COMPETITION
No. 518: Paper chase
Competitors are invited to compose an appro- priate and outrageous story (maximum 150 words) using one or other of the following headlines from last Monday's Daily Mirror: A HUNTING BISHOP'S 'BLOOD LUST' SETS OFF A STORM Or GHOSTS' MAGIC FACTORIES HOLD UP AN ISLAND HUNT FOR WEALTH. No restrictions as to manner or matter except that the story must conclude with the words (the Pope's as it happens, on meeting a party of Florentine dustmen): 'I want cordially to shake hands with you, and render honour to your name and your obscure service.' Entries, marked 'Com- petition No. 518,' must be in by 22 September.
No. 516: The winners
Trevor Grove reports: Competitors were asked to compose a piece of prose around ten given Words and by way of response there has been a remarkably large and distinguished entry. The words—taken from Winston Churchill's The Second World War, volume I—inevitably pro- yided the opportunity for some noble airings, on the subject of Czechoslovakia. A. O'Dowd, on the other hand, was happier giving an excerpt from a Pravda editorial and indeed he was not the only one to shirk uniformity: what of Peter J. Regan with his extract from Gunther (Herman's grandsire) O'Hesse's Brother Bruno, translated by Lydia Custarde? What indeed, but three guineas nevertheless to Mr Regan and now back to the more straightforwardly historical mode, where Tim O'Dowda wins five guineas: Allowed no peace by the restless daemon that possessed him, and tortured by every kind of desire—except, paradoxically, the sexual— Frederick the Great appears in retrospect the oddest bundle of contradictions that ever took on human form. An apostle of prudence, he nevertheless plunged time and again into reck- less and unnecessary war. A ruthless exponent of the paternalistic authority of the state, he rebelled violently against that of his own father. He was the most cultured of kings, an aesthete for whom the composition of a new flute sonata was as significant a milestone as the composition of a treaty, and to whom being victorious over his enemies afforded scarcely more pleasure than the resolution of a metrical impasse. Discon- solate amid triumphs and elated amid diffi- culties, he was endlessly unpredictable, a baffling amalgam of energy and inconsistency, less a man than a titanic upheaval of nature.
For putting as much distance between himself and The Gathering Storm as I would have thought humanly possible, three guineas to E. 0. Parrott, in the manner of Caryl Brahms and S. J. Simon. Here is his start: The peace of the theatre was shattered by a succession of rasping chords. Quill felt an ever- whelming desire to leave, but prudence de- manded his continued presence. Besides, Stroganoff was gripping his arm.
The curtain rose, revealing the Man Who Was No Nijinsky poised on some symbolic- looking rocks, and waving a wooden rifle.
Finally, honourable mentions to Jennifer Drake-Brockman and Vera Telfer and a guinea to champion Churchill-spotter Philip Lissimore.
Previous page
