"Spectator" Competitions

RULES AND CONDITIONS

Entries must be typed or very clearly written on one aide of the paper only. The name and address, or pseudonym, of the competitor must be on each entry and not on a separate sheet. When a word limit is set words must be counted and the number given. No entries can be returned. Prizes may be divided at the discretion of the judge, or withheld if no entry reaches the required standard. The judge reserves the right to print or quote from any entry. The judge's decision is final, and no correspondence can be entered into on tho subject of the award. Entries must be addressed to :—The Editor, the Spectator, 99 Gower Street,

London, W.C. 1, and be marked on the envelope Competition No. (—).

Competition No. 32 (Set by " DUGLI.") A PRIZE of £2 2s. is offered for a paragraph made up as far as possible of the names of English newspaperS, reviews and magazines. (Example : " these are- bad shooting times' said an observer of the black woods . .* .") The newspapers, &e., must be in general circulation. The prize will not necessarily go to the paragraph with the greatest number of names, but to the one in which they are used with the greatest ingenuity. Paragraphs must not exceed two hundred and fifty words in length. There is a list of the principal newspapers, &c., io.

Whitaker's Almanack. - - -

Entries must be received not .later than Monday, November 23rd, 1931. The result of this competition will appear in our issue of December 5th.

Competition No. 33 (SET BY " CARD.") A PRIZE of £2 2s. is offered for the best entry of five suggestions which, if adopted, would contribute to the organization of a better world.

Entries must be received not later than Monday, November 30th, 1931. The result of this competition will appear in our issue of December 12th.

The result of Co:nptitiDn Na. 31 will appear in our next issue.

Limerick Competition No. 3

A PRIZE of LI ls. is offered each week for a new and original _English Limerick verse on some subject dealt with in the current number of the Spectator. The third of these competitions closes on Monday, November 30th. Entries should be marked on the envelope " Limerick No. 3."

The result of the first of these competitions will be announced in our next issue.

Report of Competition No. 3o

(REPORT AND AWARD BY " D COLL')

IT was assumed that a reader of the Spectator and his wife who lived in London, had planned a fortnight's holiday abroad this whiter and were to have taken with them their two schoolboy sons and their daughter, aged twenty-one. They wrote to ask advice as to how they should spend the same holiday in the British Isles. A prize of £3 3s. was offered for a letter written in reply, not to exceed three hundred and fifty words.

Too many competitors seem to have forgotten that, their correspondents were English people, living in London, and imagined that they would need to be told about the varieties of climate to be found in Great Britain and the best way of getting about the country. Others wasted a large part of their word limit in laments for the lost joys of Switzerland or the Riviera. Some letters read suspiciously like the first page of the Municipality's Guide to Our Town, or the itinerary of a tour through Britain arranged for a foreign Mayor, while one entry consisted of a list of all the things that the competitor dislikes in English hotels ! There were, in short, very- feri, practical entries.

The majority of competitors thought Scotland the best place for a winter's holiday. Ireland did not have a single advocate ! 3. F. Henderson is the best of those who recommended Edin- burgh. " The difference in size from London obviates any feeling of having exchanged one city for another," he says. Miss Rosa Vine writes pleasantly in favour of the New Forest. R. E. B., in an excellent letter on Cornwall, advises" his corre- spondents "not to go to Scotland, the Lakes or anywhere in any way approaching an imitation of Switzerland, :where,-I• believe; yob intended to go. The .mountains will seem to you tame, the snow-clad slopes you will see only through a" skier eye; lamenting the stones beneath." The above three com- .petitors are Highly Commended., • A first prize of £2 2s. is awarded to "WANDERER, " for the sort of letter that would really have answered the Spectator reader's question. A second prize of £1 ls. goes to W. G.

THE FIRST PRIZE LETTER.

DEAR MR. LECTOR,—I am interested to hear you wish to spend your fortnight's holiday in Britain this -Christmas rather than farther afield, and I have no hesitation in strongly recommending the Scottish Highlands. No holiday could be more suitable for a mixed party. I am writing, of course,. with a view to the fact that while you and your wife quite enjoy skating, sleighing, &c., a very important point is the comfort of your hotel. There are several places; such as Braemar, Balloter, Pitlochry, Aviemoro and Grantown, which have excellent hotels open, of the most comfortable type and which would, no doubt, be ready to meet you as to prices for this family, and you will effebt a considerable saving in railway tickets, luggage expenses and ['axe de sijour by wintering here. I have mentioned the higher localities, as anywhere above five hundred feet you would be fairly sure of good skating and curling and probably ski-ing. The great advantage about Scotland as compared to Swiss resorts is that you are not entirely dependent for your enjoyment on frosty conditions. True, the sun is not so hot, but let me remind you, as paterfamilias, of that terrible year when you went to winter sports and seven of your fifteen days you got no ski-ing, nor skating even ! What a strain on the boys' tempers were the long hours in the over-heated hotel after a tramp on a slushy high road ! At least in Scotland in a thaw there is always golf and climbs on the hills and much interesting animal life to study when the deer are at their tamest and one may put. up snowy ptarmigan or an eagle in one's walk. Then, when the short day draws in, there is real comfort and roaring log-fires to greet one, with bridge, games and informal dancing for Mary. And last, but not least—going or coming—there is no Channel

crossing !—Yours ever, " WANDERER."

THE SECOND PRIZE LETTER.

MY DEAR X. ,—Although I am perfectly well aware that nothing I can say will prevent you from wasting a fortnight at some South Coast resort, where the visitors, in the intervals of discussing cut- and-dried politics, spend their time in enunciating the modern equivalents of prunes and prisms, yet I cannot deny myself the satisfaction of pointing out that you will miss the pleasure of n fortnight's holiday in a place which can give any part of the Continent points and a beating.

Co to Chester ! It is not, and (I trust) never will be, a holiday

resort. Neither nobs nor mobs nor snobs resort there. But the climate is that of the island valley of Avilion, the Dee is as noble as the Rhine, and infinitely more picturesque than the Rhone or the Seine, and the cathedral, if it is not as big as Cologne, is a pleasant, waistcoat-pocket kind of cathedral, with an organ which frequently produces real music. The amphitheatre is more exciting than the Coliseum (because you can only see a bit of it), the Rows are as quaint as Nfirnberg, and the Walls are as large as life and more realistic even than Aigues Mertes. (Besides, they do not smell so.)

You will take the car, of course. The boys will find Beeston

Castle more romantic than any German Schloss, and Moreton Old Hall:more beautiful than any French chateau. Give them the story of the siege of Nantwich to read, and then take them there. Joan likes music, I know, as well as dancing. She can go to Manchester (it is not much more than a atone's throw) and hear the Halle orchestra—a bas the Queen's Hall !—and dance at the Midland conepuez the Grand Babylon !—as soon at she gets rid of In superiority complex, which should not take her long.

You and your wife, I suppose, will want to climb mountainn. Well, there are a goodish few in North Wales. • And now go and be bored on the South Coast.—Yours, IV. t