Lucy Vickery | The Spectator columnists & writers

Spectator competition winners: Deluded politicians in the style of Lewis Carroll

In Competition No. 3275, you were invited to follow the format and formula of Lewis Carroll’s ‘The Mad Gardener’s Song’ and supply a poem entitled ‘The Deluded Politician’. The same challenge was set 15 or so years ago, and on that occasion Tony Blair hogged the limelight. This time around, you were rather more spoiled for choice. Here’s a snippet from Hugh King: He thought he saw ahead of him A glittering career, But soon his mediocrity Became entirely clear, And he, a crass celebrity, Cried ‘Get me out of here’ Entries were uniformly excellent and it was painful whittling it down to just the five below, who take £30 each. He thought he saw a bison with A teapot made of Spode; He looked again and found it was the Ministerial Code.

Spectator competition winners: Toe-curling analogies

In Competition No. 3274, you were invited to supply toe-curling analogies. Bad writing has attracted some high-brow fans. J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis revelled in the overwrought prose of the ‘uniquely dreadful’ Amanda Kittrick Ros, and used to take it in turns to read aloud from her work to see which of them could last longer without laughing. Some competitors accompanied their entries with apologetic notes, commiserating with me for having to judge this challenge, but it was a hoot. The winners earn a fiver per analogy. His hand slid up her thigh like a string of partly defrosted sausages that had been imbued with lascivious intent, inexpertly animated, but then denied any sense of decorum. They skipped together through the park, accumulating on their bare feet a mixture of dog faeces and sweet wrappers that formed a pungent metaphor of the human condition.

Spectator competition winners: a response to Kipling’s ‘If’ and other poems

In Competition No. 3273, you were invited to supply a poem addressing a well-known poem of your choice. In a keenly contested week, honourable mentions go to Robin Hill’s response to John McCrae’s 1915 rondeau ‘In Flanders Fields’ (which was rejected for publication by this magazine), Chris Ramsey and Alex Steelsmith. The winners take £20. If you can stroke your chin for hours and hours, While handing out your worldly ponderingsAs sterling wisdom, knowledge that empowersAnd truths that point you to the heart of things;If you can make a point-blank affirmationThen undercut it with a get-out clause,Or downplay thought and wild imagination,Dynamics that can open magic doors: If you can praise the taciturn and stoic,The spirit of the booted and the spurred,As vital attributes of the heroic,Yet pay your tributes to the common herd;If you can play the trimmer, that will aid you.

Spectator competition winners: Samuel Pepys on Liz Truss

In Competition No. 3272, you were invited to imagine a well-known diarist, real or fictitious, commenting on contemporary events. This month marks the 40th anniversary of the debut of adolescent diarist Adrian Mole, and several competitors imagined what he would have made of these turbulent times. Here’s Janine Beacham: ‘I have tested positive for Covid, worse luck! All that hand-washing, social distancing and mask-wearing was for nothing. This is what comes of living in a cul-de-sac.’ Hats off to Sylvia Fairley’s Bridget Jones for her ability to find a silver lining: ‘Perpetua at her most obnoxious. Excellent news, mortgage on her millionaire home cancelled, thanks to fiscal catastrophe. Bought more chocolate.

Spectator competition winners: poems about the Oxford comma

In Competition No. 3271, you were invited to submit a poem about the Oxford comma. Thérèse Coffey’s much-maligned edict about this divisive piece of punctuation seems a long time ago now, but your entries – tremendous; well done – brought it all back. Though my head was turned by Frank McDonald’s villanelle, John O’Byrne’s haiku and Janine Beacham’s double dactyl, it’s the winners below who scoop £30. A memo arrived in the Coffey break for departmental circulation: ‘Whatever else may be at stake, the priority’s good punctuation. ‘The NHS will have to wait, I fear this task has proved more pressing, I’ll set aside affairs of state, the Oxford comma needs addressing. ‘I plan to ban it – no regret, for since promotion I’ve a rod to rule with – mindful of the debt I owe my parents, Liz and God.

