No 3648 Set by George Cowley
Michael Atherton was quoted recently in the New Statesman: "I don't believe there's anybody who doesn't have a period of self-doubt." We asked for the innermost doubts of someone (alive) in the public eye.
Report by Ms de Meaner
It's true. You're on a roll at the moment. I must confess to a little worry about the self-referential nature of Ian Birchall's entry, but let it into the winners' box in spite of my reservation. Hon menshes to Robin Oakley-Hill for Stephen Hawking, David Barton for "the CEO" of the Millennium Dome and D A Prince for Richard Branson. The winners get £20 and the champagne vouchers go to Michael Cregan. (If you would prefer to let the truth dawn on you slowly, skip the next few lines: the winners picked Gazza, Gordon Brown, Jeffrey Archer and Ms de Meaner.)
Aye-up, Evans lad! Gerrem in, then, seven pints for me mates here, and a large vodka and lime for me! . . . God, what am I doing with this dreary, talentless, ginger-haired twit, and this whole bunch of boozed-up parasites and no-hopers? Doesn't there have to be something better than all this somewhere? . . . Hey, look at this, lads! A set of life-sized plastic boobs! That's reet funny, now, isn't it?! . . . Is it? Are these people really laughing at the sight of the false tits, or at the sad sight of me wearing them? Am I the only real tit around here? . . . So I gave the old lady a bit of a belt to shut her up, like . . . What that means is that I attacked my wife, and am desperately trying to put it in some way that'll sound all right to this lot. And to me as well. Pathetic, really . . . I think I can still get back into the England team . . . I haven't a hope of getting back into the England team. I threw away the greatest talent English football has seen for whole decades, simply because I'm a complete and utter idiot . . . This is great, eh lads?! . . . Oh God . . .
Michael Cregan
Say diesel was the same price as petrol but that public transport say buses were allowed to use two lanes and not one that would be that would be no no say trams trams tram lanes in the inner city that's electric that would be say 38 say 37 and say that hauliers not all hauliers no all hauliers definition of haulier juggernaut size of tyre or engine or say a fixed road tax or no road tax or a device like a tachometer an average fixer that would be 39 even and then the taxis and the tractors go for free or say define a milk float as the highest common factor that's no that's still that's still 38 I've forgotten the ambulances the air-sea rescue say 37 then AA vehicles RAC say licensed emergency vehicles if I no well OK if I were to cut the tax on the pensioners transport say including cars oh God I feel the shivers again say I took away or no gave away or gave away to the buses the fire engines Christ the fire engines exempt exempt then my Budget would be would be say 35 start again . . .
Will Bellenger
What have I taken on? Am I really going to act on stage in a play that I've written? But I can't write, and I can't act. What am I saying? Of course I can write. I'm a bestselling novelist! Yes, but that doesn't mean I can write. But didn't I win the Booker Prize? Well, no. But I was short-listed. No, all right, I wasn't. Never mind. Can I act? During my undergraduate years at Oxford I played many leading roles for OUDS. Er, no, I wasn't even an undergraduate at Oxford. Well, at school at Wellington . . . forget it! Well, I wowed the Tory ladies, raised millions for the party, ate rubber chickens with every appearance of enjoyment. That's a kind of acting. My whole life has been a kind of acting. But not stage acting. Yes, I've been given an Equity card. And I've won five Olivier Best Actor awards. No, four. No. I was the first black woman to play Hamlet. I can produce witnesses. If I can believe it . . . But can I? I wonder if Monica Coughlan . . .
Keith Norman
5 September
Read Derrida in bed for hours, but couldn't sleep. I was staring into the chaos of a postmodernist void.
I began to deconstruct the notion of "competition". Competition is the essence of the free market. But if market forces rule, as they must, what is the role of a judge? Isn't judging a restrictive practice, bringing back the nanny state by the back door?
Melvyn Bragg is right. Why must I choose? Who is to say that Beethoven is better than the Beatles, or Bellenger than Birchall? Why can't we have both?
I thought of that exquisite Gilbert and Sullivan parody, obviously based on a lifetime's study, with its poignant pathos and imaginative humour. Yet I had rejected it for a few minor errors of scansion. I felt as though I had destroyed the Mona Lisa.
I reached for my bedside Bible and opened it at random. "Judge not that ye be not judged," I read. My tormented mind faced the reality of a universe without values, without criteria of judgement. Beethoven or Bellenger? Beatles or Birchall?
6 September
Woke early, took three Prozacs and despatched the champagne vouchers to Bellenger.
Ian Birchall
No 3651 set by Margaret Rogers
We want you to send in believable verses entirely composed of lines from famous poems (you can use songs, if you feel desperate).
How deep is the ocean?
Full fathom five thy father lies
And please specify where each line comes from. Minimum 16 lines and in by 19 October.
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