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Competition No 3701

Following the Guardian's apology for its misprint, referring to the Campaign Against the Arts Trade, we were inspired to ask for statements and aims.

Report by Ms de Meaner

I was particularly diverted by your many acronyms, which ranged from CART, CATAT, CampArT, CAARRTic, CAAT, CARTA, CAARTT, to the most endearing of all, CATS. A truly excellent batch of entries. Hon menshes to Watson Weeks ("Within the next week, Tracey Emin's bed will be properly made"), John O'Byrne ("Call a halt to this immoral trade: people are dying of boredom as we speak"), Michael Cregan ("Young, impressionable children are being encouraged to visit an 'art gallery' instead of being where every young child should be - in front of a computer screen"), Cynthia Hall ("We found some shocking statistics: 69 per cent of pictures auctioned in the main European houses are of naked females") and Peter Reeve ("Our mission is to turn sculptures into ploughshares"). The winners get £20 each; the vouchers go to D A Prince.

Our mission is to target the barely visible but extensive tentacles of International Arts Trading: we ignore the sad, solitary artist, but we will ruthlessly pursue any leads that suggest financial deals or even barter. We will obliterate such high-profile cells as London auctioneers of Old Masters and we will not rest until we have smoked out the lonely artist winning a few pounds in prize money. Our organisation has no political allegiances: we have free-market economists on board who agree that there can be no true trade in non-utilitarian goods; the mere application of paint to canvas has no value added. Ultimately, we aim to reduce the price of a so-called work of art to the actual worth of its ingredients: at this moment, we have experts with spreadsheets calculating a precise monetary figure for the yellow ochre on Van Gogh's Sunflowers, inputting an indexation factor, derived from cost-of-living analyses. Forward-looking and decisive, we embrace all projects, large or small; as King Lear opined: "Nothing will come of nothing."

Barbara Daniels

Pissed off with Pissarro Post-Its? Sick of Sisley serviettes? Fed up with Fuesli fridge magnets? Then join the Campaign Against the Arts Trade. CATAT: putting Art first, in the foreground, in your face. CATAT: confronting Art on canvas, not in retail therapy experiences. CATAT: impressed by Impressionists, not their skills at shifting stationery.

CATAT aims to overturn the commercial exploitation of Art. Our manifesto is:

- To rehabilitate the 87 per cent of visitors who spend more time in gallery shops than in attached galleries.

- To make illegal the sale of any fridge magnet, necktie, coffee mug, mouse mat, umbrella, carrier bag, drinks coaster, ring-binder, biscuit tin, headscarf, address book, table-mat, notelet, tea towel, tray, birthday card, mobile-phone case, serviette, paperweight, embroidery kit, pencil case, etc, bearing a reproduction (or part thereof) of a well-known work of Art.

- To make the reproduction of Art details, especially genitalia, on any of the above for financial gain a criminal offence.

- To urge the appointment of an Arts Tsar to ensure compliance with our aims.

- To campaign for mandatory custodial sentences for anyone sending images from Monet's garden at Giverny to a third party.

D A Prince

CAARTT is against the proliferation of anti-personnel installations in the art galleries of the world. We work to end the stockpiling of art pieces that may be used to inflict horrific wounds in the complacency of innocent populations.

Rich and powerful forces are involved in highly lucrative art trafficking. They work under cover of private views and specialist transport requirements. We know unstable regimes possess artistic bombshells, packed with high-grade Picassos which must be detonated by a nuclear Titian reaction. There are also reports of rebel groups armed with automatic Rousseaux and of shaky dictatorships using powerful Lucian Freud and Bacon canvases to stun their opponents into submission.

We plan to send aid to these trouble spots, in the form of convoys of Van Goghs, supplemented by leaflet drops of appropriately translated extracts from his letters.

All this costs money. Please send a contribution today. Don't just turn away saying: "I'm all right, Giacometti."

- £4m will substitute a Henry Moore for a Damien Hirst.

- £2m will substitute a Kathe Kollwitz for a Tracey Emin.

- 75p will provide a mask to protect a child's eyes from the sight of a Gilbert and George. Thank you.

M E Ault

No 3704 Set by Margaret Rogers

Yet again, Britain has won an IgNobel prize (which recognises unlikely research and discovery). John Richards, founder of the Apostrophe Protection Society, which seeks to outlaw such ungrammar as "MOT's while U wait", won the IgNobel prize for literature. The physics award went to an American for partially completed research on "Why shower curtains tend to billow inwards". Last year, Britain again got an award, with the Royal Navy's peace prize for saving ammunition by making sailors shout "Bang" on training exercises. We want you to send in examples of more IgNobel awards with explanations of subject and object.

To be in by 1 November (to appear in issue dated 12 November)

E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk