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Competition No 3772

Set by Michael Cregan, 10 March

If you quit your job voluntarily, you don't necessarily qualify for benefits. We asked for inventive ways to get the sack.

Report by Ms de Meaner

Truly excellent. Hon menshes to David Silverman ("Dear Clare, Timing is everything. Wait until the most sensitive moment to annoy your boss. Wait until he is tired, fraught and vulnerable . . . then start calling him names") and G McIlraith ("Fondle a couple of your juniors fairly innocently, and ask their advice on feminine hygiene. When they complain . . . lighting a spliff during your appearance before the board will do the rest"). £20 to the winners. The Crufts champion is Ian Birchall, who gets the Tesco vouchers.

Dear Tony,

So you want out? Cherie's friends say you could earn a lot more if you weren't so constrained by legalistic niceties? Well, that's an easy one. Declare a war costing billions, insult the majority of the population, act like a total sycophant to the US president, destabilise the Middle East, put up the price of petrol, get British troops killed by "friendly fire" - and with a bit of luck provoke a terrorist attack that wouldn't have happened otherwise. You'll be free in weeks. Lots of love, Peter.

So you've had enough. I'm not surprised - it's hardly a barrel of laughs dealing with people who think they're so clever. If they were, they'd have columns. The trouble is, you're good, and management knows it. They've just doubled your space. So don't do anything drastic, like banning all the entries - tempting as it seems. They'd just transfer you to something more boring, like editorials. You have to slowly undermine your position. Don't let **** win any more - he's in the same Masonic lodge as the editor and he'll soon start whingeing. Give Keith Flett the vouchers whenever he manages to string two sentences together - he's Socialist Alliance, which'll upset them. Then go for the coup de grace - ask for a spoof of Lauren Booth. That lady has Connections with a capital C. If that doesn't do the trick, I'll chase up my hospital contacts. We'll find a soap star with a secret terminal illness - you set an insulting comp about them and they die just as the results are published. Go for it, girl. The grass is greener, etc.

Ian Birchall

Follow this programme, introducing each behaviour at roughly three-day intervals, and persisting with those you have already begun.

Use a compass to position your chair before sitting. Desk lunches of blue-veined Spanish goat's cheese. Keep a bundle of yarrow stalks on your desk.

Quote Monty Python at any opportunity. Address absolutely everyone as "friend". Ask your superiors whether they know true happiness. Carry a volume of poetry, preferably in a foreign language; Lamartine will do, but something in Japanese would be better; read quietly and smile.

Andrew Wilcox

So you want to be sacked from teaching? Tough one, considering the rocking-horse-shit rarity of your profession. I would suggest a three-pronged attack.

1. Sartorially. Try wearing shorts, a bushman's hat fringed with bobbing corks and red lipstick. Carry a stout walking stick. This leads naturally to:

2. Ineffectiveness. The classes will be so convulsed with derision that you haven't a hope in hell of quelling the riots. Don't try. Instead, invest in earplugs (preferably attached to your favourite MP3 player). Enjoy the music, tap your stick along, keep smiling. This will attract

official attention and very soon we have prong three:

3. Insanity. Questions will be asked. Refuse to answer them. Keep smiling. Accept the suspension. Go for the medical. Be vague. Keep wearing the shorts and the corked hat. Add a diamante brooch or two. I tell you, man, you'll never get loose in a classroom again.

Rosemary MacKenzie

If you wish to be made redundant, first try taking small items of stationery (paper clips, etc) back to the store cupboard, sealed in plastic and labelled with the date and place each has been found. Explain your waste-not-want-not philosophy when you hand each item in. Send a round robin e-mail on the subject (see above). Raise the matter at staff meetings, and present calculations on the potential savings. Beginning your points "I was brought up to . . ." will be useful. Bringing a series of guides such as How to Pass GCSE Accounts to work will also be useful. Pin up your school reports by your desk. There will be no need to draw attention to them. Finally, introduce the words "implement", "proactive" and "disaggregation" into all conversations, but ensure that you use each one to mean one of the others. Or hum Toni Basil's "Mickey" under your breath every half-hour.

Bill Greenwell

No 3775 Set by Margaret Rogers

David Aaronovitch, in the Guardian, defined psychotherapy as "colonic irrigation for the upstairs". We want definitions of other forms of treatment: physiotherapy, reflexology, acupuncture etc. Only those who have at least ten good ones will get to win - although if someone sends in the odd corker, I might just give them a book token.

As many goes as you like by 11 April (to appear in issue dated 21 April). E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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