Competition
Pet sounds
In Competition No. 2860 you were invited to submit a short ode on the death of a pet in unusual…
Voter repellent
In Competition No. 2859 you were invited to submit an offputting party political broadcast by the Tories, Labour, the Lib…
Hidden talent
In Competition No. 2858 you were invited to imagine that a well-known figure from 20th-century history was a secret poet…
Spinning Jenny
In Competition No. 2857 you were invited to take the first line of Leigh Hunt’s mini rondeau ‘Jenny Kissed me’,…
Soccer lesson
In Competition No. 2856 you were invited to recruit a well-known author of your choice to give Phil Neville a…
Dead-end job
In Competition No. 2855 you were invited to compose an elegy for an endangered profession. Estate agents, travel agents, publishers,…
Fresh food
In Competition No. 2854 you were invited to invent a title for a new cookery book, with a fresh angle,…
Ground work
In Competition No. 2853 you were asked to incorporate the following words (they are real geological terms) into a piece…
Unlikely champion
In Competition No. 2852 you were invited to step into the shoes of a well-known writer of your choice and…
Paxmanic
In Competition No. 2851 you were invited to mark Jeremy Paxman’s departure from Newsnight by supplying an extract from an…
Proverbial
In Competition No. 2850 you were invited to invent proverbs that sound profound but have no meaning. This was an…
Lines on the Beeb
In Competition No. 2849 you were invited to submit a poem in praise or dispraise of the BBC. The entry…
Scottish question
In Competition No. 2848 you were invited to submit a poem commenting on Scottish independence in the style of William…
Double celebration
In Competition No. 2847 you were invited to submit a poem celebrating a famous duo. You wheeled out a colourful…
The write stuff
In Competition No. 2846 you were invited to invent the six rules for writing of a well-known author of your…
I’m a non-believer
In Competition No. 2845 you were invited to provide a hymn for atheists. This excellent, and topical, competition was suggested…
Inconsequential
In Competition No. 2844 you were invited to provide an extract from either a gripping thriller or a bodice-ripping romance…
Poet’s choice
In Competition No. 2843 you were given a list of poets’ surnames — motion, bridges, wilde, gray, cope, hood, burns…
Putdownable
In Competition 2842 you were invited to compose the most off-putting book blurb that you could muster. There’s just space…
Vice verse
In Competition 2841 you were invited to paint an amusing portrait in verse of the vice and folly of humankind.…
De haut en bas
In Competition 2840 you were invited to provide an extract from the autobiography of a modern-day celebrity, ghostwritten by a…
Art of darkness
In Competition 2839 you were invited to submit a poem about the darker side of spring. There were references in…
Fifty-something
In Competition 2838 you were invited to submit a short story entitled Fifty Shades of whatever you chose. It was…
Reunion blues
In Competition 2837 you were invited to submit a poem on the horrors of a reunion dinner. In days gone…
All together now
In Competition 2836 you were invited to coin collective nouns for the following: tweeters, hackers, hoodies, WAGS, environmentalists, bankers, MPs…
