COMPETITION

A sideways look

Jaspistos

In Competition No. 1573 you were asked for an extract from a humorous essay by Wallace Arnold entitled 'A Sideways Look at the Fairer Sex'. Somewhere in this country, I suppose, there lurks a man really called Wallace Arnold, at a loss to understand why his ,name should be regarded as inherently ludicrous. I once knew a girl called April Kirby who couldn't see this particular joke, but then, as Wallace himself would say, some folk are notoriously short on the old organ of humour. In the London Tele- Phone Directory, among the nine candi- dates listed as Arnold W. my instinct plumps for the one who lives in Cuckoo Hall Lane.

It's hard to parody a caricaturist, which Is probably why good entries were scarce. The best runner-up was Brian Ruth, who started better than he finished: 'When my old friend Salman Rushdie asked, as we drank rank Rioja in his Ealing hide-out, why I had never used my unquestioned literary Powers to craft a biography of Margaret

Thatcher's early years, I reminded him of the dangers that attend those who draw on sensitive material . . .' The winners printed below take £15 each, and the bonus bottle of Rioja 1973 Gran Zaco Reserva, pre- sented by Becket Drake Ferrier Moseley, 57-59 Neal St, London WC2, goes to Stanley J. Sharpless.

Unbelievably shy as a lad, I was well into my

twenties before I dared to venture more than a sideways look at the fairer sex. (Not for nothing, I fear, was I dubbed Wally Arnold). This revelation will doubtless come as a shock to certain quarters in Soho, where I have long enjoyed the reputation of being a man of the world and a bit of a gay dog, to boot. (Gay in the sense of chirpy and mirthful). Mind you, my list of conquests has never been anything to write home about — indeed, writing home about them has never entered my head. Nevertheless, I must confess that one of my proudest moments occurred during a local court case — no space for details here — when the examining magis- trate referred to me as 'the notorious Lothario of Upper Lewisham'.

The Fairer Sex has always seemed a puzzling misnomer. Women have seldom been fair to me. I quizzed my old friend Mr Naim Attallah, whose encyclopaedic knowledge of ladies is legendary, but he merely flashed a wily oriental smile. Anna Ford, an old sparring-partner, was next. As author of a weighty tome on the unfairer sex, could she perhaps elucidate? The large glass of Macon Villages seemed to quiver in her hand, but I left with suit and ignorance (Stanley J. Sharpless)

both intact. Faced with this reticence from acknowledged experts, I have begun my own investigative study, 'The Fairer Sex: The Facts'. I have negotiated no firm contract yet, but it seems right up Faber & Faber's street. If young Robert MeCrum is reading this with his usual boyish enthusiasm, he may contact me via The Spectator. In the meantime, I am off to gate- crash a Townswomen's Guild meeting, for research purposes.

(Peter Norman)

There has never been a single woman in the clan of Arnold, I am duty-bound to report, who was unmarried. Many of my more devoted readers will be grateful, doubtless, for the intelligence that the greater proportion were female to boot. Nevertheless, my forebears on the distaff of the family (and the under-staff, too, in more riotous times) probably included examples of the mod- ern harridan who complains about my use of language. One does one's best to forswear violent oaths, as 'Both' the bowler and latter- day Hannibal was agreeing last week, but apparently I am responsible for gratuitous in- nuendo. I may be mistaken, but if so I like to call a boob a boob, and my imagination wanders when I read Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome. The Sabine tendency, however, reads into my

innocent banter a fell plan to poke a bit of fun at — or with them. (Lene W. Bellgirl)

Sigmund Freud—whose parlour-maid I remem- ber when she worked for my mother — asked what woman wants. What indeed! The other day I sat near a tea-tableful of mature ladies who, perhaps excited by the proximity of a not- unknown scribe, shrilly made plain that what they wanted changed by the minute.

At one moment the large blonde required more scones and jam, at the next she wished to be the Sixties' Twiggy — with whom (and Frank [field) I once shared a gondola. Her desires were incompatible. I might have been forgiven for thinking, 'There is no pleasing a woman.'

That I would have been wrong was proven when one of her companions told the blonde she could 'risk another cream bun' as she was looking 'slim as anything'; so that the lady was able to have her cake and eat it; by first swallowing a big, white lie!

(Margaret Rogers) It is, of course, literary women upon whom I have had the greatest influence. Would Antonia have brought her subjects so vividly to life without a suggestion here and there? Although I have always insisted that my name should not

appear when it came to a vote of thanks, it was Bron writing in the Daily Mail who remarked: 'It is not possible to fully comprehend how one Englishman can burn or cut off the head of another Englishman until one has spoken to Wallace Arnold.' Is it also a coincidence, one wonders, that so many female writers of roman- tic fiction have met yours truly before develop- ing their most believable heroic figures? I think not.

Yet the question begs, has Wallace Arnold ever considered marriage? I will answer with a question. Is it possible, indeed just, for one so universally admired to shatter the hopes, and break the hearts, of so many? (Nicholas Alexander)