Spectator competition winners: short stories entitled ‘The Queue’

In Competition No. 3270, you were invited to submit a short story entitled ‘The Queue’. As well as inspiring this challenge, the queue to file past the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II during her lying-in-state in Westminster Hall spawned countless jokes and memes, obsessed crowd psychologists and became the top trending topic on Twitter. It now has its own Wikipedia entry. Commendations go to Paul D. Amer and Paul Freeman; the winners earn £25 each. Alone, Dmitri hobbled to join the queue, his arthritic bones aching and his aged eyes tearful. He could see only the shuffling throng ahead of him. The Mausoleum was still out of sight. Two, three, four hours, who knew? All Dmitri knew was that he had to pay personal homage to a great man who had led the nation in peace and war.

Spectator competition winners: children’s stories get the horror treatment

In Competition No. 3268, you were invited to recast an extract from children’s literature in the horror genre. In the forthcoming indie slasher film Winnie-the-Pooh: Bloody and Honey, the seed for this challenge, an unhinged Pooh and Piglet run amok in Hundred Acre Wood, indulging in some eye-gouging and decapitation before gorging themselves on honey. Shudder. I was pleased to see the Cat in the Hat –who has always sent shivers down my spine – pop up several times in the entry. Seuss channellers Chris O’Carroll and Brian Murdoch were unlucky losers, pipped to the post by those below who snaffle £25 each. ‘Nay matey,’ said he; ‘not marooned, but marinaded in the blood of a warthog, and hung here in rusty chains for an eternity, and nothing to eat but jerky made from the yellow sea-snake, and sea-water slime to soothe my oozing tongues.

Spectator competition winners: songs from the corporate songbooks of Google and Amazon

In Competition No. 3267, you were invited to supply a song from the songbook of one of today’s corporate giants. Songs of The IBM, published in the 1930s, inspired this challenge, and you can listen to original renditions of zingers such as the hymn-like anthem ‘Hail to The IBM’ and the more jaunty, show tune-y ‘March on With IBM’ on the IBM website and on YouTube. Singing was encouraged by the company’s founder Thomas J. Watson Sr as a motivational tool and to inspire loyalty. Here’s a snippet from the rousing IBM Rally Song ‘Ever Onward’: The name of T.J. Watson means a courage none can stem And we feel honored to be here to toast the IBM. Of course, working culture has changed somewhat since the Great Depression and your offerings were rather less reverential.

Spectator competition winners: Philip Larkin’s poems rewritten by other poets

In Competition No. 3266, you were invited to reimagine one of Philip Larkin’s poems in the style of a poet of your choice. This challenge was a nod to the centenary last month of the poet’s birth, the response to which – though the Philip Larkin Society was upbeat: ‘so much is happening!’ – seemed somewhat muted. So the enthusiastic response to this invitation was heartening. Congratulations and commiserations to unlucky losers Terry Parsons, Kit Wittering, Paul Freeman, Ann Drysdale, Atar Hadari and Joshua Kulseth. The winning entries earn their authors £30. Leading the way is Bill Greenwell’s John Betjeman, who described his friend Larkin as ‘tenderly observant’. I am a busy ambulance. I scoot through midday traffic: Behind my quiet curtains, you may think the action’s graphic, But actually, old fruit, I am as private as the clergy, And one day I’ll be round to yours, my siren sounding dirge-y.

Spectator competition winners: Ebenezer Scrooge asks for a loan

In Competition No. 3265, you were invited to submit a letter to a friend asking for a loan as it might have been written by a well-known character from the field of fact or fiction. John O’Byrne earns an honourable mention for his letter from Hamlet to Laertes. Equally impressive were Susan Firth, Mike Morrison, Ralph Bateman, J.C.H. Mounsey and John Megoran. But the cash prizes go to the winners, printed below, who pocket £25 each. When, in the course of domestic events, it becomes necessary for a man so to impose on the goodwill of his fellow creature, as to request of him pecuniary succour, assistance, and augmentation, it behoves him set out sufficient reasons for such trespass. Let these facts be submitted to a candid friend: ‘The actions of a tyrant have stopped the arteries of trade by which my prosperity is nourished.

