No. 1254: The winners

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked to describe the features of a very ill-run hotel or boarding-house which a guest should prepare himself for.

A bow to Beachcomber again, who long ago told how a guest at Mrs McGurgle's notorious seaside establishment once nailed a kipper to the underside of a dining-room table and found it in place on his return next year. It was a good entry, marred only by a tendency towards the obvious chewing-gum on the bedpost and crusted mustard. Among the (perfectly legitimate) verse offerings, John Mitchell's opening lines had a good, weary, cynical ring: The old familiar despair: On pillows strands of alien hair; That hardly veiled hotel contempt From which not even the cat's exempt...

Richard Parlour provided a rich Dickensian description of Budgers's (`The dinners is early, but if you has them at half past four it does give a nice long evening. The food ain't too hot, but, as Mrs Budgers always says, it don't pay to scald out your stomich.') and was the honourable runner- up to the winners printed below. Pat Blackford, Nell L. Wregible, Gerry Hamill and Peggy Sandars win £9 each, C. Brownlie and 0. Banfield £5, and A. C. Hannay and J. Beales £2. The bonus bottle of Corton 1964 goes to Pat Blackford.

The taxi-man has never heard of it.

Meals have to be paid for in advance.

The wine waiter recommends the Wincarnis. The chef lunches at the pub down the road. The dressing-table drawers are lined with copies of the Netys Chronicle.

The notice advertising Vacancies is screwed to the front gate.

(Pat Blackford) There is an animated knot of guests around the visitors' book, puzzling over something original to write in the Comments column. The Gideon Bibles are well-thumbed.

Every room boasts an original Tretchikoff. The fire extinguisher is scorched.

There is a collecting box in the front entrance for donations to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children.

There is a pets' section on the menu.

(Nell L. Wregible) The owner is a former sociology lecturer, but this is 'more creative and independent'. The teenage son cooks, very slowly.

Breakfast starts after the first Monday morning train to London.

(C. Brownlie) Psychos in the showers. Creatures in the crudites.

More salmonella than salmon in the mousse.

(0. Banfield) Any guest arriving with luggage is viewed with suspicion.

(J. Beales) Certain lounge chairs are reserved for certain residents.

(A. C. Hannay) • The landlord, rescued from the brink Of ruin, disapproves of drink. This teetotelier will lock The bar up prompt at eight o'clock.

The surly staff will simply hate To serve you dinner after eight. At half past nine the inn lies dead As guests and landlord creep to bed.

Your bedroom whiffs of slight decay, The only loo, two floors away, Takes thirteen pulls before the flush Shatters the grim nocturnal hush.

The dinner's botched from instant spuds And frozen veg and frozen puds And beef that tastes of frozen horse And frozen waits between each course.

But oft disasters yield a boon: Quitting the dump at Friday noon, Unwonted, lightness in your gait Proclaims you've lost a stone in weight.

(Gerry Hamill) Villa Eliot counted two and seventy stenches - Faint stale smells of beer, Smells of steaks in passageways, Those strange synthetic perfumes Of dust and eau-de-Cologne.

And dust in the crevices, And cigarettes in corridors.

Voices singing out of empty cisterns And the drip drop drip drop drop drop Of leaking taps.

The dingy shades in the furnished rooms.

A rat crept softly through the vegetation And bats with baby faces in the violet light Whistled and beat their wings.

And the insistent out of tune voice Of a broken violin on an August afternoon. (Peggy Sandars)