spectator literary competition No. 2829 Peter Porter called Hull ‘the most poetic city in England’ but would Philip Larkin have agreed? What would he have made of his adopted home city being named 2017’s City of Culture? Answers, please, in verse of up to 16 lines, to be emailed to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 1
In Competition 2826 you were invited to submit nonsense verse on a wintry theme. The line between sense and nonsense is a blurred one; certainly Carroll’s crazy world has a bonkers internal logic all of its own. But perhaps the best way into nonsense is to put the quest for sense aside for once and
Spectator literary competition No. 2828 As the New Year hurtles towards us, it’s time for a retrospective commentary, in verse, on 2013. Please email entries of up to 16 lines to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 9 December (the shorter deadline is because of our seasonal production schedule). The recent competition to supply a poem for