Spectator competition winners: surreptitious sonnets

In Competition No. 3264, you were invited to submit a poem in response to the following journal entry by Wallace Stevens on 3 August 1906: ‘Engaged at the office all day on a sonnet – surreptitiously.’ For much of his life, the Pulitzer prize-winning Stevens was a vice-president at one of America’s leading insurance companies. He jotted down ideas for poems as he walked the two miles between his home and office in downtown Hartford – and evidently continued to work on them once he got there. But his efforts at surreptitiousness paid off. David Shields drew my attention to a remark by a colleague who expressed astonishment at learning of Stevens’s extracurricular activities: ‘Write poetry! Who, Wally?’ Entrants drew inspiration from Barrett Browning, Milton, Wordsworth, Keats and Larkin, among others.

Spectator competition winners: cosy crime with a topical twist

In Competition No. 3263, you were invited to submit a short story, written in the style of a cosy mystery novel, with a topical twist. Subcategories in the wildly popular ‘cosy mystery’ genre include animals, crafts and hobbies, and culinary (Toast Mortem/Butter Off Dead) – all of which elements featured in a top-notch entry. Honourable mentions go to Sylvia Fairley’s Knit-and-Natterers and to Bill Greenwell’s twist on the Wagatha Christie case. The winners, printed below, are rewarded with £25 each. The tranquil Sunday afternoon in Cumberby was disturbed only by cricketing sounds. A huge six narrowly missed Miss Patchworth, cycling to the pillar-box with a poison-pen letter before going to evensong. The ball disappeared into the shrubbery of the Wykeham Arms.

Spectator competition winners: Tory leadership acrostics

In Competition No. 3262, you were invited to submit a poem on behalf of Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss in which they set out their stall, the first letters of each line inadvertently spelling out an inappropriate word or phrase. As the Tory leadership contest limps towards its conclusion, you crafted some muscular last-minute pitches on behalf of the two hopefuls. The winners below snaffle £25 each. Look! I’m the face the country needs! You’ve seen the photos – loads! – they’re great! In every one I’m She-Who-Leads Negotiating for the State! Grand deals! Delivered round the world! My Cheddar cheese! What triumph! God! You wait! Just watch my plans unfurled! Whack Civil Service pay! How odd – And in the North! Did I say that? You shouldn’t trust the media lies.

Poems about the James Webb Space Telescope

In Competition No. 3261, you were invited to submit a poem about the James Webb Space Telescope. The first dazzling images captured by its infrared eyes were a welcome antidote to our terrestrial woes. They brought to mind the moment in the film Contact when Jodie Foster’s character comes face to face with a celestial object for the first time and says: ‘They should have sent a poet.’ So, it’s over to you. An honourable mention to Bruce Bennett; the winners below snaffle £25 each. Much have I travelled in the realms of space Past supergiants and dying galaxies, With floating rubble tossed on cosmic seas A million miles from Earth’s familiar face. A watcher of the skies, I can record The birth of dust-enshrouded stars, long dead; Imploding voids on which black holes have fed Behind celestial borders, unexplored.

Spectator competition winners: Government ministries you didn’t know existed

In Competition No. 3260, a challenge suggested by a reader, you were invited to reveal the existence of a hitherto unsuspected government department by means of a speech by its minister explaining its important policies. Among those entries with a distinct whiff of plausibility was Alan Millard’s Department for Silly Talks, which aims ‘to encourage the proliferation of senseless gobbledegook amongst politicians, professional groups and the general population so that anything anyone says becomes too unintelligible to understand’ and to thereby ‘disseminate utter confusion amongst the populace forcing them to accept parliament’s decisions by being too bewildered to challenge them’. Honourable mentions are also awarded to other worthy runners-up: Brian Murdoch, Frank McDonald, Adrian Fry, David Silverman, David Shields and D.

