Competition No 3801
Set by Stan Knafler, 29 September
No one in the public eye seems to apologise any more. We asked for an unlikely apology from a well-known person or character.
Report by Ms de Meaner
I was sorely tempted to let Gerard Benson win with his apology from Martin Johnson ("I'm sorry that I kicked you in the scrum and broke your jaw and put you out of the game for life") except that it was signed: "Squiggle, pp Martin Johnson". which to me meant that Martin Johnson might not even have known it was sent. £20 to the winners. Top dog is David Silverman, who also gets the vouchers.
Saddam Old Buddy,
Holy Moly, is my face red! And I guess wherever you are now (hope you can get CNN) you must be laughing up your sleeve. Hell, I was so darn sure you had those weapons of mass destruction. I'd have bet my boots on it. That's what the spooks were telling me, and they're supposed to know, right? Well, like I say, it made sense at the time. And the people, they gobbled up what they were hearing when I told them this will not stand, etc. I guess you know how that can be, as a former head of state yourself. Whip the masses up, and they kind of run away with you. And hey - try holding the military in check. Some of those assholes would bomb their own grannies (okay, maybe sometimes you have to). So I guess I made a booboo and I'm sorry as hell, old pal, but what's done is done.
Ever yours, George
Basil Ransome-Davies
Look, there was an unfortunate incident in the dressing room just now and I want to offer an unreserved public apology to the lad Beckham. I admit things got out of control. No, I got out of control. It's not an excuse, but I've been under enormous stress lately. We've clearly been second best to Arsenal and, let's face it, I've been second best to Arsene Wenger. I've made some awful selection decisions, including playing Scholes out of position and Veron when out of form. We've had lucky results, thanks frankly to some bad penalty decisions in our favour. My behaviour just now was inexcusable. To be honest, I must confess that I have an anger management problem and I'm going to have therapy for it. David's a great lad with a beautiful, cultured and talented wife for whom I have enormous respect. Above all, I am in danger of alienating our most precious asset - the fans. To put this right, from tomorrow the club will become a co-operative, entrance and replica shirt prices will be halved and all profits will contribute towards community regeneration initiatives in Surrey.
David Silverman
I am greatly troubled by what I have done and can no longer live with my conscience: I apologise profusely; on my knees with my hands clasped I beg forgiveness. Like anyone else who has done a great wrong I have my excuse: losing a great deal of money in an unfortunate business venture, I became bitter and had no compunction in harming others. I needed to make money and I needed to make it quickly, so I wrote the most appalling novel called Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less. It took me ten weeks - most of that time thinking up the title. I didn't exactly deceive the readers, but I drew them in with a story that had pace, that rattled along from the first page to the last; they couldn't help themselves and before long they had read hundreds and hundreds of pages of the most shameful pap, and with trembling hands and dilated pupils they fought in the bookshops to buy more, not penny dreadfuls, but twenty-pound dreadfuls. I have gulled more people than I can number with stories replete with cliches, stereotypes, cardboard characters, risible dialogue and the most arse-clenching storylines. I apologise. Forgive me.
Geoff Horton
Dear faithful EastEnders viewers,
Please accept my apologies for my impertinence in so misjudging your level of intelligence as to have allowed myself to be talked into making such an impossible "comeback" recently, after apparently having been seen off so comprehensively all those years ago. By a bullet no less, backed up - just to make sure - by a drowning. Of course, yours is not the only apology I owe. I must not overlook the far too easy duping of the police in the series, who happily accepted the death of another poor soul as mine. Mind you, he was wearing similar clothes to those I had been wearing, and to add to their difficulties, he was, on my instructions, headless. And then again, I had by that time skipped abroad, so there was no possibility of my being seen by some keen-eyed constable. Please pass my sincere apologies on to the Met with the thought that, in the end, it's only a soap. Incidentally, I did my level best to persuade my director that you would find it too difficult to accept that the pub keys had remained undisturbed in the yard, where I had left them, was it 14 years ago?
Yours, Den
David Barton
No 3804 Set by Margaret Rogers
We'd like limericks summing up the agendas of the parties as displayed at their party conferences.
Up to three parties, including the smaller ones, by 31 October (to appear in issue dated 10 November). E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk
