COMPETITION

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Jaspistos

IN Competition No. 1513 you were asked for a plausible piece of prose in which the following non-existent words appear to have some meaning: Dawlish, perzundle, gradge, gandoon, Vipidex, moonjack, mindulate, vobster, ploidily, chob.

At least I assume they are non-existent, since not one of 170 competitors accused me of smuggling in a dialect word. Dawlish of course is a town in Devon, and Vobster, not so of course, is a village in Somerset. How careful one must be I learnt when I congratulated Auden on what I took to be the neologisms in his 'the baltering torrent Shrunk to a soodling thread' only to be told that they were old Derbyshire words. The best entries are so good that after commending Timothy West, D. R. Mead, Keith Norman, Peter Norman, Tony Joseph and Gareth Jones I step aside for the winners, who get £15 each. The bonus bottle of White Horse Whisky, presented by United Distillers Group, goes to Rudolph Floyd.

(Enter DUKE and OBLONG separately.) DUKE: How now, excellent knave; what means this perzundle? OBLONG: Gradge not me, my noble Duke. The moonjack is not himself today, and waits on nought but his own caprice. DUKE: I'll have him whipped i' the' vobster. Knows he not the Vipidex is come this night? OBLONG: If I might mindulate, my Lord, the moonjack is not the author of his wrong; a rheum hath troubled him and doth infect that part of him where reason would prevail. For 'tis- DUKE: Enough of your dawlish prattle, scur- rying eloquence! But thou hast spoken true. When from ourselves our spirits take their leave, then of us fate our judgment doth relieve. OBLONG: Indeed, my liege, there lies the chob. Not of your most noble self will it be told that temperance and mercy wanted dominion. DUKE: Ploidily put, my wily counsellor. Thou know'st the way my wrath to cool. But soft: the Vipidex! Ho! Ope the gates, and bring forth our

gandoon! (Rudolph Floyd) Casterbridge greeted Lady Honoria's passing with its usual grim gaiety.

'I mind when she were a mere maidy,' remembered Mrs Cuxwm. 'Right gradge and flighty she were — as vain and dawlish as tarnation.'

'With looks enough to perzundle any lad's wits,' put in Solomon Longways. `Lawd, 'ow she did mindulate 'ern! Yer most conceited London dandy became the veriest vobster — as chob as a gravestone — afore she'd done wi' tormentula- tin' and tantalisin"im.'

'But a 'got paid out when a' married Sir Peregrine;' added Mrs Cuxsom. `Ah, poor heart — what a gandoon he led 'er! I was at St Vipidex forty-nine year ago the day they wed.'

'Gad, but I was too,' said Solomon Longways. 'How blithely and ploidily she trod that aisle.'

'And now they'll carry 'er down that aisle shut in a box', answered Mrs Cuxsom. `Ah, poor soul, it's all moonjack to 'er now.'

(Martin Fagg) The slight, dawlish figure of Senor Luis Penroz, the Brazilian-born fishmonger at the centre of the Vipidex row, looked distinctly forlorn yesterday outside his shop on Luton's rain-swept High Street.

'Basically, I'm the victim of a giant perzun- dle,' he said, ploidily. 'If only the Seafood Marketing Board would give a lead, but they seem to mindulate the rules daily.'

Senor Penroz's troubles began when an analy- tical customer found traces of Vipidex (V-1278) in his smoked chob. Chob, or moonjack, is a delicacy in Rio. 'You eat it at Carnival time with pineapple and fresh gandoon leaves,' explains Penroz. 'The additive simply stops it going brown. Now the SMB are saying I need a gradge licence. What do they think I am, a vobster or something?'

V-1278 has been outlawed by the EEC since 1984, when a French farmer over-indulged and suffered agonising pains in the Massif Central.

(Simon Townley) He had been such a lovely moonjack of a child. It was difficult now for her to pinpoint exactly when his charm had begun to mindulate; when the dawlish moods had become habitual; when she realised the joyous gandoon had ploidily, and perhaps irretrievably, turned into a chob. His bedroom symbolised it all — a malodorous perzundle of squalor, with rude graffiti the only indication of human occupation, for even the discarded garments piled on the floor could have been sloughed-off skins. He would be furious that she had used his absence to gradge his territory, but if he was not to become a complete vobster, something must be done, and she would start with the room. Her first act would be to Vipidex the writing on the wall.

(Helen Mason) 'Pray continue, ma'am,' said Sherlock Holmes. 'With this gentleman present. .?'

'Have no fear — I am a doctor,' I said with a dawlish grin as my gaze rested on her gandoons.

She resumed the account of her harrowing ordeal, sipping the 120-proof gradge Holmes had poured her.

'He made me look at his chob. .

The cad!' I interjected.

`. . . which. . . was still in its vobster — but only just. There was no escape, Mr Holmes. I said, "If you must mindulate then go ahead — but not without a Vipidex." ' 'You poor, brave gel,' I murmured, smoo- thing my perzundle.

'You have ensured the succession of the most illustrious royal house in Europe,' said Holmes, 'and your noble deed shall not go unrewarded.'

What had been a barely noticeable upsurg- ence about my friend's person was ploidily growing. I knew then that in a matter of seconds the great detective's moonjack would be out of