Competition No 3823
Set by Brendan O'Byrne, 15 March
You were asked to send in suitable gifts for a cloned baby. Gold, frankenstein and myrrh, perhaps?
Report by Ms de Meaner
Well, you all knew what we were getting at, judging by the number of dollies, pairs of jeans, cellphones and egg cups that got sent in. So, to make my life easier, I binned all duplicated entries. Ha! Those with a number of hits get £15, single- and doubletons get £5 book tokens. Best beagle is John Griffiths-Colby, who also gets the Tesco vouchers.
Identity bracelet with cell-by date.
Guest spot on the new TV series Have I Got Nucleus For You.
DNA: the amazing alphabet book.
A cellphone.
You Only Live Twice (picture book).
The Gene Vincent Songbook.
John O'Byrne
Eau de Clone.
A twin bed.
A Leica camera.
An iPod.
A postcard from Simla.
A Fisher Price fax machine.
A cuddly ape.
Carbon paper.
A re-recording of "If You Were the Only Girl in the World".
An echo chamber pot.
A box of matches.
A crib.
Bill Greenwell
A mirror.
Another mirror.
A genetically modified family tree.
A set of Russian dolls.
A pebble from the beach.
A poster of Andy Warhol's Campbell's soup tins.
D A Prince
A guinea pig.
A pinball machine.
Stem ginger.
A notional ID card.
A group passport.
Age-defying anti-wrinkle cream.
"You'll Never Walk Alone" by Gerry and the Pacemakers.
John Griffiths-Colby
A set of garden genomes.
An introduction to Max Clifford.
J Seery
The Monster Book of Monster Jokes.
A pair of idiosyncratic mugs.
M E Ault
A packet of Dolly mixtures.
David Silverman
No 3826 Set by Stephen Hackett
In the Independent's "Ten Best Christmas Cookbooks" feature, the following comment appeared: "If you're not in a turkey mood, then Kafka has advice on roasting fish, vegetables - even desserts." Extracts, please, from a seasonal cookery book penned by Franz K, or any other giant of early 20th-century modernism. (The book under review was in fact Roasting: a simple art, by America's "foremost authority on the art and science of roasting", Barbara Kafka.)
Max 200 words by 15 April. E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk
