In Competition No. 3293, you were invited to provide an extract from the autobiography of a well-known public figure which manages to make a very interesting life sound extraordinarily dull. I am grateful to Sarah Drury for suggesting this terrific challenge. Honourable mentions, in a modest-sized entry, go to Sir Alec Guinness’s Spam anecdote (Jonathan Taylor), Elon Musk’s account of founding the Boring Company (John O’Byrne) and tales from St Paul’s tent-making days in Tarsus (Revd Richard Coles).