No. 1323: The winners

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for a ballade of 20 lines with the refrain: 'I tried to kill myself three times last week'.

Chesterton wrote an excellent ballade with the refrain: 'I think I will not hang myself today', to which yours formed an irrepressibly gloomy counter-chorus. There's room only to salute the winners, who receive £10 each, to commend specially Bridget Loney and Jason Strugnell, and to present the last bottle of Blandy's 10-year- old Malmsey Madeira (the gift of Hedges & Butler Ltd) to Noel Petty.

Dear Mother, I arrived here safe and sound. I got a lift as far as Colwyn Bay, So in the end it only cost a pound.

The rooms are not too bad, the food's OK, The lectures are a bore; this term I may Decide to do subsidiary Greek, And maybe take up squash. Oh, by the way, I tried to kill myself three times last week.

A group of us have talked a lot around Eternity and Being and Decay.

The answers that we've reached are quite pro- found: God is a myth, and man no more than clay. And, as for hope, we don't hold out one ray, So, all in all, the outlook's pretty bleak. There being not a great deal more to say, I tried to kill myself three times last week.

Mother, if you should hear bad news one day, It won't be worry and it won't be pique: It's just the price we thinkers have to pay — I tried to kill myself three times last week.

(Noel Petty) In June there should be thoughts of holidays In Cannes or Casablanca or Mustique, Of smooth, prismatic skies and wide blue bays Where gold-skinned beauties sunbathe cheek to cheek.

There should be thoughts of cocktail-loaded trays On yacht-decks warmly wrought in brass and teak.

But my thoughts spiral in a gloomy maze: I tried to kill myself three times last week.

There should be visions of the old abbayes Perched on a Pyrenean slope or peak, Of fields in the Auvergne, with their green glaze, And Roquefort after lunch at St Affrique.

All failure teaches man to reappraise The value of a method or technique; Perhaps I need to modify the ways I tried to kill myself three times last week'

(Basil Ransome-Dav' My prospects seemed unutterably bleak; My stocks and shares had hit an all-time Ilpv'e I bored my friends, who were not symPatilmig And made me feel unwanted and de trop. On every count the con outweighed the pro Where could I turn, what solace could I seck. So, sunk in gloom like Edgar Allan Poe, I tried to kill myself three times last week I told myself my plight was not unique. I told myself, 'Fight hack, get up and g°1 This is no time to show the yellow streak. Stand up foursquare to all the winds that bit'," I tried Spectator Crossword 660, I tried to read the Iliad in Greek: A melancholy failure both — and so I tried to kill myself three times last week.

Prince, in these days when all is flux and fic'vd' And either down the drain or up the creek, Why am I inter vivos still, although I tried to kill myself three times last week''

(Katherine Thorns°

I think that I'm about to lose my wits; I'm puzzled, bothered, rattled and in tears' For every time I try to call it quits Some bloody chance or other interferes. Jump off a bridge? A rowing-boat aPPears_ Filled with soft cushions. Start a fatal leak? The gasman turns it off (I'm in arrears). I tried to kill myself three times last week*

Under a bus? Either the driver hits

The brakes, or else the differential clears My head and all the other vital bits, Leaving me lying there with oily ears. It's been like this for more than twenty YeOr And things are really starting to look bleak; I've tried the aspirins, tried the poisoned bete s I tried to kill myself three times last week.

Successful ones, oh yes, I see your sneers. But, honest, something always interferes. I want to die, it's not just childish pique. I tried to kill myself three times last week' 0 (J. K. Gran It started when they fired me from MY job' And I was faced with bills I couldn't paY• The TV people sent the heavy mob, And then they came and took the car away' My wife ran off with Benson in Display, The dachshund died, the roof began to leak. No wonder, when I learnt my son was gay' I tried to kill myself three times last week' I locked the bathroom door, and from the kriob I slung some rope and soon began to sway. I couldn't breathe, I felt my temples throb Then blast me if the damned thing didn't fr"o I tried a gun — the bullet went astray, A go with gas just made the kitchen reek. In vain, and as I'm not a man to praY. I tried to kill myself three times last week.

And though, alas, I'm still alive today, At public dinners, when I'm asked to sPea''' The chatter stops the moment that I saY: , 'I tried to kill myself three times last week•c)ci dis) There should be visions of the suriset haze Viewed from a quiet Adriatic creek. But all I see is curdled mayonnaise: I tried to kill myself three times last week' (Roger W