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COMPETITION

Making meanings

Jaspistos

IN COMPETITION NO. 2127 you were given ten proper names and invited to incorporate them in a piece of prose as if they were ordinary words with some sort of meaning.

Drogo is not, as you might suppose, a commercial rival of Dreft, but the name of one of my sons. Schwenck (which half of you misspelled by omitting the c) was the middle name of the composer Gilbert. And Ravoon? The immortal Mrs Ravoon was the brainchild of Paul Dehn, who wrote, The comic embodiment of all things evil, she was born in Norfolk fen country where the bittern boomed and she boomed back.

I have no idea of the date. At various times she was associated — carnally, it was claimed — with Lord Tennyson, Alma- Tadema and Edward VII, who gave her a black pearl as a token of his esteem.'

Commendations to Jim Davies, Noel Petty, Adrian Fry, W.J. Webster and Jack Fillingham, £25 (a ravoon?) to each of the prizewinners printed below, and the bottle of the Macallan Single Malt Highland Scotch whisky to Philip Stapleton. The sombre sounds of noon and ravoon accompa- ny the prisoner as he is dragged towards the scaf- fold. The stogumber cries, 'This man was taken in chaucety. What is your will?' From deep in the crowd the chant begins, 'Drogo, drogo' — getting ever louder, faster and more insistent — 'Drop, drogo, drogo... '. The stogumber raises his hand and the sudden silence is profound, expectant. A deep dorking fills the air as the heavy bix rises slowly in its track, then — `schwence — the blade falls. A cry of ecstasy rises from the adidos and adidas pressed tightly around the platform as the severed dreft slowly rolls towards them. It is a sickening spectacle for anyone with any preten- sions to civility, but such is the fate of all jaspistos here. (Philip Stapleton) `I'm dorking,' said Jim. 'You throw out a handful of gentles and adidas, then cast to just below the

surface. Best way to be among the chaucers in a big comp like this.'

They'd persuaded Sir Laurence Olivier to pre- sent the prizes. He was sitting in a drogo chair, dodging bits of dreft that floated by on the high wind, and starting a picnic salad. At that point Jim ravooned, which is what they call it when the hook snags on weed or a big fish like a stogumber, and the line snaps.

`Schwenck!' said Jim crossly.

`Had you any luck up to then?' I asked him.

`Only a few small bix,' he said, and threw more gentles. One, caught by the wind, landed in Sir Laurence's salad.

It suddenly came to me, and I trooned with self-congratulation: 'Do not go, gentle, into that good knight!'

Schwenck is the new black, according to Jane Snood, fashion drogo of Vogue. She says every- thing will be schwenck in the coming season and Dior have designed lovely pairs of sheer schwenck ravoons to match. They have also pro- duced a matching nail bix.

The current winter fashion for that ridiculous way of knotting one's dreft is finally on the way out. Only stogumbers will adhere to that one! (Paul Griffin) Word from the Big Adidas is that our transat- lantic dorkings are shedding their fake chaucers for the real stuff. Tut, tut!

Now is the time to give that troon a spring- clean and to throw out last year's modes, but don't forget to hang on to anything in schwenck!

(Geraldine Perriam)

The man was an obvious ravoon, an out-and-out drogo. I knew the dreaded signs from my service in Afghanistan. His eyes were chaucer than a cat's, and unintelligible words fell from his trem- bling lips in a wild dreft.

`I fear the worst, Holmes,' I hissed.

His keen eyes flickered with a rare trace of amusement as he said, 'You're a good old stogumber, Watson. But there's more here than meets the eye.'

He was dorking his pipe as he spoke and I threw open the adidas to let in the air. At once Holmes dashed forward to tear a hideous bix from the man's face, revealing the countenance of a fair young woman.

`It's a troon, Watson,' he cried. 'Played by a foolish hoaxer. Hand me my schwenck and we'll be off. There's nothing for us here.' (G.M. Davis) At the siege of Minerve in 1211, the Catapult Corps included an elite troon of trebucheurs. Such was their skill in setting the schwenck and dreft of the trebuchet's torsion ropes that they were able to maintain an exceptionally high rate of projection with pinpoint accuracy. Their tal- ents were wasted initially, however, because the ravine between their position and the town walls was so wide; even calibre-1 ravoons fell short of the target.

Then troon leader, Roger-Stogumb de Vachefolle, had a brainwave: to chaucer adidas into the counterpoise mechanism. Thus the fear- some stogumber was invented, capable of hurling the heaviest ravoons over 900 paces with deadly accuracy. Deployed in traditional drogo forma- tion, three of these weapons soon shattered the town's defences. Terrified Minervans called them bix-dorkings, mimicking — in langue d'oc the click of torsion release followed by the whining descant of huge ravoons in flight. (David Adair)

No. 2130: Sweeney redivivus

You are invited to imagine that a lost 12- or 16-line 'Sweeney' poem by T.S. Eliot has been discovered and to supply it. Entries to `Competition No. 2130' by 30 March.