COMPETITION

Baker's dozen

Jaspistos

In Competition No. 1602 you were chal- lenged to incorporate the following 13 words, in any order, in a plausible piece of Prose: allegro, simian, clemency, blob, rubberneck, intricately, zero, yodel, twee, Magniloquent, bladder, unnerved, jimjams. Oddly enough — or perhaps not, since 13 is both an odd and an unlucky number — this minute expansion of a well-worn and Popular formula seemed to give trou- ble, Magniloquent was a stumbling-block, being difficult to introduce casually. Alleg- ro was, plausibly enough, often a car, and One competitor, ingeniously if not fairly, followed bladder with want l'wee.' Moni- ca G. Ribon is especially unlucky to be out of the prize money, and D. A. Prince, had he not forgotten simian, would surely have been in. As it is, £15 goes to each of the winners printed below, and the last bonus bottle of Cognac Otard VSOP, kindly presented by the Château de Cognac, goes to Wendy McKechnie on her small Scottish island. Our thanks to the Château de Cognac for having so generously provided

the top winners of 12 competitions with a bonus bottle, If he or she wants last week's bonus bottle, would Sam N. Bhutto provide a more postworthy name and address?

Stella walked on stage, fighting the jimjams that threatened the steadiness of her hands. It was the first performance of her new oeuvre, 'Zero Omicron', on instruments of her own design. Nervously, she inspected her creations from the podium; the rubberneck cello, unruly in the hands of the unnerved cellist; the intricately fretted soundboard of the Swiss-made yodel machine; the magniloquent multifaceted mega- tuba, held doubtfully by a brass virtuoso of usefully simian physique; a thin goat bladder, stretched over an embroidery frame and struck with fluffy bedroom slippers — rather twee, she thought, but just the right degree of sibilance. Would the glockenspiel, each lager can held to the bar by thin twine and a blob of Bluetac, survive the performance? It was time. Bowing, marshalling her forces, she said, sotto voce, 'OK chaps, easy does it; allegro, ma non troppo,' and prayed fervently for the clemency of the critics.

(Wendy McKechnie)

Oh, Jennifer, the racket during questions! The backbenchers on our side are worst — they yodel and whoop in a ghastly simian frenzy. Ralph spoke in the debate (eventually!) and was magniloquent, though a little unnerved when his neighbour shuffled out during the speech. (To attend to his bladder?) And there was a huge blob of gazpacho on Ralph's shirt! Argument pretty standard — no clemency for home-owners till we had zero inflation, etc. Got the jimjams after a while — itching to hit Harrods — so piled into taxi (cabbie thought I was a rubberneck and tried to take me via Chelsea but I was victo- rious!) with intricately planned lists of prezzies. Horribly pressed for time, so was less andante than usual. Allegro un poco agitato, in fact. Still, found something rather twee for you — shan't

say what! (Luke Fandon) At noon the ship seemed a blob on the skyline; at three o'clock, having been piloted through the intricately shoaled and sandbanked waters of the

sound, it tied up. After a band played a march in allegro tempo Sam Clemens spoke. 'You expect from me a few jokes, not magniloquent speechifying. Well, in Gibraltar we went to rubberneck at the hairy inhabitants; we didn't understand a word of their simian chatter, and they didn't understand a word of ours.' (Laugh- ter.) 'In the Vatican I asked a guard in a twee uniform to yodel, but he wouldn't; it seems he wasn't Swiss.' (Laughter.) In Greece the revolu- tion unnerved us all; but as I didn't drink so as to bust a bladder and get the jimjams like every- body else did, I award myself zero marks for intelligence.' (Laughter.) 'Three jokes for you, folks, and now I appeal for clemency.' (Laughter and cheers.)

(Stanley Shaw)

The real problem about attempting your first major operation was feeling completely un- nerved by the presence of the regular rubberneck theatre team. Senior Surgeon Hackett, he of the flapping simian ears and all-seeing eyes, was enough to give one serious jimjams . Nurse MacStays, her eyes narrowing under her annoyingly twee red-rimmed glasses, indicated that clemency was running at a premium. `Steady, Tomkins. One is sailing extremely close to the bladder,' Hackett would say in that magniloquent manner. Its all right for him, I thought, as a blob of sweat ran unpleasantly under my face-mask. He can stitch up and yodel in allegro at the same time. Suddenly my intricately woven pattern ruptured before I had a chance to pull it tight. 'Brilliant, Tomkins! Shall we say zero out of ten, Nurse MacStays? For God's sake, give it to me, before we lose the sodding patient!'

(David Oliver)

With his simian features and irreverent wit, my uncle Boris would have made a first-class licensed jester. As it was, he nursed lofty (and predictably doomed) ambitions. In politics, his magniloquent speeches cut no ice with the voters of Scunthorpe; his unorthodox business methods severely tested the clemency of the judiciary; his brief cricketing career ended ignominiously with the tenth 'blob' in as many innings; while, unnerved by the noisy, rubbernecking crowds,

he failed in his attempt to climb the Eiffel Tower blindfold.

Then he entered for the Eurovision Song Contest. His rather twee lederhosen and intri- cately embroidered shirt were no compensation for his sheer inability to yodel. 'Plenty of allegro but not much vivace!' quipped the BBC's commentator. A notoriously weak bladder and an attack of the jirnjams in mid-performance led to yet another early retirement.

The judges' verdict came as no surprise: zero. (Watson Weeks)