COMPETITION

THE MALT

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Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 2068 I quoted something like: Tor eight generations the Sawbridge family on the Lincolnshire coast have been gathering and treating samphire, the unique and essential ingredient in ...' and invited you to apply the same style in an advertisement for something more banal than whisky.

This type of advertisement has always simultaneously enraged and delighted me. The one I remember best was for `Startrite: it showed a benign, grey-haired cobbler (whose forebears had obviously stuck to the last), eyes twinkling behind old-fashioned specs, holding up a shoe, while in the background a newly shod tod- dler trotted down a road towards the New Dawn of orthopaedics. Now the Jack Daniels posters in the London under- ground give me the same horror-pleasure.

The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each, and the bottle of The Macallan Single Highland Malt Scotch whisky goes to Fergus Porter.

Let's face it, you wouldn't pick out John Barley in a crowd. Even a small one. And John him- self'd be the last person to thank you if you did. Modesty, that's his primary characteristic. For him being quietly chuffed is high emotion. So just let him get on quietly with living his life his way. John's way. He takes his satisfactions quiet- ly whether it's prize-winning with his vegetables (Best Artichokes 1995-98 and he's got hopes for 1999) or the knowledge of the pleasure which he gives daily to thousands of dogs. Yes, dogs. Didn't he tell you? Well, he wouldn't, would he, so we will. For the last 20 years, John's been Head Baker for Woofie Bites. Simply the brains behind the biscuits. Your dog adores them (and so do a million dogs the world over). But John'd never tell you. That's John's way.

(Fergus Porter) Still feeling the infuriating stickiness of Sellotape clinging to your fingers from those Christmas parcels? Fed up with staplers, Velcro, Interlox and the umpteen alternative fastening devices? Then one of your New Year resolutions could be to resume rapport with (you've guessed II!) — STRING!

Textured from purest fibres, our product sub- tly interweaves organic elements with all that's finest in modern technology, thus combining nature and nyloplasms in a substance at once stable and slender, elegant yet sturdy, old as Earth itself. STRING, like its very name, derives from primal roots, planted by our Saxon fore- bears in the fertile plains of East Anglia to sus- tain their heroic lifestyle. It is virtually indestruc- tible, since it has the unique quality of pre-ten- sion — its toughness is inbuilt during the early processive stages. Tested under unprecedented strains, we proudly reassert the ultra-reliability of STRING. Order today from Hanks & Ball, The Tye, Great Binding, Notts. (Godfrey Bullard) If you want to know what hand-made really means, ask George Hargreaves. He's been mak- ing our shoelaces for 35 years. And his only tools are his hands.

George at work is a revelation. Looping a hank of lightly-waxed strands over one hand, he plaits them with the other at bewildering speed. Judging a lace-length by eye, he slices it off with his thumbnail. (It has an edge that a Jermyn Street barber would envy.) Finally, with two swift pinches the ends are sealed and capped. Another lace is ready. Created in 30 seconds, it will last a lifetime.

Of course, George can only work with the finest materials. A bolt of Kilkenny flax is deliv- ered monthly to his workshop. Top-grade wasp wax is jetted in from Tasmania. Mother Earth herself provides the dyes. But all this still needs the transforming touch of the craftsman.

For that, you have to hand it to George.

(W.J. Webster) The chances are you've never heard of the Bloaters. They don't, it's true, produce many Booker prizewinners or Nobel physicists. But they know about muck.

You can't make our organic compost on a fac- tory line. Jeb Bloater (he's the one with the whiskers) carts the fresh dung from his old-fash- ioned riding stables to a barn where smallholder brother Jem has the straw ready, cut from a sun- drenched field where pesticides get as much look in as a beetle in old Martha Bloater's kitchen. Then it's over to the lads, Phillie and Willie, who slowly turn and re-turn the mixture with a pair of the stout ash-handled forks great-grandfather Bloater sat and made when he was invalided home from Spion Kop (there's been the odd rivet since, you understand). So how do they know when the texture's right? They couldn't tell you. They just know — and so will your runner beans. (Chris Tingley) The postmodern age is in love with colour, inno- vation, eye-catching design. And that means you can buy paper-clips in practically any shape or hue. If that's what you want.

But maybe you're not one of the crowd. Maybe your taste runs to products that are guar- anteed, time-tested pioneers. That marry quality of performance with a chaste, classical style.

That's why there'll always be a demand for Guildhall paper-clips. Fashioned according to the company's original pattern books, they require 78 different operations to assure their effortless reliability. Hand-finished in high-grade plated alloy, they preserve the standards of Victorian workmanship for the benefit of the present.

These are paper-clips you will use time and time again. A link with the past. A still centre in a restlessly turning world. And an exemplary way of holding your most treasured documents