Spectator competition winners: A Kentish Lad

In Competition No. 3259, you were invited to submit a poem entitled ‘A(n) [insert county of your choice] Lad’. There has been quite a fanfare this year to mark the centenary of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, but rather less attention has been paid to Housman’s Last Poems, also published 100 years ago. Hence this Housman-themed challenge, which attracted a smart and thoughtful entry with some nice Housmanian echoes. George Simmers’s offering also owes a debt to Monty Python’s Four Yorkshiremen. He and his fellow winners, printed below, take £25 apiece. You reckon you knew misery In Wenlock and on Bredon, You say the world weren’t good to thee? Well, it gave thee food to feed on. And you’re sad because lads marched to wars, With boots upon their feet? Th’art lucky! We longed for clogs because Of t’broken glass in’t street.

Spectator competition winners: a postcard from Airstrip One

In Competition No. 3258, you were invited to submit a postcard sent while on holiday in a well-known fictional destination of your choice. The enforced concision of postcard--writing sometimes produces little master-pieces. Alongside the clichés and forced jollity, you find lyricism and poignant detail. It’s a shame that people rarely send them these days. So hooray for your dispatchesfrom locations that ranged from H.P. Lovecraft’s Mountains of Madness to KirrinIsland. An honourable mention goes to Susan Firth for her reflections on Ambridge (‘I’m surprised to find how many people have been involved in crimes!’); to Peter Mullen, writing from Nirvana (‘There is not even a boozer where you could crash out of consciousness and take yourself out of yourself, for there is no self to be taken out of’); and to Tracy Davidson’s account of a white-knuckle ride in Jurassic Park (‘Am perfectly safe here at the visitors’ centre while we wait for our flight to arrive… Anyway, must go now.

Spectator competition winners: filmericks

In Competition No. 3257, you were invited to summarise a film in limerick form. A nod to Ezra Haber Glenn, American academic, film reviewer and inventor of the filmerick. Here’s his take on Chloé Zhao’s 2020 Nomadland. They may think that you don’t have a plan, When they see that you poop in a can, But it’s them that did go mad, You hard-working nomad: You’ve a home on the road in your van. In a large entry, it was pleasing to see so many unfamiliar names rubbing shoulders with the vets. Honourable mentions go to Hugh Keyte, Janine Beacham, Mike Greenhough, Philip Machin, Dorothy Pope and Philip Wilson. The winners pocket £9 each. The Austrian scenes are aesthetic, Von Trapp kids are cute but emetic, There’s oodles and oodles Of schnitzels and strudels – Don’t watch it if you’re diabetic.

Spectator competition winners: famous poems rewritten as short stories

In Competition No. 3256, you were invited to take a well-known poem and recast it as a short story. Ben Hale’s ‘The Cockney Amorist’ sent me back to the delights of John Betjeman’s debut album Banana Blush (dismissed by the poet himself as ‘a vulgar pop song record’ but a favourite of John Peel). An honourable mention also goes to Nick MacKinnon, whose ‘The Rabbit Catcher’ reunited Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. The winners earn £25 each. Dear Mother, just letting you know I got engaged to a subaltern after a tennis match. You know, that dreadful sport you consider so unladylike. You’ll never catch a man, Joan, you said, by racing boyishly around a court. Never beat a man in any game, you warned me, in case he takes offence.

Spectator competition winners: poems about imperial measures

In Competition No. 3255, you were invited to submit a poem about imperial measures. Brian Bilston’s terrific poem ‘The Empire’s Old Clothes’ gave me the idea for this topical challenge, which proved hugely popular, drawing a gratifyingly large, varied and witty entry. Bob Johnston’s twist on ‘Ozymandias’ – ‘Look on my ounces, tons, slugs, and despair!’ – and Brian Murdoch’s bittersweet Villon-inflected submission – ‘And where are the measures of yesteryear?’– were in contention for the prizes, but they were nudged out by the winners below who are rewarded with £25 each. Full fathom five, the dead cat lies in peace, The fallen feline worth her weight in gold. Ten pounds of puss, down thirty feet, stone cold – Stop all the clocks and mourn her sad decease! Enough of water hast thou had, dear mog, Two hundred gallons, give or take a pint And therefore will I bid my tears restraint, While thy demise leaves voters all agog.

