COMPETITION
No. 576: Synopsis
Set by I. M. Crooks: A recent issue of the Radio Times had the following, defini- tive summary of The Canterbury Tales on its cover 'They met in a pub. Got very merry. They started telling tales. Lechery, treachery, that sort of thing. Free nosh for the best story.' Competitors are invited to provide an equally terse trailer for the next book the BBC might choose to serialise. Maximum 50 words; entries, marked 'Competition No. 576', by 7 November.
No. 573: The winners
Trevor Grove reports: News that a London hippy leader was hoping to purchase St Patrick's Island prompted speculation as to what sort of a paradise he hoped to establish there. Since it would certainly have had something in common with Yeats's 'Lake Isle of Innisfree' competitors were invited to provide two stanzas of a poem, in the Yeatsian mode, celebrating the attractions of a dream island for hippies, Liberal MPS or any other minority groups. Two guineas to R. Rochester for his pipe- dream Vonthaddenland: I will arise and go now, and take the NM) To some forgotten island where the Hakenkreuz shall fly; And blonde-haired blue-eyed Models shall share my isle with me With lots of Kraft durch Freude under a welkin sky.
And I shall find some peace there, for all we seek is peace, And round log fires we'll speak and sing of battles lost and won, And stoke the glowing embers with the aborigines And let the weary Aussenwelt roll on.
Tis time we rose and went now, for always night and day We hear Lloyd George yapping while Asquith waits to see What happened to our Party and where we went astray,, And where in Hell's our policy.
A disturbing feature of this week's entry was the number of competitors (a distinct whiff of conspiracy here) who submitted blueprints for a guinea-strewn 'Competitors' Dream Island'—F. Galway, for instance, who wins a guinea: • Two guineas also to P. W. R. Foot: We will arise and go now—Jeremy, Joe and me,,.
And find Cloud Cuckoo Isle with the old Liberal lags; Nor shall we be permissive though radicals we be, We'll only take our Gladstone bags. . . . For drinks, there'll be a Brewer; won't be Once we've set Foot upon it; our Croo Will neer be A Parrott to amuse us; to do the chore And Fergus as the Porter will be
pick
E. 0. Parrott was another and so ua, Crooks, who wins three guineas: We will arise and go now, and go to Trevo And a small guinea seek there, or pen shillings Nine sonnets will we write there, in q the treasure From Gower Street, that's tax-free And we shall win a prize there, for WI come thick an Dropping from the skies like manna cheques arrive in There everyone's the winner, and no o But first of all there is J. M. Crooks.
Mentions to Eileen Haggitt, N. J.
L. P. Claridge; four guineas to C. A. for his vision of a nudist stronghold I will undress and go now, and row Patrick And a high wall I'll build there. with ov And nothing will we wear there, save f a fatuous Appearing, nude, respectable and sta And we shall prance about there, throw beachballs to our f Posing clroopy-buttocked near where camera The present shapes our future, but our destiny o The prurient camera photos his, and h
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