1.:6t RLOti*

PUSS NIGILAND MALT

SCOTCH WHISKY

COMPETITION

PURE HIGHLAND MALT

Filthy dozen

Jaspistos

In Competition No. 1732 you were in- vited to incorporate 12 words, in any order, in a plausible piece of prose.

I mentioned no word-limit, thinking (wrongly, as it turned out) that even the best of you might need an extra 10 or 20 words for a stiff challenge. Alas, a few interpreted my silence as a licence for 300-word short stories. Banjo gave rise to several Patersons and Formbys (or looka- likes), Nebuchadnezzar was a popular gra- minivore, and there was a pushy Greek called Aristotle Halitosis. I enjoyed David Saunders's 'Dietrich lookalike of seven decades ago': "Even in my dotage, I have to keep up my dosage," she sang, genteelly but manifestly sloshed.' Another pleasure- giver was Brian J. Wheeler's survival course, in which 'the rules stipulated that participants must become graminivorous, but the daily dosage of grass caused perni- cious flatulence and perpetual halitosis'. Quite the manner of Dr Johnson, eh?

Other sparklers were Ian Hunter, Stan- ley Shaw, 0. Smith and Gerard Benson. The money-winners, printed below, take £20 each, and the bonus bottle of Aberlour Single Malt whisky is on its way to the deserving Chris Tingley.

The Queen was looking lovely but impenetr- able, like a houri with a chastity belt.

'Is this my royal husband Nebuchadnezzar,' she inquired sweetly, 'or a graminivorous looka- like?'

The court physician appeared to flounder.

'We're foxed, frankly,' he admitted at last. 'We've tried ninety-one forms of incantation' — he indicated a sorcerer chanting te a kind of primitive banjo — 'and I've tripled the dosage of sheep's droppings in honey. Nothing seems to work.'

'Well, show some bloody initiative then!' the Queen snapped, speaking less genteelly now. 'He'll be topping himself if this goes on. Where's Daniel? That religious fad of his should be good for something. Get him here to help.' 'A difficult man to approach, Your Majesty.' the physician said stiffly.

'Why's that?' demanded the Queen.

'Halitosis,' muttered the physician. 'Even Ow lions won't go near him.'

(Chris Tingley) When my hour is come my houri will be waiting. She will be unique — no sex-symbol lookalike

for me; neither nineteen nor ninety-one, she will be ageless; she will find my banjo compositions topping and sing and dance; she will not notice my halitosis. She will cook the small flounder that I caught and make a banquet of it. She will not think it an embarrassing fad that I like nurses, but dress in starched uniform and sternly administer the daily dosage — ambrosia in this case. If! mislay a reference she won't be foxed for a minute. She will be genteelly seductive and crudely provocative by turns. She will cost nothing to keep, being graminivorous.

(Mortimer Spreader)

A Friend writes: Tommy 'Flounder' Ffyshe was well-known between the wars for his topping Minstrel Quartet. He played lead banjo at many a Society ball. A case of mistaken identity with a lookalike adulterer compelled him to flee to Turkey, where he married a houri, a union much frowned upon in those genteelly correct days.

On the outbreak of World War II, Tommy returned to England and worked for British Intelligence. He foxed the Nazis with his bril- liant deception, code-named Operation Halito- sis, doctoring bottles of champagne via the Resistance with a liberal dosage of garlic juice. Shipped to Berlin for consumption by officers confined to stuffy bunkers, the resultant de- moralisation is said to have shortened the war by months.

Knighted in 1973, Tommy retired to East

Sussex where he started the fad for a gramini- vorous diet by recycling grass cuttings for the popular `Gramburgee. He died aged ninety-one. (Valerie Given) Uncle Frederick, not content to zimmer genteel- ly into the sunset, had professed love for Eustacia Bissett, oldest resident of the 'Happy Endings' retirement home. Despite his ninety- one years, halitosis, and face like a disgruntled flounder, love's dart had pierced my uncle and I was foxed by it: and so, I feared, were my hopes of an inheritance. I prayed for his affection to be a mere fad caused, perhaps, by a reduction in his tranquilliser dosage. 'Think of the pain that women cause, Uncle!' I pleaded, referring to Frederick's one unhappy engagement to a suf- fragette of radical, practically graminivorous, vegetarian views, who had been imprisoned for assaulting the Home Secretary with a banjo.

'My lovely houri, Eustacia, is different,' he smiled. 'Just look at her, Hubert!'

So I looked down on the smiling Margaret Rutherford lookalike and, as she raised her champagne glass to me, felt like topping myself. (David Harris) Smith wondered again how he had let himself be foxed by the genteelly dressed old lady, a Queen Victoria lookalike, into buying the village shop. She claimed that the shop, selling everything from a banjo to a beanbag, had been making a large profit for her family, for the past ninety-one years. It seemed such a topping investment, but almost at once it began to flounder financially. Searching desperately for some way to stave off bankruptcy, Smith suddenly remembered a fact from his childhood on his father's farm. All graminivorous animals had sweet breath. Surely it would be possible to compress grass into pills and take advantage of the present fad for all things green, and the fear of the slightest hint of halitosis. A good advertising campaign and a box with a cover depicting a scantily clad houri, conjuring up magical oriental scents, selling at £5 and containing 30 pills, with a suggested dosage of five per day, shoud make a fortune.

(J. Hennigan)