No. 1289: The winners
Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for an imaginary extract from a book with one of these real titles: The Romance of the London Underground, Madam Madcap, The History of English Patriotism, A Woman Tenderfoot in Egypt.
I picked those titles blindly, but Nos 2, 3 and 4 (by Coutts Brisbane, Esme Wingfield-Stratford and Grace Thompson Seton) yield these marvellously peculiar and ha-ha passages:
One cannot lay heart and hand at a lady's disposal with sundry gypsies popping up at one's very feet and a scared mulatto thrusting forth a head at one's elbow. 'What is it?' exclaimed Madam Madcap. 'Silas! What is it?'
The love of humanity is an abstract concept. We shall hardly talk about the roast beef of old Earth, or the green fields of terra firma, or this right little, tight little globe. Hardly in our most whimsical moments shall we chant such ditties as: 'Two skinny Martians, one Neptunee, One jolly Earth-man lick 'em all three.'
To match my puny muscles with his magnificent physique was futile. Alone in the desert with a passion-driven animal! He flung an iron arm around my waist, his hot breath on my cheek. `Ah, Madame, give me the honey of your lips, the sweetness of the date shall fill us. Hold not! Many white ladies come to the desert for this.'
Not much room, or money, left for con- temporary hacks, I'm afraid. So LI 0 each to the only three competitors who seemed to me to rise high enough to the occasion.
Whoever invented the colour coding was indeed a genius, for how those colours reflect to perfec- tion the distinctive characters of the lines themselves! The bold scarlet of the Central Line, blazing through the metropolis like a high-speed London bus; the Bakerloo, its homely brown the exact colour of an old-fashioned bakelite ashtray; the satisfying suburban plum of the Metropolitan, gateway to Metroland; the rich blue Piccadilly, streaking out to Heathrow like an executive jet; the green and yellow District and Circle Lines, twining around the centre like the earth wire of a plug; the sooty black of the endearingly filthy Northern Line; the consum- mate sky-blue of the clean, efficient Victoria; and now the understated modernity of the pale- grey Jubilee! Together they turn London into a glorious and anarchic neon sign whose patterns flash in the minds of commuters, a coded message waiting to be cracked, a deeply enigmatic work of art, (Peter Norman) Professor Dean Lumsden of Basingstoke Univer- sity tested 655,000 British schoolchildren in the winter of 1982-83. Each 'subject' was wired to the Patriotometer and shown film of the Glorious Gloucesters' stand at lmjim River in 1951. It was noticed that among females the body temperature and heartbeat did not significantly increase. A reading of 47 was taken, which Lumsden described as 'low'. Among the males, however, body-heat and heartbeat in- creased dramatically, giving a reading of 87-94 which Lumsden described as 'exceptionally high', concluding that males were 57 per cent less likely than females to fiddle the Inland Revenue, whereas females were 69.2 per cent more likely to cash welfare cheques to which they were not en- titled. Further tests showed that females were in- clined to regard the monarch as a 'mother figure', whereas males only did so when the blood-alcohol level was increased appreciably. Tests with West German schoolchildren, during which Bach cantatas were played ...
(Jeremy Bevan) The donkeys were beautifully hennaed and adorned with bells. They looked most attractive under their swaying burdens as they passed, but their owners were brutal in the unnecessary ap- plication of the goad. A particularly savage creature was a certain Abdullah.
One day as his donkey staggered under his blows 1 burst out, 'You brute! Throw that whip in the Nile!'
The bean-seller called to him, 'It is the she- cousin of Lord Cromer!'
'Wretch! I shall report you to the Pasha!' 1 cried.
Fortunately he desisted. The next minute he was at my feet, howling. I inferred he was soliciting some piastres. By now considerably mollified, I shook out my purse. The reins were put in my hand. I had become the owner!
That evening on the terrace, I saw a concourse of villagers approaching — each leading a freshly hennaed, bebelled donkey for my cash purchase. (George Moor)
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