SPECTATOR TWIN-TOWN TREASURE HUNT

Set by Caroline Moore

The first three winners of the eight-week Spectator Twin-Town Treasure Hunt will receive outstanding prizes.

The first prize has been presented by Framlington. It is 2,000 units in Framlington Monthly Income Fund. At the current offer price of 103.9p, these are worth £2,078. The unit price was up 41 per cent last year. This unit trust also offers a monthly income, paid straight into your bank.

The second prize is a weekend break in Madrid for two, flying from Heathrow, Gatwick or Manchester by Iberia Air Lines and staying within walking distance of the Retiro Park, at the four-star Hotel Velazquez. The prize includes £100 spending money. For a brochure describing the prize and many other holidays arranged by Mundi Color, the specialists in visits to Spain for discerning travellers, phone 01-834 3492.

The third prize is a case of 1979 Louis Roederer champagne donated by El Vino Co Ltd.

Students will have an extra chance to win a special prize of a choice of 10 records or cassettes from the Editions EG catalogue. There will also be many other prizes, including wine and books by Spectator writers.

How to take part

In each issue of the Spectator from 7 February to 28 March, competitors are asked to identify two British place-names, (a) and (b); these may include boroughs of London or old villages now absorbed into it. In the final week, the last clue will enable you to decode the answer from the place-names you have collected. As usual, bonus marks will be given for identifying quotations and briefly explaining allusions; but it will be possible to crack the code and reach the final answer without getting all the references. Good luck!

To win you must send in an answer form from each week of the competition with your final solution. Back numbers are available from the Spectator at £1.35, including postage. The closing date for entries is 18 April. No entries will be opened till then. If several correct and complete answers are received the winner will be decided by lot. The final arbiter is the editor of the Spectator. The competition is not open to employees of the Spectator or their relatives. Important: Please keep the answer form, as you will need to send it in at the end of the competition with the subsequent forms. If you need more space, you may write your answers on plain paper.

Third clue

a) The place — where 'The Charming Brute' (the title of a cartoon drawn by an artist who was invited to a miserably frugal dinner by this man, but caught him secretly hogging burgundy in the next room) quarrelled in his blind old age with his friend and factotum Mr Smith.

— where a monk with one hand frightened the schoolboy with a broken nose whose wife, in later life, flung herself overboard from the water-closet of a Cork-bound steamer, and spent 20 minutes bobbing in the water before she was spotted.

— where the bedroom-hopping minister, who barged into the wrong bedroom in Windsor Castle, went on holiday with the mistress with whom he enjoyed a long and mutually unfaithful liaison (she took after her mother, who liked to be painted wearing a choker, giving rise to the rumour that this was to hide the marks of her husband's strangling hands).

b) The place where William lived: the boy that was the reluctant bridegroom who got married 'as a very doubtful experiment', and broke his glum silence at the wedding breakfast only by muttering, as he recoiled from the blancmange, 'Ugh, congealed bridesmaid!'

— of education attended by the Irish-born sage who later played a prominent role in promoting the fantastic project of a mispelled prophet (tested in the hot water of a Prime Minister's bath. The Prime Minister was convinced, but nearly killed by a further demonstrations in Quebec).

that shares its name with the street that provided the first London lodging of the man who conducted the experiment of crucifying the still-warm body of a hanged murderer to take a plaster cast of the muscles (helped by a sculptor who was accused of high treason, and became old overnight upon discovering his real age).

Answer form — 3 a)

Name Address