Competition No 3717

Set by John Crick on 4 February

We felt that Stalinism, Marxism, fascism, capitalism, surrealism and socialism sounded old hat. We asked for some exciting new "isms" for the 21st century.

Report by Ms de Meaner

You could enter in two ways: with a long description of one ism or lots of descriptions of a number of isms. I was very disappointed with Keith Flett - I mean, "beardism"? This was supposed to be a comp to look for "new and exciting" isms - not to give old Fletty the chance to segue into his beard thing again. There were a few singletons that amused me: Massowism - the deriving of pleasure from criticising conceptual art (John O'Byrne); Postmodemism - life after the internet (Frank Dunnil); Bellengerism - an uncontrollable urge to compete (Sid Field); Marxandsparxism - a belief system based on the premise that nothing ever really changes except that everything gets more expensive (Andy Jackson). £20 to all those below; the overall winner, John Griffiths-Colby, also gets the vouchers.

Inoculism is the essence of 21st-century Britain; being as infectious as the root of its creation, this paradigm of "challenge-based living" is a natural progression from archetypal rebellion role models of the third quarter of the 20th century.

One can envisage a soon-to-be-filmed box-office hyper-smash starring Moron Blando astride a phosphor-bronze, logo-emblazoned scooter; when asked which fundamental principle of internally denominated social antipathy he is exposing, through his stoic refusal to commit to a specific course of holistic healing insurance for his pillion passenger, prior to their excursion to the latest Yo! Vaccino 24-hour conveyor-belt enema emporium, he simply states: "What ya got?"

The state of mind encapsulated by Inoculism was crystallised through the inability of the public to determine whether having a single vaccination made up of three ingredients for their child - rather than three, made up of the same ingredients - was different from exposing their infants to entirely known risks of endemic disease, now largely eradicated by the use of, say, three vaccines identical to the ones they were being offered.

Visualise one donkey, two piles of carrots and starvation, and you have visualised Inoculism to a tee.

John Griffiths-Colby

Scrutonism - a developing postmodern praxis in which the fogeyish abstractions of a free-market ideology are expressed without contradiction at the economic level by lucrative huckstering in the guise of independent journalism.

Meldrewism - a type of situationism or neo-dadaism practised by Third Age people, aiming to challenge the illusory decorum of bourgeois culture by radically deviant behaviour, such as chronic sarcasm, wilful resistance to the precepts of everyday logic and language, "senior moments", etc.

IDSism - a secretive minority cult, with its attendant rituals and practices, based on the belief that the leader of the Conservative Party is a Tharg who has come to Planet Earth in human form to save England from Bolshevism.

Tarantinoism - a pathological condition. Tarantinoists are inverted Platonists who see reality - or in their own lexicon "reality" - as achieving its highest incarnation in its most trivial and ephemeral representations. Though largely nocturnal, when awake in daylight they may be armed with a "gun". (Not to be confused with Tarrantism.)

Tescoism - the housewives' initiative to liberate and reclaim temples of consumption for a freer public space in which family and community topics may be aired through spontaneous dialogues and human interaction in the aisles of supermarkets, questioning the frantic surge of other customers to select products from the shelves.

Basil Ransome-Davies

Postminimalism - having nothing at all in your house.

Postpostimpressionism - an art form in which, typically, paintings of French gardens are a complete blur. (See also Astigmatism.)

Schism - the breakdown of the education system.

Socialism (new definition) - clubbing.

Dadadadaism - a passionate obsession with the music of Beethoven. The term can also refer to a knowledge of all the most popular bits of classical music, known to the dadadadaist connoisseur as "tunes" and lasting 30 seconds each, developed as a result of listening to Classic FM or adverts for Hovis, British Airways and Old Spice.

David Silverman

Regalitarianism - a belief that all royals are equally superfluous.

Immunism - advocacy of a society in which the medical records of the leader and his family are immune to exploitation, but everyone else's are fair game.

Dotcommunism - a philosophy which advocates the redistribution of wealth from gullible investors to spotty geeks.

Recollectivism - the fond remembrance of a time when theories promoting state ownership of the means of production were still quite popular.

Residualism - a theory that good and evil only exist because a superior universe didn't need them.

R Ewing

No 3720 Set by Bazza

We'd like a parody extract from a work of cultural micro-history, a now fashionable genre. Could we have the paper clip, tea towel, moustache - or whatever small thing takes your fancy.

Max 200 words by 7 March (to appear in issue dated 18 March)
E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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