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COMPETITION

Desperate dozen

Jaspistos

IN COMPETITION NO. 1917 you were asked to incorporate a dozen given words or phrases into a plausible piece of prose.

It was I, not you, on the ropes this round; you counterpunched frenziedly with over 200 entries. Apart from learning not to provoke you, I have also learned that unihoc is a sort of unisex hockey popular in Switzerland (David Heaton) and that the wow-wow is a gibbon (J.B. Deregowski). Some of you played with the concept of a `hangperson' (though none with 'games- personship') and several of you cunningly combined gamesmanship with the game of Hangman, to no avail. The prizewinners printed below get £20 each, and the bonus bottle of Isle of Jura Single Malt Scotch whisky goes to David Jones. I retire for a week to recover from my bruises.

'Bring me an infant straight from the creche and I'll make a man of him! No multicultural mixed- ability unisex claptrap while I'm at the helm that stuff will go the way of the pterodactyl, mark my words.'

The headmaster gazed lingeringly at the Honours Board, spangled with the glittering (military) achievements of Stonyground's former pupils. He turned to the diminutive, hooded fig- ure of the hangman at his side. 'Who are you topping today, Morris?'

`My younger brother, headmaster. Morris Minor of the Remove,' he added with a morbid chuckle. 'Caught redhanded in a discotheque trying to wow the local peasantry with his limbo dancing.'

`Hmmm ... stretching it a bit, but the Ministry insists on its weekly quota. And a little bit of gamesmanship never hurt.'

The couple strode purposefully towards the school gallows. 'You know something, Morris? Since Howard was given Education, my job's somehow more ...satisfying.' (David Jones)

Resentful of the abrupt invasion of that agree- able limbo, the time he considered his own between tea and dinner, Sir Edgar went down to the village. There, the morbid prospect of violent death had plunged a crowd from the Roebuck into a bizarre form of gamesmanship as they out- did one another in gloom.

'Must 'a killed hisself,' said Ted Barstow, gaze resting lingeringly on the bloody contents of the Morris Minor.

'Nay, yon'll end up as a matter for the hang- man,' declared someone else.

Small wonder, Edgar thought, his wife called the Roebuck the pub for the peasantry.

The sound of the villagers' noisy exchanges reached Miranda in the church creche and, leav- ing the Christmas-tree she was dismantling, she sought out her brother, her dress still spangled from the discarded decorations. When she found Julian, she whispered, 'I know him.'

His eyebrows rose, like a pterodactyl taking wing.

'Ran the unisex salon in Crawchester,' she said.

Julian allowed himself a whoop of surprise.

'Wow,' (Colin Shaw)

'Bloody peasantry! Why can't they look less mor- bid? Anyone would think they'd seen a hangman rather than a Minister in a car. I only asked them for directions to a bar.'

'Yes, Henry darling, but you know how after you closed down the Morris Minor factory you weren't exactly a wow round here. You called it the pterodactyl of the British motor industry, as I

recall. Not exactly tactful.'

`Nonsense! The old girl had a star-spangled career. It was just this damn EEC business that finished her off. Nothing more. That's the prob- lem with the Krauts. No sense of gamesmanship. Never forgotten the war. Lingeringly resentful.'

'Mind you, it was lucky the Party didn't send you out in limbo after the to-do in that unisex creche in Cowley.'

'Well, how on earth was Ito know that Lesley was a boy?' (Adrian Gane)

Morbid Monday again. Being a PR man at Central Office was like having the advertising account for the dodo or the pterodactyl. Where could he find a vision which would wow Middle England into voting Conservative again and save the Party from limbo and oblivion? In the past! He wanted everyone looking back lingeringly to when people, if not actually peasantry, at least knew their place, when women stayed at home and weren't always asking for jobs and creche facilities, when the hangman still plied his trade, when a chap went to the barber's and not some unisex hairdresser, and drove a Morris Minor, not some Japanese car, when humour meant Potter's Gamesmanship, not Lee and Herring, when fun was found at Butlin's or at the circus, with its clowns and spangled costumes, not Club 18-30 or some drug-infested rave. I have seen the

future and it's the 1950s! (Nicholas Hodgson)

The Morris Minor Traveller, self-same steel and wood creation in which I attempted to wow the female peasantry in my youth, has almost made the transition from runabout to classic car. This grounded pterodactyl of British motor design still exercises a morbid fascination, as the gallows does for a redundant hangman. Its unisex appeal — exemplified by the soft curves of the front wings lingeringly leading to the vertical beech struts of the rear — is evident from those rallies of Traveller enthusiasts who gather during warm summer weekends. How gratifyingly far removed from the machismic gamesmanship of Ferrari or Lamborghini owners.

My own rust-spangled version of the marque bore me faithfully from the limbo of late adoles- cence to the nappies and creches of early adult- hood, its modified twin carburettors powering it along the Sixties byways to a terminal velocity of almost 80 bone-shaking miles an hour.

(Peter Cooke)

No. 1920: Parody piece

You are invited to write a piece (maximum 150 words) parodying any well-known prose writer active in this century, the set- ting to be the seaside. Entries to 'Competi- tion No. 1920' by 15 February.