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Competition No 3757

Set by George Cowley on 11 November

We wanted totally unsuitable applications for the post of NS deputy literary and arts editor.

Report by Ms de Meaner

A big postbag - with such a surfeit of deliberately misspelt applications and applicants who claimed they read the Sun "from cover to cover" that I grew quite bored. I loved the idea of Andy Gilchrist (from Susan Therkelsen), but felt other entries were funnier. Hon menshes to Therkelsen, Andy Jackson ("I feel I am UNEQUIVOCALLY suited to the post"), Anne Du Croz ("I came to the arts early - at 16"), Jodie Winckler ("American student . . . keen to get some work experience before I go home") and John Irwin ("In 1972 I met Philip Larkin in a pub"). £20 to the winners; the top winner, Will Bellenger, also gets the vouchers.

As a Member of Parliament of some years, and as one well-versed in the affairs of the Treasury, I believe very much that I would bring light and wit to the closing pages of New Statesman. The Treasury, and the House of Commons, are institutions in which book-learning, dancing, the maximisation of artistic endeavour, enterprise and exhibitionism are second nature. It is a microcosmic world with a macro outlook, and the predictive models of funding and spending are excellently suited to the advertised post. Having time upon my hands, and being a particularly good subaltern, I would be well-placed to offer proper guidance to the literary/arts editor, writing copy for the magazine, organising functions and awards, and passing judgement on the quality of the prose submitted by contributors with special regard to political bias and economic understanding of leisure activities. I also own New Statesman, which is no bad thing.

Will Bellenger

Hi. I'm Orlando Glendenning. If you've visited my website you're probably surprised by an application from the author of Exit Traps ("verse so cool you could chill your Absolut with it" - Time Out). But hey - I'm not aiming low. I see an opportunity for a major rebranding. Forget the new Labour mud-wrestling. Forget the superannuated Big Name reviewing policy. Clear out the nose-picking feature columnists. Enough with the logocentrism already. Put the light where the money is. Without giving too much away, think 3G mobiles. That's where your 21st-century aesthetic is, not in Britart or the PoMo novel. I can sew up a sponsorship deal with Nokia that would blow your socks off. And that's just for openers. Text me and we can talk (about share options, among other things). Till then, here's my mission statement: the future is in my head.

Basil Ransome-Davies

Hi! Hope you like the mid-Atlantic demotic I'm working up for this post-nine-eleven world we live in. Just a line to let you know I'm ready to take my old job back. It's been a long time, hasn't it? We've all passed a lot of water since then, as good old Sam once said. Goldwyn not Beckett. You should have known that. In my case, I've buried my father, become one myself; got a new agent, had a change of women, moved to America, become obsessed with Stalin, had my teeth fixed. Not necessarily in that order. Oh, it's only a deputy you're looking for. No problem. Cowley can take an indefinite sabbatical. My agent will be in touch about the money. My agent's good on money. Only joking.

Keith Norman

No 3760 Set by John O'Byrne

A 1908 review of Wind in the Willows in the TLS stated: "As a contribution to natural history the work is negligible." Can we have similarly wrong-headed reviews of today's plays, books and films, eg, "Life of Pi fails to elaborate fully on the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle."
Max 150 words by 13 December (to appear in issue dated 6 January). E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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