COMPETITION

No. 597: Singalong

Set by Joyce Johnson: In giving pro- grammes, the Radio Times now runs song titles on to each other in a single paragraph, e.g. '0 care, thou wilt despatch me; Death bath deprived me On the plains As Vesta was from Latmos Hill descending'. Competitors are invited to submit similar paragraphs giv- ing items from an imaginary programme (instrumental and/or vocal compositions) which make sense when read out. Alterations to punctuation only will be allowed. Max- imum 10 words; entries, marked 'Com- petition No. 597', by 3 April.

No. 594: The winners

Trevor Grove reports: A publisher's ad- vertisement is currently plugging a new novel by suggesting that 'If you've ever wondered what the end result would be if Mary McCarthy and Jacqueline Susann were marooned together for nine months on a desert island with Philip Roth, then here's your chance to find out . . .' Com- petitors, invited to imagine for us just what life might be like for the principals in this rather fraught ménage a trois, came up with some not unreasonable suggestions. Sadly, and despite Mr Roth's presence on the island, wit was in short supply, though asterisks abounded. Four guineas to one of the better entries, from Adam Khan: SUSANN WS to be about a desert isle, and real sexy. Right?

MCCARTHY Our collaborative sexy whole must be greater than the sum of our separate sexy parts.

ROTH So it'll have more varieties of more sex than Love Machine, Group and Portnoy combined.

SUsANN Start with this Girl Crusoe. Beautiful. Experienced.. Marooned.

mccAtentv Honours Graduate.

ROTH Having an affair with a tree.

susANN Or a goat?

mccsa-ruy Until Boy Friday comes.

stissm He teaches her 117 Melanesian mutations.

mcCARTHY She teaches him metaphysics and self-doubt.

Rolm More Natives arrive; or sex-starved mutineers?

sustisiN Girl raped continuously for 200 pages.

ROTH Friday likewise.

mcCARTHY Happy ending. US Marines arrive.

ROTH Orgy. Girl marries Lootenant. Friday enters Harvard ...

Martin Fagg submitted a-meaty entry; J. M. Crooks's extract from The Vassar Dolls' Coin plaint was a sp:cy read but unfortun- ately had nothing to do with desert islands. Mentions also to Fergus Porter and T. L. Roy; but the only other prize—also four guineas—goes to Martin Folkard:

'Well, Mary had been determined to see it through, and then she was breathlessly giv- ing birth to a miniature Philip. My God was I glad I was able to self-abort: though the tablets holy mary had shoved down her half- Irish throat should make the brat the first natural born junkie.

All the while Philip was strutting about in those ridiculous thigh-length boots with that morose look about him. He must have been high the night he had Mary, taking turn about with the whip, sucking purple hearts, and singing "America it is of thee"1

Still a girl must keep going as best she can. Now where are those damned aspirin.'