COMPETITION

, PI RE MALT ,

• SeOTC II WIIISKN

Nude mice etc.

Jaspistos

IN COMPETITION NO. 1813 you were Invited to submit an extract from a book with one of the following titles (all real): Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice, Big and Very Big Hole Drilling, The Joy of Chickens and How to Avoid Huge Ships.

Mercifully, I didn't offer two other contenders for the Oddest of the Odd Book Title award: Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality and (my favourite) Versailles: the View from Sweden. This was a loony competition, yet E. A. Payne's sane advice as to how to avoid huge ships impressed me more than other, more fantastic recommendations: 'If you are in the Royal Navy, apply for a posting to a battleship, which will lead to a prolonged spell of duty on a minesweeper.' The prize-winners, printed below, get £20 each, and the bonus bottle of Drum- mond's Pure Malt Scotch whisky goes to Philip Bryant.

Using, as his starting reference, Thumper's celebrated monograph 'The Unclothed Rabbit

in Fiction', Dr Rhode Dent developed the theory that modern anthropomorphism, in rela-

tion to mice and other wild creatures, requires

certain behavioural transference, but not the

assumption of human clothing or linguistic characteristics. The success of the Deptford Mice trilogy has done for Muridae what Watership Down did for Oryctolagus cuniculus. Writers no longer demean their characters — be they toad, hedgehog, mole or mouse — as did Potter, Grahame et al., by dressing them in bonnets, aprons and breeches and having them communi- cate in a standard English whose correctness would not disgrace the monarch, or at least the monarch's grandchildren. Today's approved animals speak their own languages and are no more ashamed of appearing between the pages

of a book clad as their Creator made them than is a grand piano now shy of baring its legs in the sitting-room.

(Alanna Blake)

Big hole drilling finally came of age when the technology was adopted by the artistic establish- ment of the 90s. Some explored the performa- tive possibilities: the entire cast of John Tereb- ro's Getting Through consisted of five machines drilling one-metre holes in various media. The apparently mechanistic action culminated, one critic observed, in 'a triumphant simultaneous penetration, expressing an orgasmic intensity and unity of communication'. The video version, This Is Boring, won equal acclaim.

Others experimented with static pieces like Axel Piercy's Convenience — a concrete cast of a men's public toilet perforated by a two-metre- diameter tunnel. This masterpiece of double- deconstruction and biting social comment re- mained unsurpassed until Piercy himself refined his techniques sufficiently to set up a massive column of compressed sewage sludge and drill it entirely away, using a bit of equal diameter. The resultant empty plinth, called simply (W)hole, became a defining moment of post-modernism.

(Philip Dacre)

There is no doubt that huge ships — like smoking! — can seriously damage your health. However, individuals can certainly reduce the likelihood of sustaining death or serious injury by following simple guidelines:

1. The best way to avoid huge ships is never to touch them: prevention is always better than cure! (Parents should seriously consider moving to a ship-free environment, such as the Home Counties, to keep their children away from temptation.) 2. If the individual has already encountered a huge ship — and liked it — then a weaning approach will be required: encourage him or her to use a smaller ship, or (better still) play up the benefits of other forms of transport.

3. The dangers of passive contact with huge ships are becoming clear: by 1998 the EEC will have made UK territorial waters a 'Ship-Free Zone', hut, until then, all fishermen and swim- mers should wear luminous clothing and a Davy-lamp.

(R. I. Wells) . . . although it is quite possible with Buff Orpingtons. If this concerns you, the best thing is to remove the beak entirely. However, never, never try to do so without wearing industrial goggles since it can be a tricky operation, especially with some breeds of fowl from the former Eastern bloc. Once the beak is removed, the options are endless, as many over the years. from Mrs Beeton to Jennifer Paterson, have testified.

If you want to be particularly adventurous, I recommend a little trick I learnt in 1942 in what was then still Palestine. Leave the beak intact and wedge it open with a pistachio nut. The resultant open passageway allows a through- draught of warm air during cooking, producing an effect the Arabs call al shakteeth. Try it yourself to discover what it means.

Aren't chickens versatile? More proof (if proof were needed) of their great joy!

(Philip Bryant)