Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store

Competition No 3799

Set by John Crick, 15 September

Advertising is everywhere. We asked for an extract from a famous novel or play rewritten to include appropriate product placements.

Report by Ms de Meaner

This sorted out the women from the girls. It was clearly more difficult than it looked. I longed to let Robert Ireland win, with his rewrite of Last Tango in Paris. That final orgasmic "Anchor! Anchor! Anchaaargh!" was simply delicious. Nevertheless, we did ask for as many product placements as possible, not just one; and since the original was about butter anyway, the skill all the others evinced, sliding the products into the copy, was singularly lacking. However, there was no denying the sheer power of the scene.

£20 for the winners. The best of the three, Adrian Fry, also wins the Tesco vouchers. Hon menshes to John O'Byrne and Margaret Rogers.

To buy or not to buy from Sainsbury's - that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in Asda to suffer

The smells and tastes of their budget range

Or to turn against a sea of trolleys

And by ignoring loyalty points end them. To spend,

To save no more? And by a quick purchase in Waitrose to say we end

The heartache and the thousand-pound overdraft

That our poor wallets are heir to. 'Tis a consumption

Devoutly to be lusted after. To spend, to shop,

To shop, perchance to dream of endless aisles in Marks & Sparks.

Ay there's the lavender-scented Morrison's special back rub,

For in all supermarket chains what dreams may come.

When we have reached the checkout, our credit limit must give us pause:

There's the respect that makes our bank managers give us yet more!

David Incoll

Estragon: Let's go, with easyJet.

Vladimir: We can't do better.

Estr: Why not suck a Polo?

Vlad: We're waiting for Go.com.

Estr: That is easyJet. Ah.

Vlad: What?

Estr: Bisto. It thickens and pours.

Vlad: Like real gravy.

Estr: It oozes.

Vlad: It brings the taste out of Quorn.

Estr: That passed the time, according to my Timex.

Vlad: It would have passed in any case.

Estr: Samsonite for me.

Vlad: What did we do yesterday?

Estr: What did we do yesterday? We went to Chessington's World of Adventures.

Vlad: I thought that was the day before.

Estr: Yes, we went twice.

Vlad: You see that tree? (They look at the tree.)

Estr: It's an ideal Mother's Day gift.

Vlad: From Harrods.

Estr: Don't let's do anything. Except maybe relax in a hot, soothing Badedas bath.

Vlad: It makes things happen.

Estr: That would be welcome. What are we here for?

Vlad: We're waiting. Although not for long, according to the Connex price promise.

Estr: Have you considered your future?

Vlad: I don't need to.

Estragon: Why not?

Vlad: I have an excellent pension plan. With Scottish Widows.

Estr: Ah.

Vlad: If we had a Peugeot 306, we could move on down the road.

Estr: In style.

Vlad: In comfort.

Estr: In style. (His trousers fall down.)

Vlad: What you need is a Black Leather Formal Spin Buckle Belt, only £14.99 from Next.

Bill Greenwell

riverrun past Evo-Stik and Adnams, from swerve of Sure to bend of Nike swoosh brings us by Imodium's route to Mum's gone to Chapelizodland where beanz meanz Heinz and Anna Olivio Plurabelle, formulated and contricked by Laboratoires Garnier, wrist sponsored by Accutime and ticking exactapproximately eight-out-of-ten-owners-said-their-cats-preferred-it o'clock, calls her PS2.5 children home to Hovis hearth for an abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz of Alphabetti Spaghetti in Celebrations of the jolly green giant Finnegan (he grew Whiskas on his chinnigan). Mama, Dolmio, let us go! they cry, eyes Stannah stairs of boredumb, itching to off up bathroomward in search o' the Ring of Confidence, Colgatekeeper of bedtime. When HCE (properknown as HSBC, best remembered as when moknickered Midland) comes home, all Weedoling guilt and Werther's Originals, the house is as sighlent as Silent Nite, his childer eidered down beneath their bedclothes. Anna Olivio Comforts him with the Liebfraumilch of human kindness, but, counterTescowise, very little helps.

Adrian Fry

No 3802 Set by John O'Byrne

John Walsh, writing about Martin Amis in the Independent, states that "It's a trait of British fiction readers, ever wary of pretension, to distrust a writer who takes on a big subject, whether it's nuclear winter or the fate of the world." Provide an extract from a novel about a small subject, eg, The Bearable Lightness of Supermarket Shopping; Catch-22mm; 45 Minutes of Solitude.

Max 200 words by 17 October (to appear in issue dated 27 October). E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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