‘Poundland and Prejudice’: book titles tweaked for straitened times

In Competition No. 3254, you were invited to tweak a well-known book title to reflect the straitened times we live in and provide an extract. Honourable mentions, in a closely contested week, go to Mark Ambrose’s To Grill a Mockingbird, David Silverman’s The Great Gas Bill and to a trio of Alice’s Adventures in Poundlands (John O’Byrne, Celia Jordan and Richard Spencer). The prize-winners, printed below, are rewarded with £25 each. Here it was, Guesthouse du Lac, an unexpectedly wearying half-hour walk from the Lowestoft seafront. ‘Guesthouse’ struck Edith as a rather grandiose appellation; bed and breakfast, with its suggestion of the exhausted yet somehow uncomfortable slumber following a journey and dangerously fried food, might have been more apposite.

Spectator competition winners: What was Edgar Allen Poe created for?

In Competition No. 3253, you were invited to write a poem entitled ‘Song of Myself’ in the style of the poet of your choice. High fives all round for a terrific entry, and an honourable mention to Martin Parker/Ogden Nash: From spermery to wormery via germery and infirmery. Looking back, life has been mostly alas and alack. The winners pocket £30 each. live and let unlive my country – ’tis of me i sing: a poet no cap fits as i make love my everflowing spring i am, ergo (i think) i feel no need of why, no deadmen’s rules; a calculated life will fail – the truly wise are wholly fools but always, firstandlast, know this: to see through me is what i plead – don’t speak my words but leave your lips to kiss and use your eyes to see the flowers unread W.

Spectator competition winners: how not to write a letter of condolence

In Competition No. 3252, you were invited to write a letter of condolence on the mis-fortune of an acquaintance which, intentionally or not, would have the effect of lowering rather than raising the spirits. An example of how not to write a condolence letter, according to New York-based funeral director Amy Cunningham, was Nancy Mitford’s upbeat ending to a letter to her cousin, who had just lost her husband: ‘It’s nice that Decca is coming over for a long visit. Why don’t you come to Versailles with her – I would put her in a hotel and you could stay with me. Think of it.’ It doesn’t seem all that bad to me, but those looking for inspiration on how to craft the perfectly pitched expression of sympathy should, Cunningham said, turn instead to sad, sweet Emily Dickinson.

Spectator competition winners: Platinum Jubilee poems from Kipling and A.A. Milne

In Competition No. 3251, you were invited to submit a poem to mark the Queen’s platinum jubilee in the style of a poet present or past. Perhaps inspired by the lines written by William McGonagall to mark the death of his beloved Queen Victoria – Alas! our noble and generous Queen Victoria is dead,/And I hope her soul to Heaven has fled… – several competitors, including G.M. Southgate, Jerry Emery and Ewan Brown, imagined the Bard of Dundee paying tribute to Her Majesty. And top of the pops among the poets laureate was John Betjeman. In a smallish but well-made and jolly entry, Mark Bellis, Ian Barker and Janine Beacham earn honourable mentions. The winners snaffle £25 each. If you can keep your throne when others totter And join it to a democratic creed, If you can bear it that one son’s a rotter, Another keen as mustard to succeed; If you can wave and not get sick of waving, At multitudes whose names you do not know Or listen to a bonkers PM raving, While never letting your impatience show; If you can treat stale rituals as normal, The cutting of the ribbon and all that, Where every single move is tightly formal And dress and coat must always match the hat; If you can serve a role that must be gruelling, But protocol forbids you to protest, For three score years and ten of steadfast ruling Then frankly, Ma’am, I feel you need a rest.

