Competition No 3706

Set by John Crick, 5 November

You were asked for Christmas gifts suitable for your favourite literary characters.

Report by Ms de Meaner

Yes, R Ewing was correct: Richard III got lots of horses. And there were many people whose future was irrevocably altered by getting a mobile phone for Christmas, not least that tragic pair, Romeo and Juliet. And poor old Achilles and Lady Macbeth: so many stout boots and tubes of vanishing cream. The way I chose the winning ideas was a) they had to be funny, and b) I didn't read them over and over, which seemed fair. The singletons and doubletons get £5 tokens. The rest get £15 and the vouchers go to G M Davis.

Robinson Crusoe: scuba-diving kit and fish spear

Mrs Danvers: HRT pills and a subscription to the Penzance tea-dancing club

Mother Goose: pump-action shotgun and 2002 calendar

Tom and Maggie Tulliver: life jackets and rubber dinghy

Cock Robin: helmet and chain mail

Anne Du Croz

King Lear: The Good Hotel Guide

Macbeth: membership of the Woodland Trust

Hamlet: a hawk. Or a handsaw. He can choose which

Desdemona: a dress with pockets

Julius Caesar: Old Moore's Almanack (also sent in by Derek Morgan)

Nicholas Hodgson

Robinson Crusoe: Woman Friday

Macbeth: a large jar of Quiet Life

Thomas Gradgrind: the speeches of Chris Woodhead

Krapp: an answering machine

Scrooge: a Christmas present

Flashman: some Bacofoil

Kurtz: a headstand

Portnoy: handkerchiefs

Dracula: a Virgin voucher

Dr Faustus: This Is Soul Music Vol. 2

Heathcliff: Cathy Come Home video

D'Artagnan: four muskets

Juliet: an Alfa Romeo

Silas Marner: a chequebook

Lady Bracknell: an Accessorize voucher

Sherlock Holmes: a deer

Will Bellenger

Sherlock Holmes: a commission from the White House to find and capture Osama Bin Laden, world master criminal

James Bond: a commission from the Prime Minister to find and exterminate Osama Bin Laden, global megalomaniac threatening world civilisation

Philip Marlow: a photograph of Osama Bin Laden, plus fifty dollars a day and expenses

Inspector Morse: a special one-man police operation to discover if Osama Bin Laden is hiding out in an Oxford pub or college

G M Davis

Icarus: sunblock

Winston Smith: a 1985 diary

The Jabberwock: a slithy tove

Oliver Twist: a larger bowl

Cool Hand Luke: a jar of mayonnaise

Rip van Winkle: a can of Red Bull

Great Uncle Bulgaria: a wheelie bin

Ben Gunn: nothing (hard cheese)

Paul Brummell

Romeo: a stethoscope

Julius Caesar: The Big Book of Team-Building Games

Duke Orsino of Illyria: Gray's Anatomy

Hamlet: Effective Delegation

King Lear: The Little Book of Calm

Titus Andronicus: Delia Smith's Complete Cookery Course

Desdemona: a box of Kleenex

Ulysses: The Rough Guide to Greece

Phileas Fogg: air tickets

Frankenstein: a box of Lego, an Airfix model aeroplane kit

Sisyphus: a lifetime's supply of high-energy Lucozade, or some very strong elastic, or a copy of How to Say No Without Feeling Guilty

Prometheus: a cigarette lighter

Clifford Chatterley: a ground-floor flat, a window box and a trowel

David Silverman

Bridget Jones: vodka, cigarettes, chocs, shampoo and the morning-after pill

Basil Ransome-Davies

Miss Havisham: a marriage certificate

Barbara Smoker

Richard III: some stables for all the horses he'll (probably) get as a result of this week's competition

Sherlock Holmes: a week at the Priory

R Ewing

Ophelia: waterwings

Estragon and Vladimir: Scrabble

Katie Mallett

Estragon and Vladimir: Godot

R J Pickles

Leda: bird repellent

Ian Birchall

Long John Silver: a parrot with an extensive vocabulary

J Seery

Yossarian: a sicknote

W J Webster

Sisyphus: a forklift truck

Philip A Nicolson

No 3709 Set by George Cowley

Jason Cowley recently wrote in the NS: "Modern travel writing is in crisis, too often no more than an indulgence of ego." Could we have an excessively egocentric piece of travel writing in which the well-known itinerary/ destination takes a decided second place.

Max 200 words by 6 December (to appear in issue dated 17 December) E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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