No. 473: The winners

The first word game produced 116 entries, of which seventeen correctly identified the words as coming from the opening passage of Wuther- ing Heights by Emily Brontë. A guinea to Mrs Hope Hudson for the first correct answer opened. The general standard of entries left Something to be desired, but it was the first week of the new series of SPECTATOR competitions and competitors may have been further discon- certed by an error in the instructions—there were ten words, not twelve. As a guide, the more successful results are nearly always those adopt- ing a definite style—be it small ad, seventeenth- century sermon, Fleming-type narrative, politi- cal commentary or what you will. Seriousness as such does not disqualify any entry, but an element of satire, irony or self-mockery defi- nitely helps. It is not always wisest to pursue the subject which the words themselves most obviously seem to suggest.

There was a most impressive range of styles on offer. No prizes at all to Tim O'Dowda for producing the words as a free-association exer- cise on the psychiatrist's couch. He will have to work harder than that. Miss Molly Fitton had the ingenious idea of producing a passage from The Diary of a Nobody, but her ingenuity rather ran out at that point. Many speeches by Harold Wilson, none quite good enough. The best of the politically orientated entries was undoubtedly this by Dr J. K. Dewhurst : Extract from the Queen's Speech, 1969, 'My Government will enact that any landlord pre- tending to be troubled by his property being scheduled "country" will be dispossessed and required to pair with other undesirables accom- modated in an area of urban desolation desig- nated "black." Further, at the Minister's dis- cretion, the fingers of his master hand shall be amputated as a mark of our displeasure. My Government is jealous of its powers and, in degree, of the rights of the tenant, and will countenance no barrier to the exercise of such powers.'

s‘..eldr W. H. McBryde's Scottish Nationalist manifesto, all about the grasping fingers of Whitehall, ran it a close second. Mr Anthony Jarvis's entry exactly caught the heavy facetiousness of the idiom:

A Classified Advertisement. 'Compulsive quoter from classics, would-be author and landlord by recent inheritance, troubled with thick-coming fancies and desirous of Flora and the country green wants au pair girl to transform scene of desolation, once a garden, now mostly weeds and black-fly. Must have stout heart, green fingers and not mind work- ing on her own. Art is a jealous mistress and house and tenant go to ground without a woman's tender care. No husband-hunting butterfly need apply; advertiser's own carica- ture of a face forms a barrier against matri- mony which he rejoices in. Otherwise shining prospects, and position should eventually be roses, roses all the way.'

For sheer ingenuity, Mr G. R. Smith's letter:

Dear Sir, An occasion calculated to warm the cockles. -`Come, landlord, fill the flowing bowl.' Your resumption of the SPECTATOR competition will help to dissociate one's mind from thoughts of this troubled country.

Harking back to the old series I can recall the names of a pair of regular prize-winners and that momentary feeling of desolation after tear- ing off the wrapper and looking in vain for recognition. Black Friday it always was and I would suck my fingers in disappointment. I ex- pect I was jealous, too, but after an evening in the Wheatsheaf with a friend—a tenant-farmer —spirits would revive. A post-mortem would be held on the prize-winning entries and we would ponder over the next competition.

Cheers, sir, to the SPECTATOR for providing again the mental exercise. Yours faithfully,

G. R. Smith.

P.S.—Is 'barrier' tenth or twelfth word in latest competition?

Honourable mention, too, to Martin Fagg for his imperious sermon:

From a sermon on 'Death' delivered in St Paul's by Dr John Donne: 'Be not afear'd, therefore, when the great Landlord of this troubled Country shall foreclose thy fleshly Lease, and shall summon up thy Soul to pair with Him in the Perpetuity of His Glory; neither bemoan the many flaws and tatters of that Tent of Desolation, thy Body, for it shall stand as distinct from thine Aethereal Frame as cloth the black of Hell-Pit from the white of that In- effable Light which is Christ's Mantle. So, when the lank fingers of Death shall clutch at thy throat, be not dismay'd thereat, for the Lord thy God so loveth thee that he is jealous of thy longer Stay hereabouts; and calleth thee to be a Tenant of Eternity, an Inheritor of that Property that shall not pass away, and that lieth in wait for thee beyond the Insubstantive Barrier of thy Breath.'

A final prize for Harry Short, who summed up the indignation of many readers:

The Landlord looked troubled. He was a country gentleman who read the SPECTATOR regularly.

A pair of words was missing in the new com- petition, and until they were found, his room would remain a scene of desolation.

He gave his house-maid black looks and snapped his fingers.

"I know," he cried "the office boy who was jealous of the editor lost them." Readers will be glad to know that the editorial chair is occupied by the same tenant, but now there is a barrier round his office to prevent any more words getting lost.'

Five guineas, then, to Mr Jarvis, while Mr Smith, Mr Short and Dr Dewhurst share the second prizes of two guineas each.