j 11%11141111010 WNW U RA I IL lall xo.rwmt

COMPETITION

Alphabetical dozen

Jaspistos

IN COMPETITION NO. 1940 you were invited to incorporate a dozen given words, in any order, into a plausible piece of prose.

This was a really tough one, but once again the best of you hurdled the distance without seeming to check your stride. I am making room for six prizewinners, printed below, who take f20 each. Nicholas Hodg- son gets a special mention for his speed off the starting block: 'At first it was the incomprehensible and indigestible 'Waste Land'. Then it was the fustian and long- winded plays. Now it is fashionable to lam- bast Eliot as an anti-Semitic goy. . . . '

The bonus bottle of Isle of Jura Single Malt Scotch whisky goes to Philip Stapleton, who sent me to the dictionary to discover that one of the meanings of 'fus- tian' is a liquor made of white wine, lemon, spices and, conveniently, yolk of egg.

'Piles! What does a goy know of suffering? Try this: "To ease the &mical discomfort caused by the passing of indigestible fibres, take egg yolk, lemon and cinnamon and blend with best Rhenish. To this fustian add honey and the milk

of the celandine. This specific will hasten the diminution of haemorrhoids." ' My Jewish herb- alist claims to have received this recipe while regressed under hypnosis, and regards it as a benchmark for modern remedies. Of course it is easy to lambast alternative medicine, and as a new GP 1 suppose I should, but it's my alibi that you can never have enough alternatives in the kitty. The old ways worked for hundreds of years and the few I've tried on my more liberal patients have, jammily, all worked. I'm not sure if 1 have any takers for this one, though — you see, you don't exactly drink it. (Philip Stapleton) Jammily, or so he'd thought at the time, Sam had scooped his department's drinks kitty by picking the Czechs for the final. Another trainee in Receivables agreed to provide an alibi as he slipped off to Soho at lunchtime, intent on set- ting a benchmark in the debauchery stakes: a rite of passage more meaningful than any bar mitz- vah. By mid-afternoon he looked like the victim of a satanic form of hypnosis, the diminution of his senses plain for all to see. Sobering up in the gutter, he pictured his mother waiting to lambast him. How to explain the stains on his fustian yarmulka? Egg yolk? No — she couldn't miss the cloaca' stench, the shreds of indigestible tomato skin in the lining. She hardly looked up as he stumbled through the french windows. 'For this I worked all my life, so my son should behave like a goy?' (David Jones)

'Meyer,' I said, 'you may lambast the Brussels regime, you may find its regulations indigestible, you may wish for a diminution in their numbers, but the fact is that there is money in the kitty. Your real complaint is that none of it sticks jam- mily to your fingers.'

'You are an ignorant goy,' he replied without heat, and your comments are worthless —fus- tian, in fact. You have no interest in finance; if I speak of it you go into a trance, as if under hyp- nosis. If I lecture on it you have an alibi excusing attendance. I listen to you when you ramble on about your absurd engineering, whether struc- tural, marine or cloaca!; I know, due to you, what a benchmark is, and even about Beau- mont's Egg on the Tay Bridge. Let me tell you this: the interesting thing about Stonehenge and the Channel Tunnel is not how they were built

but how they were financed.' (D. Shepherd) Yawning, I made my way down to breakfast. Only hypnosis could have helped me sleep through the noise of the disco and traffic. 'Don't blame me, I'm only a Sabbath goy,' the chap at the desk had said when I went to lambast him.

The dining-room is the benchmark of a good hotel. The dingy fustian covers, jammily stained with the vestiges of bygone breakfasters, fore- warned me that this was not a good hotel. The orange juice was sweetened and. watered down, the coffee cloacal. A hefty dose of milk resulted in no diminution of its nastiness. The bacon wal- lowed in a puddle of congealing fat, the egg sulked greasily by its side. The hotel owners had no alibi for providing such a totally indigestible meal. The waitress scowled at me as I walked out without leaving a tip in the kitty.

(Susan Watkin)

He had always been inclined to lambast propo- nents of hypnosis, yet here he was in a deep trance, in another time and place of palpable reality. He was a Jewish slave, dressed in humble fustian, labouring on drainage works to gratify the cloaca! obsession of the Roman goy. To mouth any alibi to escape the lash, to choke down indigestible food, to strive for any diminu- tion of his toils — these were his lot. Then, sud- denly, with a snap of fingers he was back in his own kitchen, standing between the washing bas- ket and the kitty litter tray, each competing, it seemed, to be the more appropriate benchmark

of prosaic reality. Now he would egg on his wife to take her turn with the mesmerist, a turn which by a spin of a coin she had initially so jammily avoided. (Daniel Appleby) The fustian and bombast of the opening ceremo- ny were long gone. England, whose win against Holland had set the benchmark for Euro 96, were confident there would be no diminution in support against Germany. This time, the fans, who had emptied the kitty to make the trip, refrained from the racist cloacal chanting which had marred the Scotland game. True to form, Shearer scored quickly, leaving Kopke without an alibi. Too late for him to lambast his defence. But there was egg on the England face when Kuntz sent a low drive past Seaman, leaving him looking like a goy at a bar mitzvah. Extra time came and went, and so to penalties. Southgate and England will need hypnosis to forget his miss. Germany, jammily, had won, and for some English fans it was all a little indigestible.

(John MacRitchie)

No. 1943: Point of departure You are invited to"take the first line of any popular lyric since 1930 and make it the departure point for a piece of light verse of your own. Maximum 16 lines. Entries to 'Competition No. 1943' by 25 July.