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Competition No 3909

Set by Josh Ekroy, 21 November

You were asked for the WI's (or another organisation's) response to a consultation exercise on disposal from the Radioactive Waste Management Committee.

Report by Ms de Meaner

Superb. I was sorry to lose John O'Byrne (WI), Keith Norman (C of E), Brian Allingham (Law Society) and Sid Field (Teesside Scrap Metal Collectors' Assoc). £20 to the winners, the best of whom

(G M Davis) also gets the Tesco vouchers.

We at the Magic Circle do not feel we can help. We don't actually make things vanish. We only make it look that way. Any competent illusionist can cut a woman in half. But cutting in half the half-life of radioactive waste is beyond any of our members. And even if one of our members could do the trick, he would not tell you - we have a good record of keeping secrets.

J Seery

The Orange Order acknowledges receipt of the alleged "consultative document" from the Westminster government while recognising it for what it is - the latest duplicitous attempt to foist on the people of Northern Ireland a tyrannical, alien and republican form of government.

We say: never. The traitors and dupes who under the guise of parliamentary democracy have abetted the bloodthirsty crimes of the IRA will not fool the patriots of the Orange Order, who detect behind such initiatives the ugly features of the Whore of Babylon on her Roman throne.

We note that the so-called "Holy See" is a member of the International Atomic Energy Authority, giving the lie to the propagandist notion that the IAEA is an impartial body. In response to this shameless provocation from Westminster, we can only suggest that were the Vatican cellars to be cleared of their historic mountains of filth and corruption, there would be more than adequate room for the disposal of nuclear waste.

G M Davis

We at the Flat Earth Society suggest that you just tip it off the edge of the world.

Michael Cregan

Containment: traditional preserving methodology will be utilised as far as possible, applying "Deep Berrying" techniques. Radioactive waste will be combined with a self-setting pectin-based material and hermetically sealed in 1lb (454g) glass canisters. Additional safety precautions will include small circular discs of greaseproof paper inserted between the compound and a rubber-lined adult-proof lid.

Dispersal: the efficacy of "Deep Berrying" depends on consistent, country-wide dispersal in a ratio no greater than one canister per UK household, to be housed to the rear of an under-sink kitchen cupboard. A conditional assumption is that the jar(s) will never be opened in the lifetime of the purchaser. Future-proofing will be achieved by flagging each dispersal location with a potted Geranium-238 hybrid (provided by the WI), to be placed on the kitchen window sill.

John Griffiths-Colby

In the name of Allah the Irascible, al-Qaeda is the only choice for holy dispersal of your effluent society's foul nuclear excretions. Only we have been working, unobserved by the clumsy eyes of the imperialist aggressors, to establish secret networks of caves in a series of remote and undesirable locations for the sacred task of storage. Furthermore, we deploy only the most self-sacrificing volunteer staff, eager to trust in Allah and laugh in the face of cowardly and not uncoincidentally expensive health and safety regulations beloved of the corrupt west. What has been classified as waste shall be reclassified as a series of merciful gifts, distributed in parcels around the capitals of the godless world. It will be our holy task to demonstrate to the infidel that Allah does not permit anything to be created that is without purpose.

Adrian Fry

No 3912 Set by Valerie Yule

There are lots of religious holy days throughout the year. We want some ideas (give your reasons) for a modern superstition day.

Max 150 words by 5 January 2006. E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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