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Competition No 3906

Set by Ian Birchall, 31 October

You were asked to define "rural intellectual", as opposed to the "urban".

Report by Ms de Meaner

£20 to the winners. The overall champion this week is David Silverman, who also gets the Tesco vouchers. Hon menshes to Bill Greenwell, J Seery and Josh Ekroy.

The answer, to coin a phrase, lies in the cerebrum. Research shows that the brains of urban and rural intellectuals are physiologically different. Neural pathways are influenced by the environment in early infancy. Urban brains, reflecting shops and concrete office blocks, have straight edges and sharp corners. Neurons bounce and whizz across the synapses like hyperactive pinballs. City-dwellers think quickly and decisively. The rural brain, however, reflecting a landscape of rolling hills, clouds, muddy fields and sheep, has round edges and the soft texture of broccoli. Neural messages meander along, stop for chats, get diverted, bogged down or snagged on loose strands of woolly meninges. The cultural and political implications for rural intellectuals are clear. William Wordsworth's intellectual curiosity is moved by the sight of a bunch of daffodils, or by the discovery of a river under Westminster Bridge. Nothing happens in a Hardy novel until about page 250, when a fatal decision is invariably made. Similarly, nothing has really happened since 1759 in Canada, where a thorough study of the landscape prompted its greatest intellectual to conclude: "I really don't know clouds at all . . ."And nothing has ever happened in Devon.

David Silverman

George Burnley-Herriot, professor of sustainable development, cycles into Oxford daily. Already pilloried by his neighbours for building six 40ft windmills, he recently introduced wolves on to his smallholding. When they savaged local sheep, he merely shrugged: "Nature's pruning hook!" His partner, Maudie, a classical scholar and author of Bee-keeping Virgil's Way, sells crates of muddy organic vegetables and a home-produced coffee substitute made from roasted turnips (£8.95 for 200g). Daughter Rosie plays the shawm in a country-music consort. They are new Labour stalwarts.

Whizz-kid City banker and Cambridge double First Christopher Campbell writes the "Only Numskulls Pay Taxes" column in the Telegraph, and runs Notting Hill Preservation Trust. His other obsession, the Campaign for Real Wine, champions classical French products over upstart Antipodean plonk. Alicia, his wife, who studied Egyptology, "recreates" Pharaonic pendants and scarabs in gold and lapis lazuli for her company, Bulgari. The Campbells have ten children. Alicia's Spectator article advocating enforced contraception in return for unemployment benefits has just been published as a neo-con pamphlet.

Anne Du Croz

Urban intellectuals live in big cities. That is, in London. They are often coarse, abusive and foul-mouthed ("Pinteresque") and should never be mistaken for urbane intellectuals. They see their job as "leading opinion" and are therefore hated by politicians, who tend to follow opinion. Urban intellectuals often think they are more important, or subversive, or talented, than is the case ("Pinteresque"). It is important for them to prove they are not dry, emotion-free brains-in-a-bottle. This they do through sexual upward mobility, acquiring epicurean tastes and having

public outbursts of temper ("Pinteresque").

Rural intellectuals keep up with the world through technology while living a natural lifestyle. Whether using a laptop on Striding Edge, texting from horseback or phoning contacts while at the wheel of a Land-Rover, they are the nation's conscience, debating vital issues such as fox-hunting, farm subsidies and hedgehog-friendly cattle grids. Disciples of Thoreau unswayed by urban consumerism, they are content with a wardrobe from Rohan and a converted chapel to live and work in.

Basil Ransome-Davies

No 3909 Set by Josh Ekroy

The Radioactive Waste Management Committee is to consult, among others, the Women's Institute on disposal. What might the WI's (or another organisation's) response to this be?

Max 175 words by 1 December. E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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