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COMPETITION

Horrid new thing

Jaspistos

IN COMPETITION NO. 1879 you were invited to provide a piece of prose, as if written by a famous author, deploring the advent of some new invention during his or her lifetime.

Jane Austen nervous of the air balloon, Chesterton tilting at Bakelite, Belloc rail- ing at the zip-fastener, P.G. Wodehouse (speaking through Jeeves) aghast at the Corby trouser-press, Pepys unimpressed by a proto-propeller, Evelyn Waugh assailing, literally, the photoflash bulb, Hardy bemoaning the mechanical milking par- lour, Thomas a Becket raising conscien- tious objections to the crossbow . . . I wish your scenarios could have been illustrated by E.C. Bentley. Two of you had Shaw opposing television, yet the old sage actual- ly welcomed it on the grounds that it would make it harder for politicians to tell lies to the public because you could watch their faces. Huh! The prizewinners, printed below, get £20 each, and the bonus bottle of Isle of Jura Single Malt Scotch whisky goes to Paul Griffin.

Oscar Wilde on the typewriter

Nowadays, there seems no limit to the aspira- tions of the lower classes. I understand they have just devised a machine for printing thoughts, by which the products of the brain can instantly be given permanence. This is very well for such as myself, whose thoughts rightly command atten- tion, but how can one pleasurably contemplate a future in which one's less mannerly contempo- raries can claim immortality for their irrele- vances? when even one's servants can, should their lumpish capability extend to the mastery of a keyboard, give an air of importance to their ill- bred trivialities?

It is bad enough to read what is set down in the newspapers, which at least are under a sem-

blance. of control from their noble owners; it is

with faintness that I contemplate an age In which my coal merchant may feel free to demand money in all the presumptuousness of print. ' (Paul Griffin) Queen Victoria on the safety pin The Queen acknowledges Mr W. Hart's Gift of one gross of his Patent 'Safety' Pins for the layette of HRH The Princess Louise, but regrets that she cannot approve the invention, or the introduction into her Realm and Empire, of a device which, from his account, might have been designed to reduce the amount of Useful Employment available to Nursery Maids and to others of the Poorer, Deserving. Classes employment in which it is her Duty to all Her Subjects and Members of Her Former Colonies (as Mr Hart) to be a Good Example! The Queen also fears that this device may be introduced into Adult Female Attire, where it would bring about a Serious Effect upon the business of Sempstresses, and, by reason of its Mechanical Fallibility, be a Serious Hazard of Indelicacy at Balls and Formal Occasions of all sorts! (Alyson Nikiteas) Dr Johnson on the lightning conductor The life of the Colonist is held to be one of hard- ship and humility; but all examples shew that nowhere are Whiggish notions and contumelious wildness more readily fostered. Mr Franklin has devised his Machine from observations made whilst flying kites, an activity rather associated with childhood and Chinamen than the gravity of the Natural Philosopher. By it he pretends positively to subvert Acts of God. This smacks of atheism and strains credulity.

By such means the Nobleman may think safely to increase the height of his lofty Folly and Civic Vanity to erect yet more Towers of Babel, heed- less alike of the Wrath of Heaven. By this device humane awe is obtunded, Nature itself thwarted. A wholesome appreciation of the uncertainty of Mortality is a needful corrective to all: the man who has no terror of Lightning has little but con- tempt for Life. (John E. Cunningham) Gabriel Garcia Marquez on television

If to many it seemed the triumphant dawn of a new age in which the torrid boredom of their endless evenings would be transformed by the new technology, to others it came as an unwel- come surprise, and to those of us unhesitatingly appalled by the threatened intrusion of these crepuscular images, who were long accustomed to hearing the interminable. outpouring of vapid speech without the urgent necessity of looking at the speaker, and who lived at Macondo in the ornate mansions erected in the tranquil years before the revolution, when it was still permitted to import marble from Carrara, the brusque attachment of obtrusive metal rods to our antique roofs would not only have constituted unseemly defacement but would also have served to proclaim our wilful acceptance of a meretricious innovation of which we would have

felt irretrievably ashamed. (Basil Highton) Sir Francis Bacon on the table fork Novelty at the table is like coupling after drink: it commonly affords more labour than delight. And so it is with this snivelling fork newly brought in from Italy and France. Piteous it is to see our mincing gallants now dart and poke at their victuals all ways, like hounds fearful of a quarry at bay. And to what end? To slice with a knife is manly and sure; to lift with a spoon rational and smooth; but to jab with this newfan- gled fork is to truckle to fortune merely, the fick- le points first sticking, then shooting off at a ven- ture, to spatter table and diners alike. Nor, with some of heavier hand, is the peril to cleanliness only. How can a man attend to his meat, when he thinks only to save his cheek from scratching, or fears to take a thrusting prong full in the eye?

(Chris Tingley)

No. 1882: Self-portrait

`Why don't you tell us what you look like?' asked a comper after my recent personal revelations. No, it is the other way round. You are invited to provide a prose self- portrait (maximum 150 words). Naturally, I shall have no idea whether or not they cor- respond to the truth, so the prizes will go to the most vivid and! intriguing ones. Entries to 'Competition No. 1882' by 18 May.