Competition No 3694

Set by Margaret Rogers on 13 August

Various people have commented that you couldn't make Jeffrey Archer up. We thought our great writers could. You were asked to pick one and send in a sample of their writing.

Report by Ms de Meaner

A larger than average entry, and worth all the hard work reading it. You were generally excellent. Special menshes to Gavin Ross (Sherlock Holmes), Stephen Oliver (Anthony Powell), Adrian Fry (Lewis Carroll), John Crick (Chaucer) and Derek Morgan (Orwell). The winners get £20. The vouchers go to Watson Weeks.

(Chaucer)

A novelist ther was, of sondry whim;

The wayes of men sat lightly upon hym.

Fortunes tweye he made, revels and bokes,

And myrie as the daiespring were his lokes.

He neded nat to lose a goodlie name,

But mette a ladye who was on the game,

And solempnely he did deny their sport

With sundrie tales told before the court.

Much gold he wonne, but ay withouten

doute

Anon the trothe is mightie, and will oute.

Fortune, ywis, hath muchen dong to selle,

This lewed felawe into muchen felle.

In dongeon depe mote he long remaine,

And noon will ay believe his oothe againe.

Peter Lyon

(John Webster)

Enter Antonio and Francisco, reading

a paper

Ant: We have observed him grow to

infinite purchase

The left-hand way, playing a villain's

part.

He personated masculine virtue, found

Rare painted comforts in high

government.

Now those who swallowed him vomit

him up

Into a charnel house of foul decay.

He ran before the gun, poisoned the Truth,

Spat with his lips the inventions of his

brain,

Distinguished not twixt fiction and the

court.

See the corrupted use he made of words -

And now the poor rogue pays for it and

wastes

His empty treasury where Fortune howls,

And, like a politician's rotten bladder,

feeds

Full the black maggots of the daily press.

These caterpillars gnaw on him and drag

His fair wife -

There is discovered behind a traverse

the figure of Lady Archer weeping

Franc: Pity on her.

Her obligation, be it love or marriage,

Hath kept her in the cold sweat of despair.

She catches his lice when they drop from

him.

Hark to me as I speak her sentence too:

When great men fall none do escape their

shame;

They fall with him who also bear his name.

Barbara Daniels

(Evelyn Waugh)

From the monastic austerity of his cell, Lord Archer reflected on the public perception of him as a disgracefully louche character, a reckless adventurer. It was a view that bolstered his self-esteem, for such men, at a crisis in world affairs, were often sent for. His encounter with Destiny could only be a matter of time: the covert release from Feltham; his secret audience with the Queen and his subsequent royal pardon; the summons to Downing Street for a detailed briefing by the Prime Minister and the head of MI6. "You're to be our man in Skopje," he would be told. "You will be dropped at a secret location, from where you will make your way, under cover of darkness, to the capital. There you will register at the Hotel Florina under the name of Belmarsh, and await further orders."

It was now clear that the trial and his prison sentence were part of an elaborate plot by the security services to preserve his cover in Macedonia. As for the schisms and machinations of Balkan politics, these would pose no problem for a former Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party.

Meanwhile, there was his latest work of fiction to complete . . .

Watson Weeks

(Martin Amis)

As the millennial sunset doused the fag end of the city with its murky light, Jeff collapsed back into his harbour pad. Dumping the sweat-soiled manilla stuffed with dog-eared monkeys and rancid ponies on the sofa, he gulped back a Chivas and choked down the first, reefer-length lug on his Havana. His indolent gaze fell briefly upon the Warhol on the wall opposite as his forehead haemorrhaged sweat. Its grinning visage perfectly captured the twisted death rictus of some faded, jaded celebrity. He had 15 minutes to be in court.

He had to stop living like this. He had to stop lying like this. He was all lied out. He was done with the sesquipedalian mendacity, the tall stories, the mile-high fibs, the global porkies, galactic bullshit and universal untruths. And then there were the birds. The speeding taxi to the next kinetic knee-trembler, the expedient ejaculation, the seamy scrabbling for soiled notes and the ensuing and inevitable crying jags, recriminations and threats to dump the whole damn dirty tale down on the desk of every embolism-attending editor on Fleet Street. And that was just Mary.

John West

No 3697 Set by John Crick

Could we have extracts from the diary of the partner of a famous person that alters our view of their character. To avoid repetitions (we've done historical versions of this before) keep your diarist firmly in the 20th century.

Max 200 words, to be in by 13 September

(to appear in issue dated 24 September). E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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