ISLE OF

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COMPETITION

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No golf, please

Jaspistos

IN COMPETITION NO. 1855 you were given 18 words (a full round) and invited to incorporate them, in any order, into an entertaining piece of prose, using them in a non-golfing sense.

Over 200 entries — and I imagined this was extra difficult! Congratulations to J.C.M. Hepple, Susan Maxwell-Scott, Ric Cooper, Bill Greenwell, Gerard Benson and Monica G. Ribon, who all went round in par. The only spoilt card was the entrant's who thought I'd let him get away with a girl called Fluff Hazard-Green. The money-winners, printed below, get £20 each, and the bonus bottle of Isle of Jura Single Malt Scotch whisky goes to Nicholas Hodgson.

Mr Major took off the top of his hard-boiled egg with his spoon. It had gone green inside. He knew how it felt. Every day brought a new haz- ard, a new handicap, another MP placed as an albatross round his neck by the press. How could he carry on? 'Eighteenth top Tory quits,' screamed the headline. What was it this time? I was MP's bit of fluff, says sexy Swedish six- footer? Minister's links with drug baron? KinkY MP's games with live socket and black negligée? It wasn't the thin end of the wedge any more, it was the thick end. He was stymied. But honest John wasn't finished. He'd beat them, by hook or by crook. It was time for a new approach. 'Norma?' he called. 'I need a new junior minis- ter. Someone blameless and innocent. Can I bor-

row your pet rabbit?' (Nicholas Hodgson) Dear Mary, It is from deepest despair that I hazard an approach to you. My daughter's boyfriend is driving a wedge between us. This grubby, gross six-footer calls Sophie his 'bit of fluff. Furthermore he chooses to carry with him every- where an incontinent pet rabbit (this is 'green', apparently). At dinner last night he saw fit to borrow my spoon to remove (unnecessarily, I feel) his glass eye from its socket, claiming that he could not do so with the artificial hand he calls `me hook'.

One must view handicap with compassion, but this is over the top. 1 dare not disapprove lest they formalise the links between them and marry (Sophie's eighteenth birthday is imminent) and my darling daughter be encumbered, possibly for life, with this albatross (as the poet has it). Please advise me — I am absolutely stymied! (Shirley Wallis)

Dental extraction at sea may not be without haz- ard and the ship's surgeon who does not carry proper instruments (forceps, a MacTavish wedge and a decent fossicking hook) suffers an unnec- essary handicap and may fluff the job.

I remember on one voyage a stoker, scarcely Past his eighteenth birthday yet with rotten teeth, who had shattered a top molar on his spoon. I realised that essential instruments had been left ashore. To make matters worse, it was Sunday and naval superstition has it that tooth-pulling On the Sabbath is like shooting an albatross. Stymied! Not for long! A secretive approach and the finest medicinal brandy forged cordial links with the engineers, from whom I was soon able to borrow a screwdriver and monkey-wrench. Although a burly six-footer, he squealed like a snared rabbit, but the job was soon done, the socket clean and the patient green but grateful.

(Hugh King) By the time the eighteenth hopeful slouched into the green-room I was ready to sling my hook. We all carry scars of past auditions, but this lot were really over the top. The usual bit of fluff warbling on about June-spoon-moon — my dear, so terri- bly dated — and the ancient albatross — or do I mean dodo? — dead anyway in spite of being able to rabbit on regardless over the routine cho- rus of 'don't call us', and then that six-footer and his soprano voice was a shocking handicap, poor love — tripped over the light cable, wrenching it out of its socket — well, it was a bit of a hazard, I'll grant you. ASM was stymied and could not wedge it back, and had to borrow gaffer tape and intercom-links from them next door. I think I feel the approach of one of my turns.

(S. Lissenden)

'Take a butcher's hook at the plans. We hit the bank on the eighteenth. We approach noncha- lantly, rabbit to each other in the queue and, when we reach the counter, your one line don't fluff it: "Give us the money!" Video cam- eras are the main hazard, but we'll use an elec- tronics man. Forget his name ... some sort of birdie ...albatross, that's it! Albert Ross. Strange bloke, a bit green, but shouldn't prove a handicap. Anyway, he pulls the plug out of the socket, or whatever, and the security system is stymied. He'll also wedge open the bank door, just by jamming a spoon in, he reckons, so we simply carry the loot to the vehicle. We'll "bor- row" a car on the day, then dump it so whatever happens nothing links us to the crime.'

'Who's the driver?'

'Top guy in the business. Six-footer, named Faldo.'

'Faldo? We'll be nicked!' (Paul Brummell)