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Competition No 3765

Set by Margaret Rogers, 20 January

We asked for examples of the usual style of Christmas round robin, full of that "unique mixture of proud hyperbole and false modesty".

Report by Ms de Meaner

I enjoyed R Ewing's round robin from John Prescott ("I went to Johannesburg to save the planet"), but exactly where was the false modesty? Hon menshes to Ian Birchall's Christopher Hitchens ("dear old Tariq"), Paul Brummell's Jeffrey Archer ("Like Garbo, I just wanted to be alone") and Peter Lyon's Saddam ("May he [our second son] enjoy exactly the same sort of end-of-year festival as we wish all our overseas correspondents"). £20 to the winners. The overall winner, Rosemary MacKenzie, also gets the Tesco vouchers.

A great year for reading. There was Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a fascinating insight into the mind of Charlemagne! I read Finnegans Wake in one sitting. Some of it is quite difficult to grasp, but there's no doubt that a major prose stylist is at work here! Joyce was married to a lady called Nora Barnacle; she stuck with him all the way! Eliot's "The Waste Land" was superb, not at all depressing. Spring's a lousy time. Then there was Waiting for Godot, in which nothing happens twice! If Beckett had plotted a murder, it wouldn't have dragged so much. What else was there? All of Dickens, Flaubert, Dumas and Balzac; a bit of Harry Potter (slightly overrated, I'm afraid; schoolboy yarns usually are); Moby Dick; Beowulf (in the original); all of Trollope and Waugh (the latter, by the way, an excellent wit!). A very surprising read was the diary of a sailor by the name of Pepys. Strange person, always on the lookout for numero uno . . . (Jeffrey Archer)

John O'Byrne

At the end of our peculiarly joyful palindromic year (20/02/2002 was our favourite!), Baz and Skip Ransome-Davies send you gladioli, nay rhododendromontadish tidings. Baz has continued to win the Competitions with coruscating zest, under the new name J Griffiths-Colby - isn't the hyphen a giveaway?! - while Baz Jr has kept up the family tradition with the witty anagrams "John O'Byrne" and "David Silverman" (have you worked them out yet?). Little Skip has completed her course in media calisthenics, and will be trading next year in Ecuador and Peru, where we expect her "shining path" to meet with new challenges. When she "came out" in May as a heterosexual, we held a clan night, dusted off the old green uniforms, and marched down to the Busted Ferret for a special trivia quiz. Our team had the honour of seeing off the opposition! Baz Jr was married in an Indonesian ceremony to the gorgeous Cauli, and they have already produced Rhoda, Voda and Skoda, a bonny bunch of rhyming triplets. So Baz and Skip are finally, after 85 years' hard waiting, the grandest of grandparents. And no sign of the hereditary googling - yet!

Bill Greenwell

Yet another Ramadan has come and gone - where do the years go? Since last writing I have had a fantastic election with an increased majority and seem to have put our little country firmly on the world map. I am now considered a statesman of global importance, and in fact am said by some to hold the balance of world peace in my hands. Flatterers! We've recently had some international inspectors in the country for a winter holiday. They all seemed to enjoy themselves, and in fact asked to stay on for longer. They seemed a little disappointed not to find some of the items they had sold to us years ago, but, really, you can't put everything on display all the time.

I'm sorry to say that certain people have set themselves against me in the past year, calling me all sorts of awful names and holding me responsible for every little disaster that happens. Jealousy, I expect - it comes with the (oilfield) territory. I'm thinking I may visit you very soon - it's been ages. Nothing definite yet, but keep on standby. (Saddam)

Rosemary MacKenzie

The year 2002 was an interesting one. Work was a bit humdrum in the spring, but we just got on with things, and in November I got the call to pack my bags and get over to Baghdad. The usual gang were on the flight - they're such a laugh! One of them put a fake grenade in my briefcase in the departure lounge just before we boarded. It really helped to defuse the tension, if you'll pardon the pun.

Once we got to Baghdad I noticed what a surly lot they are over there. I turned on the famous Blix charm, however, and pretty soon we were all getting on like an arms dump on fire (ha ha!). Their chauffeurs are good drivers, if a little deaf at times. I lost count of the number of times I said "Stop here, I want to get out" or "Turn left into this base" and they just kept on driving. Maybe if I learnt a bit more Arabic. Hans Jr won the debating prize at university just before Christmas.

Looking forward to meeting Dubbya in January - he keeps calling them "Weapons of Masturbation". I never know if he's joking or not! (Hans Blix)

Andy Jackson

Going from strength to strength comes naturally, so in 2002 it was no surprise I managed to bring out a book that shook the literary establishment! The Booker judges said it would be embarrassing if I won again, and although the Nobel gurus wanted me to accept, I felt now's not the time. How long can I hold them off? No one has published a prison diary before, so mine is unique, as Nelson Mandela told me! And it's true, as all diaries are!

I've cut back on travel in order to devote time to writing (my readers tell me not to break this addiction!) and my charity work, which I don't want to talk about as it involves prisoners and their terrible life histories - people like the true lives you've read about in my diaries! The Queen said: "Jeffrey, I was so moved I cried. What an example to the young!" as we lunched privately with the Archbishop. I gave him a few pointers, having held the See in the 1970s, before I moved across to the UN. I wish I had time to do that now - how they need me.

D A Prince

No 3768 Set by Margaret Rogers

The Observer reported recently that "one in ten people admits to ending a long-term relationship by text message". We want examples that might have been sent by any famous lover. Please overlook possibly being asked to commit an anachronism.

Max 100 words by 21 February (to appear in issue dated 3 March). E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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