SPECTATOR TWIN-TOWN TREASURE HUNT

Set by Caroline Moore

This issue of the Spectator marks the start of the Spectator Twin-Town Treasure Hunt. The competition will last eight weeks and the winners will receive outstanding prizes.

The first prize has been presented by

FRAMLIENGTON

It is 2,000 units in Framlington Monthly Income Fund. At the current offer price of 101.18p, these are worth £2,036. The unit price was up 41 per cent last year. This unit trust also offers a monthly income, paid straight into your bank.

The second prize is a weekend break in Madrid for two, flying from Heathrow, Gatwick or Manchester by Iberia Air Lines and staying within walking distance of the Retiro Park, at the four-star Hotel Velazquez. The prize includes £100 spending money. For a brochure describing the prize and many other holidays arranged by Mundi Color, the specialists in visits to Spain for discerning travellers, phone 01-834 3492.

The third prize is a case of 1979 Louis Roederer champagne donated by El Vino Co Ltd.

Students will have an extra chance to win a special prize of a choice of 10 records or cassettes from the Editions EG catalogue. There will also be many other prizes, including wine and books by Spectator writers.

How to take part

In each issue of the Spectator between now and 28 March, you will be asked to identify two British place-names, (a) and (b); these may include boroughs of London or old villages now absorbed into it. In the final week, the last clue will enable you to decode the answer from the place-names you have collected. As usual, bonus marks will be given for identifying quotations and briefly explaining allusions; but it will be possible to crack the code and reach the final answer without getting all the references. Good luck!

To win you must send in an answer form from each week of the competition with your final solution. The closing date for entries is 18 April. No entries will be opened till then. If several correct and complete answers are received the winner will be decided by lot. The final arbiter is the editor of the Spectator. The competition is not open to employees of the Spectator or their relatives. Important: Please keep the answer form, as you will need to send it in at the end of the competition with the subsequent forms. If you need more space, you may write your answers on plain paper.

MUND1 COLOR

I8 RI4

First clue

a) The place — that gave its name to the politician whose wife was so devoted that she made no sound when her fingers were slammed in a carriage door, in case it should upset her husband and spoil his forthcoming speech.

where the accident-prone artist, whose horse fell down a precipice in Minorca, permanently injuring his lip, and who caught cold copying Raphael in the Vatican, making him permanently deaf, saw the herculean infant who won him 1,500 guineas and a diamond-encrusted gold box from the Empress of Russia and where the politician and editor who claimed (untruthfully) that his parents were Australian and had died in a bush fire was introduced to the Gland Old Man who once cut off half his new fur coat rather than disturb a cat that had gone to sleep upon it.

b) The place — where 'Admiral Puggy Booth', who stopped Sir Thomas Lawrence feeling unhappy by applying a film of lampblack, lived under his real name and fell in love with the sister of a local vicar — but was too shy to propose.

— where, complained a poet,

'Twere wholsomer for mee, that winter did Benight the glory of this place, And that a grave frost did forbid These trees to laugh, and mocke me to my face

— and where the host who wore three pairs of stockings to pad his thin legs and a corset of stiff canvas to support his weak body was visited in his famous Villa by a stream of visitors — including the man who urged his son to save time by taking pages of Horace to read in `the necessary house', and then making them 'a sacrifice to Cloacina'.

Answer form — 1 a) Name Address