Dirty dozen

Jaspistos

In Competition No. 1763 you were given twelve words and invited to incorporate them, in any order, into a plausible piece of prose.

Because, due to an error, the word applause occurred twice in my list, I would have done better to entitle the comp `Elvish Eleven'. I left it to you whether or not to double the applause.

I am always moved by those enthusiastic horses who attempt to clear three hurdles in almost one jump in this over-the-sticks contest. "'Applause, applause!" cried the Walloon in a falsetto voice as he swung on the transom of the library door' Leigh Hooper began at a fearful pace. And Carolyn Montagh announced sepulchrally `a national tragedy: the Walloon Falsetto Naval choir has been lost at sea'.

In distributing the prizes, I preferred the landlubbers who avoided the obvious marine temptations of naval and transom. I'm sorry, but I felt I had to be strict with the amusing cards who introduced Lope de Vega. The winners, printed below, get £20 each and the double applause plus the bonus bottle of Aberlour Single Malt whisky goes to W. J. Webster.

Any boy Grice found contumacious — a charge impossible to rebut — he would first compel to hang by his fingertips from the transom of the stockroom door. Next, choosing a rod from a replica of the lictoral fasces attached to his desk, he would advance at a steady lope on his dangling victim — Smithers, say — and deliver a single mighty blow to the buttocks. Then he would turn and, using the switch as a baton, elicit applause (applause!) from the class.

`You may sit, Smithers.'

Smithers did not sit.

'Come, boy — sparkle! I've seen more life on a fishmonger's slab.' `Yes, sir.'

`Yes, sir.' Producing the mocking falsetto made his eyes bulge. 'The garnering of your bon Mots, Smithers, would be as otiose as estab- lishing a canon of Walloon naval epics.' `Yes, sir.'

I know not what happened to Smithers. But Gnce, in due course, came into his bishopric. (W. J. Webster) It is otiose to remark,' the leading critic droned, that this picture, "Fleming with Two Dead Walloons", belongs unequivocally within the canon of modern Flemish painting. I would draw Particular attention to the distinctive slab relief technique used for the transom over the door.'

Suddenly a small, egg-headed man, with luxuriant moustaches and a contumacious ex- pression, mounted the platform steps at a quite comical little lope and proceeded to unwrap a second painting. You will note,' he said, 'that this picture, Walloon with Two Dead Flemings", is in essentials indistinguishable from the first; also that all four corpses are wearing braces unmis- takably typical of labourers in the naval dock- Yards of Antwerp. From which I deduce,' he continued, his voice rising to a sudden trium- phant falsetto, 'that the first painting is a malicious replica of this doubtless Walloon original!'

He bowed in satisfied fashion as spontaneous applause resounded through the hall.

(Chris Tingley)

With an odd sort of naval lope he approached me and began addressing me in a falsetto voice, in a language that might have been Walloon for all I knew. The replica, about the size of a large matchbox, consisted of a cardboard transom tilted on two uprights Fixed to a wooden slab. Plonking it on the table, he stood back as if waiting for applause. The Patent Office's canon of rules states that submissions are otiose if unaccompanied by full technical drawings, but when I tried to tell him this he became contuma- cious in the extreme, or so I assumed from his wild gestures and a further raising of his voice. I did not dare tell him that a mouse looking for cheese that wasn't there would be unlikely in its frustration to dislodge the uprights and bring the transom fatally down upon its head. I fear that constant dealing with the Brussels bureaucracy had sent him off his rocker.

(Charles Chadwick) The aged canon's falsetto quavered towards the peroration of his otiose address, a replica of that which he had already given twice before.

`Unless we can raise the sum, this beloved Liege Cathedral will become just another monu- ment. Gentlemen. .

He was interrupted by an eager voice: 'I have a proposal . . . May I . . .?' The lanky stranger began to lope confidently towards the table where, taking permission for granted, he turned to outline his plan.

'I propose we make this cathedral the venue for the 1995 International Bowls Cham- pionships.' Pause for applause. No applause. Instead, an uproar of contumacious objections from the predominantly Walloon assembly. 'Lis- ten', he continued resolutely, conning the build- ing in almost naval fashion. 'This broad, car- peted aisle is ideal for bowling; the mediaeval transom over the West Door could be rigged for TV cameras. And that marble slab by the lectern could hold the trophies . .

(Rodney Burke)

No. 1766: Boheara

This word comes from the decadent world of Firbank's Concerning the Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli, where it is 'the new and fashionable epidemic, diagnosed by the medical faculty as "hyperaesthesia with complications".' You are invited to de- scribe, either in the role of doctor or curious observer, a visit to a modern sufferer. Maximum 150 words. Entries to `Competition No. 1766' by 12 February.