14 NOVEMBER 1992, Page 60

COMPETITION

What next?

Jaspistos

1 Nt OTt N ONIONY

n Competition No. 1753 you were invit- ed to supply real items for inclusion in the following imaginary anthologies: The Penguin Book of Penguins, The Virago Book of Viragos, The Faber Book of Fabians, The Bodley Book of Heads.

By 'real' I meant real, not your own inventions, or paraphrases, or redactions. I was inviting research, or sheer serendipity — and by research I meant a bit of trawl- ing, not just fishing out a dictionary of quo- tations and looking up four words in the index, or rushing to Anatole France's L'Ile des Pingouins (even though it does have some appropriate and charming passages).

The excellent winners, printed below, get £20 each for their labours — or their luck. The bonus bottle of Aberlour Single Malt whisky goes to Gerard Benson (please, somebody, do not point out that his extract exceeds the maximum by two words). The winning entries come from the following sources: Virginia Woolf's Orlando, W.S. Gilbert's The Mikado, Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation?, Ivan Thaddeo's Letters from Morocco, Douglas Jerrold's Mrs Caudle's Curtain Lectures. Here we go, head first, virago last.

He — for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it — was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which hung from the rafters. It was the colour of an old football, and more or less the shape of one, save for the sunken cheeks and a strand or two of coarse, dry hair, like the hair on a cocoanut. Orlando's father, or perhaps his grandfather, had struck it from the shoulders of a vast Pagan who had started up under the moon in the barbarian fields of Africa; and now It swung, gently, perpetually, in the breeze which never ceased blowing through the attic rooms of the gigantic house of the lord who had slain him

. Sometimes he cut the cord so that the skull bumped on the floor and he had to string it up again.

(Gerard Benson) He shivered and shook as he gave the sign For the stroke he didn't deserve, When all of a sudden his eye met mine And it seemed to brace his nerve.

For he nodded his head and kissed his hand, And he whistled an air did he, As the sabre true cut cleanly through His cervical vertebrae.

(Vivian Vale) During the past few years increasing attention has been paid to what may be termed the con- structive work of the OGPU. Its preventive ser- vice has greatly improved. What is even more to be praised is the reform in prison administration that was started by Djerjinsky, and has been maintained by his successors. The ordinary pris- Now though you'd have said that the head was dead, For the owner dead was he, It stood on its neck with a smile well bred And bowed three times to me.

It was none of your impudent, off-hand nods But as humble as could be.

For it clearly knew the deference due To a man of pedigree. ons of the USSR are maintained not by the GPU but by the sovnarkoms of the several constituent republics. The buildings are, in most cases, those inherited from the tsarist regime, and often still inadequately improved in sanitation and ameni- ty. But the administration is well spoken of, and is now apparently free from physical cruelty as any prisons in any country are ever likely to be. But in addition to these government prisons, the GPU itself maintains at Bolshevo, in the Moscow oblast, a remarkable reformatory settle- ment, which seems to go further, alike in promise and achievement, towards an ideal treatment of offenders against society than any- thing else in the world.

(Bernard Kaukas)

It was a tatty circus, of course, a third-rate tour- ing affair, but what an atmosphere! As we were waiting for the start, sitting on benches like excit- ed schoolchildren, an Arab boy was peddling his wares — I could not see what — in his rather plaintive French. `Degustez des pingouins!' he called. `Degustez des pingouins!' I was vaguely puzzled. What were his wares? Were they improving paperbacks, the vanguard perhaps of an assault by the British book trade, master- minded by the British Council? Or shish kebabs prepared by a local entrepreneur from frozen Antarctic carcasses? The mind boggled. Degustez des pingouins!' Now the boy was get- ting near. I could see his tray. It was empty!

Never should I know what secrets it had held never! They might, after all, have been chocolate biscuits in shiny red and gold wrappers.

(David Heaton)

`Well, if a woman hadn't better be in her grave than be married! That is, if she can't be married to a decent man. No; I don't care if you are tired, I shan't let you go to sleep. No, and I won't say what I have to say in the morning; I'll say it now. It's all very well for you to come home at what time you like — it's now half-past twelve — and expect I'm to hold my tongue and let you go to sleep. What next, I wonder? A woman had bet- ter be sold for a slave at once. And so you've gone and joined a club? The Skylarks, indeed! A pretty skylark you'll make of yourself! But I won't stay and be ruined by you. I'll go and take the dear children and you may get who you like to keep your house.'

(Monica G. Ribon)

No. 1756: Dreamboat

In Graham Greene's recently published dream diary, A World of My Own, he records a dream, in about 150 words, which features himself and Henry James and a Bolivian river-boat. It is rather a dull dream. You are invited to do better, given the same scenario and writing in the per- sona of Greene. Entries to 'Competition No. 1756' by 27 November.