COMPETITION

Cueing smoothly

Jaspistos

IN COMPETITION NO. 2025 you were invited to incorporate a dozen given words or phrases (all beginning with q) into an entertaining piece of prose.

I never knew until this week that quark was a sort of cheese — as unfortunately named as the notorious Lymeswold, I should say. I'm still not sure that I know exactly what a quotient is, but I do know, as some of you apparently don't, that it can't mean the same as quota. In a large and talented field the two closest runners- up were Basil Ransome-Davies, who did the business briskly and brightly in 110 words, and Tanya Jones, who raised a smile with a camping scene in Qatar:

Graham, a quondam Boy Scout, indicated a

quadrilateral pit behind him. 'That's the bog?' 'Quasi-bog.'

The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each, and the bonus bottle of The Macallan The Malt Scotch whisky goes to Christopher Greening.

'Queer goings-on indeed,' said the Domestic Bursar, surveying the flawless, undisturbed quadrilateral of turf in the Cloister Court. The quondam Reader in Physics suspended his pro- fessional musings on quotient and quark and gazed at the Provost's body, spatchcocked on the central sundial. 'No use sending for the quack, I suppose?' he murmured queasily. 'The poor fel- low's obviously dead,' put in a passing Latinist. 'Vulnerant omnes, ultima necat — as it says on the plinth there.' The quip was coldly received. 'The important thing is to be on the qui vive for any clues,' said the Senior Tutor, assuming quasi-executive control of the gathering. 'Don't touch anything before the police arrive; they'll soon have the perpetrator safely in quod."Never mind all that nonsense,' said the Bursar. 'We've got to get the place cleaned up before our new benefactor gets here — and he's arriving from Qatar in only 15 minutes.'

(Christopher Greening)

`Dividing tables by waiters', I observed,' should produce an ideal quotient of one.' Our meal was over, but its debris remained, across which Murt stared at me queasily. 'Never much good at tables myself,' he quipped. 'You look a bit queer.' Stomach,' he con- fessed. 'Seeing the doctor shortly.' `Who's your man — Rumble?' That quack!' snorted Murt. 'Wouldn't go near him. Besides, he's a mathematician.'

'Was once,' I corrected. 'Quondam Professor of Geodesy at Hull. Didn't he prove the Earth was a quadrilateral?' 'Claimed to. Quod hardly erat demonstrandum, even in a university. And now a quasi-MD.' Murt's education had been allegedly classical.

'Kept his students on the qui vive, anyhow,' I ventured. 'Doubtless. Then he researched into the quark, I believe, out in Qatar.'

'That's impossible!' I exclaimed. 'Why?' asked Murt indignantly. 'Qatar went independent in 1970. Quarks don't exist in the free state.' 'That's probably why — and when — Rumble gave up maths for medicine,' was Murt's smooth rejoinder. (Godfrey Bullard) You have to be on the qui vive with my friend Quinton. A quondam caterer with a quirky palate, Quinton seeks out obscure eateries with quasi-religious fervour. Last week he took me to some queer Middle Eastern bistro, the Qatar Platter, where quite soon I was staring down at the questionable chefs special. On my plate was

arrayed a formidable grey quadrilateral of inde- terminate game-bird doused in a revolting coulis of quark. 'Quail?' suggested Quinton, smacking his lips; but I, queasily surveying the copious fatty tissue, declared that this was a bird that had once gone 'Quack!' My lame quip was overheard by the querulous maitre d'. 'Is not duck, is vul- ture,' he retorted; 'look at raw neck, hooked beak. How you say? Quod erat demonstrandum!' I suppose it says little for my intelligence quo- tient that, quelling caution, I thereupon reached

for my knife and fork. (Jeremy Lawrence)

'I feel bleeding queer, Doc.' I could see what he was thinking. A typical con, an intelligence quo- tient of barely 70, in quod half his life. 'Middle East flu. No treatment.'

`But I've got catarrh, Doc!' Spelt Q-A-T-A-R, no doubt.' He smiled thinly, pleased with his quip. I picked a louse out of my hair. The doctor looked at me queasily. 'You're quasi-human,' he said. 'Have you had any education at all?' I shrugged, and he drew a figure on his prescrip- tion pad. 'What would you call this?'

`That's a four-sided polygon, or tetragon. You might prefer the word quadrilateral. It's a matter of taste.' The quack (he would doubtless pro- nounce it 'quark') regarded me strangely.

`You should've been more on the qui vive, Doc. I'm an undercover inspector of prisons. Now, about your quondam job here ... "My qu ?"Exactly. You're fired, Daltymple.' (Llewelyn Thomas) 'I have quartered the Levant from Qatar to Qumran,' said Professor Quaternion grandly, 'and our quarry is in sight. We must dig within the quadrilateral determined by these four pyra- mids.'

`But where?' said Ernest.

'Why, at the intersection of the diagonals. As my quondam colleague Einstein would quip, always choose the obvious, nobody else will think of it.'

'Einstein? But surely you're an archaeologist?'

`I spurn such narrow compartments, my boy. Einstein and I spent many happy hours hunting the quark together. Happy days! Today's task, however, depends less upon 10 than upon NQ.'

`NO?

'Nose quotient. Now, on the qui vive, lad, and if anyone appears, give a loud quack. If they catch us, we're in Queer Street.'

'Queer Street?' asked Ernest queasily.

'A stretch in quod perhaps. Or worse.'

`I thought this was all official.'

'More quasi-official. The official in question was rendered — shall we say? — quiescent.'

(Noel Petty)