For this Odyssey-inspired Competition 3464 you were invited to submit a passage or poem in which a modern man (or woman!) is trying to get home after a decade away and excuses are needed. Among those deserving of mentions are Basil Ransome-Davies, Bob Newman, Sophia Jackson, Paul Freeman and Nick Syrett, while the prizes go to those below.

Tell me about a complicated man,
Muse, how Poseidon’s wrath cast him upon
A bleak, strange Northern isle. There wanderings
Took him to Crawley, where he chanced upon
A building great crowds entered eagerly.
A slave requested gold; Odysseus slew him,
And crept into a vast cave, eerie, dark,
Except for one gigantic screen whereon
A legend was displayed in vivid shadows;
It was, retold with flashbacks and such tricks
His own life, sentimentalised –
His seven-year Calypso shagathon
Became a therapy session; he himself
Was simplified into a weepy victim.
He cried: ‘Sod this!’, stormed out and set his course
Homeward to Ithaca, and his wife and dog.

George Simmers

How the cruise ship failed to lose me, how the return headcount from No-Man Island went so wrong – well, the inquiry reported, and your insurance payout was huge. But the island wasn’t uninhabited (another lie in their brochure!). The No-Mans, a shyly innocent race, emerged from their underground burrows and hailed me as a god. Pampering: where do I start! No need to lift a finger: they’d discovered wine, were poly-amorous. So why did boredom make me itchy? A baobab raft, and I was off, sailing east, till the Chinese container ship spotted me. No phone in my language, of course; they dropped me in a hellhole port, some sort of war rattling overhead, so I volunteered for the first side that offered food. Prison or army: army won (better chance of escape). Swapped sides, hitched a lift on a drone, and here I am. Sorry, sweetheart: did you miss me?

D.A. Prince

My journey home has lasted ten years. Or so it seems, I’ve rather lost track. During this time I’ve been constantly tested by the callous indifference of a many-headed monster and its vile offspring, the Goddess of Couldn’t Care Less. Seduced by her promise to reconnect me with my loved ones, I boarded her shabby vessel, only to be immediately diverted and taken to some hellish places with little chance of escape. I’m now marooned again, God knows where. Then I hear a voice calling but the words spoken are unintelligible. I’ve had these messages before and know that my odyssey still isn’t over. If by some remote possibility I’m ever reconnected with my much-admired Penny, who’s apparently been slowly unravelling in my absence, at least I’ll have a ready excuse for my delayed homecoming. ‘Sorry I’m late, darling, you can blame Network Rail and Avanti West Coast.’

Sue Pickard

Dear Reform Club members, you ask why it has taken me ten years to return from my circumnavigation of the world. Unfortunately, I have been beset by pass-port control delays, security checks and accusations of being an illegal immigrant. Uber expenses, red tape, online forms and GPS directions have proved challenging, while Passepartout’s struggles with Google Translate and Duolingo mean we can insult people in six different languages. Other complica-tions have included the Covid pandemic halting all travel, exorbitant currency exchange rates, corrupt officials, hacked technology, acts of terrorism, protest marches, astronomical fuel prices and astoundingly bad traffic. British Airways lost our luggage 49 times. My marriage to a lovely princess of India created visa issues. Incidentally, Passepartout left an electric light burning at home, so our energy bill currently exceeds one million pounds. For my next wager I hope to actually leave the UK. Yours, Phileas Fogg.

Janine Beacham

This is Ground Control to Major Tom:
Your wife is asking when you’ll be back home.
Beep. Tell my wife I love her very much –
She knows. She just needs you to get in touch.
I can’t, my spaceship’s far beyond the moon;
I won’t be in Earth’s orbit very soon –
Discovered life on Mars, and now I’m stranded –
Beep. Leaving Earth behind will be a wrench –
Beep. Major, where exactly have you landed?
And who’s that in the background speaking French?
And where on Mars is there an Eiffel Tower?
You’re breaking up – my spaceship’s losing power –
Where are you? Can you hear me Major Tom?
I know that you can hear me, Major Tom…
Here am I beep beep floating in the blue
Above the moon, there’s nothing I can do…

David Silverman

I’d no problems with passports or while checking-in,
So I got on the flight without any delay.
Then two drunks had a fight for an overhead bin,
So we all got de-planed and that cost me a day.
Then, when we took off, some volcano erupted,
And the captain announced we would go to Lahore.
With air to ground communications disrupted
We turned round and went back to Auckland once more.
I went on a different route on the third day,
Which, at the time, seemed like a clever manoeuvre,
But the President took Air Force One to L.A.,
So we got diverted to land in Vancouver.
On my flight to Heathrow (which was a real bargain)
Two Russian jets came very close for a look.
That’s why you saw my ticket says Copenhagen,
Where I had a stopover coming from Huuk.

David Blakey

Ten years! Thank God the journey’s nearly ended,
one day, two dozen books might tell my tale.
Orbiting the moon was not intended,
but now I am on course with British Rail.
The train halts, sending shivers down my spine,
a power cut! To amplify my fears
I hear emergency sirens down the line
(so loud I find I have to block my ears),
warning rolling stock they must beware.
A one-eyed guard says, ‘Sit back, take it easy,
the restaurant car is open.’ I’ll forbear,
the pork on offer makes me feel quite queasy.
How long shall I be trapped outside this station
and will I ever reach my destination?

Sylvia Fairley

No. 3467: Back to it

You’re invited to submit a passage in the style of a classic school story as the new term starts (150 words max). Please email entries to competition@spectator.co.uk by 9 September.