Spectator competition winners: sonnets on Mammon

In Competition No. 3250, you were invited to submit a sonnet to Mammon. It was ‘Epigram for Wall Street’, attributed to the oft-impoverished Edgar Allan Poe, that prompted me to set this moolah-themed challenge. In a large, thoughtful and winningly varied entry, there were echoes ranging from Keats, Milton and Barrett Browning to Gordon Gekko. Katie Mallett, Janine Beacham, George Simmers, David Silverman, Bob Trewin and Ralph Bateman earn honourable mentions. The winners, printed below, pocket £20 each. Mammon, I love you. Let me count the ways, Although that’s strictly my accountant’s chore. I live delights and scorn laborious days Thanks to my wealth, while hungering for more. I build portfolios, by love possessed.

Jacob Rees-Mogg does Mills & Boon

In Competition No. 3249, you were invited to submit an extract from a Mills & Boon novel whose central character is a contemporary politician. The much-mocked pictures of a proudly hirsute, manspreading Macron, looking every inch the M&B hero, gave me the idea for this challenge. But he was nudged aside – in a truly top-notch entry – by the lotharios below. It’s £25 each to the winners. She thought about him now almost all the time. Pink moon, dry gin, the delicious drawl, the thin pinstripe. He was all of these, and more, and she knew she was being gradually sucked further into the vortex, the very elegant vortex of his being. Yes, he was old-fashioned, but love, wasn’t that old-fashioned, too? She began to breathe again, breathe properly, like inhaling and exhaling light itself.

Spectator competition winners: The last will and testament of Gollum

In Competition No. 3248, you were asked to submit the last will and testament of a fictional character. In a smallish entry, Frank McDonald’s Ancient Mariner made a splash: To make amends with my last breath I must give more than words, So my small fortune I bequeath To a charity for birds. I was amused, too, by Brian Murdoch’s Lucky Jim Dixon: ‘I desire to be cremated, and for my ashes be placed in a rolled-up copy of the Daily Mail and inserted up the bum of Professor Ned Welch, while, and this is very important, they are still hot’; Alan Millard’s Mrs Malaprop: ‘Being of round mind and not acting under duress or undue influenza, I do hereby decline this to be my last will and testicle…’; and Bill Greenwell’s Owl: ‘THIT LATH WITLWILL ANDESTY TSTSTA MENTO OF WOL (ME)…’ Mike Morrison, John O’Byrne and David Shields were also unlucky losers, narrowly outstripped by the winners, printed below, who pocket £30 each.

Spectator competition winners: If Alan Bennett had been a spy

In Competition No. 3247, you were asked to submit the reflections of a well-known writer on a career path they might have taken. Most famous writers have had day jobs – Kurt Vonnegut sold Saabs, Harper Lee worked as an airline ticket agent, and Joseph Heller was a blacksmith’s apprentice. But what about those missed vocations? Take a bow, Robert Frost, map-maker; Emily Dickinson, undertaker; Raymond Chandler, shrink. The winners earn £25. I think I could have been a model censor of obscenity Admonishing the naughty and not ever granting lenity To crudity or nudity or any kind of rudery, Far bossier than Bowdler in my monumental prudery. How drastically I’d prune the books that might disturb or vex you all By dabbling in language that’s suggestive of the sexual, For such things could disturb you and you might well find it troubling If wickedness were hinted and entendres started doubling.

Spectator competition winners: poets bemoan a problematic appendage

In Competition No. 3246, you were invited to submit a poem in the style of the poet of your choice about a problematic appendage. Taking pride of place alongside Philip Larkin’s troublesome penis were Heaney’s big toe, Shelley’s belly, and a series of noses, among them Mike Morrison/Ogden Nash: This nose/conk/beak/hooter/schnozzle Has brought me nothing but anguish and schemozzle... An honourable mention also goes to Alex Steelsmith/Edward FitzGerald: The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on – and there’s the Rub; it doesn’t quit. It probes a Naris, Concha and anon Explores a Sphincter, Orifice and Pit... The winners, below, earn £20 each.

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