COMPETITION

Apt A's artful aid

Jaspistos

I. n Competition No. 1447 you were in- vited to produce a dialogue in prose in which each speaker uses heavy alliteration, the letter overworked varying in each speech..

The quotation from which I took my title, which I'd always thought to be from Pope, turns out to belong to Charles Churchill. The idea of alliterating in prose was suggested by my friend Gerard Clancy, who swears that in a romantic turn-of-the- century novel written by the wife of a Northern Irish customs officer there is a sentence describing the hero trying to decide whether or not to open someone else's letter: 'Poised on the penultimate precipice of penetration, Peregrine pon- dered.' It looks damned fishy to me. To continue the metaphor, you rose nobly to the bait, especially Sammy Dee (with a conversation between Piscator and Vena- tor), M. G. Mercer and Sid Field, whose brilliant but slightly boring tour de force featured only words beginning with the relevant letter. I also enjoyed George Moor's two old buffers:

A: Bronte bin-liners! Beethoven bed-pans!

B: Mozart mouth-wash, mothballs and mouse-traps! A: Turner toilet-rolls! These travesties are a true testimony to the triviality and tasteless- ness of the times.

The winners printed below get a well- deserved £10 each, and the bonus bottle of Ferreira Late Bottled Vintage Port, don- ated by Stowells of Chelsea, goes to Keith Norman for the aptest and most artful of all the alliterations.

A: Beastly bad business about that bounder, the bod that bangs out all those best-selling books. Buying off the bint was a bit of a blunder.

B: Sheer stupidity. Still, it seems slightly steep sacking the silly so-and-so for such a small slip.

A: Disagree. Damned disgrace. Dragged us all into disrepute. Definitely deserved to be drum- med out, dismissed with dishonour.

B: Piffle! People are prepared for plenty of disrepute in party politics. No, it was poetic justice, I presume. Punished for his puerile plots, perhaps. Or possibly paying the penalty for his plodding prose. A perfect peripeteia, practically predicted by his own pen. A: Absolutely. The ass actually asked for it. Almost admitted as much afterwards. Absented himself anyway.

B: Virtue victorious, and vice and villainy vanquished. Very Victorian! A: I feel you're forgetting, my fine fellow, the force of one final fact, the failing few can forgive, the fatal fault: the fool(wKaesitfh Norman) Wendy: Wendy: Whatever is everyone wearing when Winifred weds the world's wettest wimp Wednesday week? Mandy: That man makes me mad. Much more materialistic than merely miserably wimpish. Manifestly money-motivated. Marrying him seems a most monumental mistake.

Susie: Somewhat surprisingly she still seems slavishly smitten. So Cecily says she'll settle for last season's St Laurent satin suit, step-sister's sable stole plus saucy cloche from a Sloane Street shop's summer sale.

Fanny: Freakish festive fodder Winifred's fat freckled friend, Flora, informs me. Finger-food, frightfully foreign — frogs' legs, fondues and friandises.

Susie: Seen her pressies? Some super stuff she's received. Apostle spoons, salvers. Silver she asked for — so we sent six stylishly chased second-hand salt-tellers . . .

Fanny: (from 'phone) . . . Fatal fiasco! No

further fussing. Winifred's family phoning. The fiance flew off to Florida on Friday with Flora. Winifred's frantic, she affirms he fancies her false friend's fat fortune.

Wendy: Well, Winnie would, wouldn't she, what?

(Monica G. Ribon) Serpent: Evening, Eve. Excellent edibles every- where, encouraging Eden-dwellers to eat. Ergo.. .

Eve: Forbear, friend. Forbidden fruit! Father feels his family unfitted for fact-finding food. Be forewarned — a fearful fate follows.

Serpent: Bosh, baby. Be bold, be brainy, be bacchanal! Bite it and be blowed!

Eve: Absolutely appetising, agreed. Alas! act- ions anticipating Adam's anger are asinine. Alternatively, artful arguments might allure Adam into amorous agreement.

(Enter Adam) Eve: Darling, do digest this delightful delicacy. ICS divine!

Adam: Idiot! I'm incalculably incensed at this indefensible insubordination!

Eve: The serpent's suggestion — such a sensible snake. Sample a section, sweetie, it's simply scrumptious!

Adam: Well . . . wow! Wonderful! What a worthy wife. What wisdom we've won! But we want wardrobes. What shall we wear? Eve: Vestigial vegetable veils?

God: Adam! Absent? Appear, answer!

Adam: Sorry, Sir. Shame sent us scurrying into the scrub. Seduced by the subtle serpent, she succumbed, supplied self . . .

God: Pity. I pronounce Paradise prohibited, pioneering perspiratory, parturition painful.

(Mary Holtby) MP: I respectfully request that the Report on Resource Re-allocation be referred to the re- levant regional representatives.

Minister: Careful consideration by City and County Councils culminated in considerable conformity with the chief conclusions of the Central Co-ordinating Committee.

MP: Nonsense. Neither Norwich nor North- ampton nor Nottingham agreed and the negative nature of the negotiations nullified nearly all normal national negotiating procedures.

Minister: The majority of members managed to agree most major and many minor matters. Minimal modifications made mainly as a means of maintaining maximum management effic- iency merely make this measure materially more appropriate to the maladjustments Ministers were minded to minimise.

MP: I disagree. Devon, Darlington, Dover and Derby all demonstrated a degree of disappoint- ment with the devious, dubious and downright dishonest disbursements decided upon during the deliberations, which were doubtfully demo- cratic but definitely distinguished by delay. deceit and decrepitude. (

Douglas: How's Hilary, Henry? YouLvTeirnhes:rn)

heard from her, I hope?

Henry: She sells sea-shells on the seashore. Douglas: You mean she muddles along manfully marketing marine molluscs like some middle- class Molly Malone? That's monstrous!

Henry (laconically): She likes the life. Douglas: What a waste! Why would a well- educated woman want to wind up working with winkles and whelks?

Henry: She figures a fortune's to be found in the fast food franchise field.

Douglas: So damn near a decade of diligent endeavour goes down the drain!

Henry: Elitist education's no easy option in the Eighties. I envy her effortless entrepreneurial elan.

Douglas: I'm shocked by her shameless shilly- shallying! She should shelve this selfish shellfish- selling charade and shape up!

(Felix Stowe)