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Competition No 3784

Set by Brendan O'Byrne, 2June

We asked you to send in banal instructions in the style of a famous writer.

Report by Ms de Meaner

This was difficult. There were so many brilliant entries. The winners get £15 each. G M Davis, the overall winner, also gets the Tesco vouchers.

First catch your egg. That is, if you're Beeton, defeated, routed, vanquished, crushed. You can't go on, you won't go on, you go on . . . and on. Fill a pan with water and put it on the gas. In the old days if you didn't light the gas it would drag you into the unwelcome embrace of death. You light the gas.Wait for the water to boil. You know it is boiling, because tiny bubbles form, rise to the surface and are lost, like the souls of aborted children passing into nothingness. Put two eggs into the pan. One will crack its shell - a reasonable proportion, for, as Democritus the Abderite said, "the universe itself is like a cracked egg". Leave it to boil for three minutes. There are 20 times three minutes in an hour, 480 in a day, 3,360 in a week, 175,200 in a year - and so on to eternity. As it boils, think of the chicken that will never be, cast straight from conception into the burning heat of hell. When it's finished, then eat your breakfast, if you can . . .

Ian Birchall (Samuel Beckett)

Blow wind! And crack your cheeks! Red! Blue!

Or yellow, sausage-shaped - or deftly wrought

In form of dog or cat or newt or bat

Or, methinks, almost in the shape of camel.

Yea! Blow thy bellyful until the thick

Rotundity o' each balloon hath reached

Its full extent! Then gently dost thou bind,

With fretful fingers, fast as fairy feet

And - Oh, with what exquisite sylph-like care

Hold firm the fragile sphere lest it should break,

Or loose the precious issue of thy breath

And its quietus make. Then tie together.

Then hang the airy baubles in the hall,

Much string, Blu-tack or drawing-pins withal.

David Silverman (Shakespeare)

Today we have rolling of joints. Yesterday

We had hassle-free scoring. And tomorrow morning,

We shall have what to do when you're busted. But today,

Today we have rolling of joints. Jumbo Rizlas

Rustle like silkworms in everyone's combat pants pockets,

And today we have rolling of joints.

This is the cigarette paper. And this

Is the hash and tobacco, whose use you will see

When you have taken a toke. And this is the custom roach card,

Which in your case you have not got. White cafes

Furnish in Amsterdam elegant smokers' accessories,

Which in our case we have not got.

This is the cigarette pack, which can always be used

As an ever-ready substitute. And please do not let me

See anyone tiploading the spliff. No bogarting, either

Or going too mad with the munchies. In the sky,

The polka dot lizards bring visions of promising karma,

And today we have rolling of joints.

G M Davis (Henry Reed)

Choose eggs. Choose butter. Choose a fuckin' fryin' pan. As ony radge cud tell youse - ye canny mak omelettes wi'oot crackin' eggs. So crack the fuckin' eggs and gi' them a fuckin' good battering - pit the heid in, like, and thump the buggery oot o' them. Gi' them a bit o' substance - salt or pepper, like. Knock yer pan oot and stick in the cowfat - mak it hot, man, like sizzling. Slap in the goo an' burn, baby, burn. Ahm cookin' an' no buts - awright?

Rosemary MacKenzie (Irvine Welsh)

Observe, closely, ever so closely, the depth and breadth and height of the crisp, clean, green, carpet-like covering outside. Observe also the cloud-filled layer under which it has been unrolled and stare, patiently waiting for the drip-drip-dripping of the watery deluge which inevitably follows.

Now wander carefully, purposefully, ruler-like following religiously the deeply droning machine as it eats and chews and spits and smokes its way slowly up and down.

Then sit and watch, survey, scrutinise the fruits of your toil. But listen . . .

Listen intently. For behind the tweet-tweeting of the birds and the imperceptible sound of the foraging insects there is another sound. A deep hum like the sound from a distant factory.

Listen ever closer and turn your attention in the direction of the dark earth beneath your feet. The sound you hear comes up now from underneath the soles of your shoes and floats upward to your waiting ears. The sound is constant, consistent, continuous. It is the slow sound of the grass growing.

Alison Smith (Dylan Thomas)

No 3787 Set by Bazza

Private Eye refers to the Japanese "masturbation diet". We'd like other wacky diets please, with instructions.

Max 200 words by 4 July (to appear in issue dated 14 July). E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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