Set by Stan Knafler: The people of Malham (population: 120) were baffled at the news that their parish hall had been bugged, reported the Observer. The bug was found in a 13-amp wall socket. But what led to the discovery?

Report by Ms de Meaner

Harry Glenister had "MFI - or was it MI5 - raiding the hall", which was nice. £20 to the winners. The best (J Seery, the Vouchers Man!) also gets the Tesco vouchers.

The Malham Dossier

In compiling the Malham Dossier, MI5 sourced evidence from the fullest range of human sources - code name: Mrs Pettigrew - to uncover a justification for installation of a bug. The Vicar was known to us already, his stance on interfaith dialogue (that there should be some) identifying him as a defeatist in the War on Terror, so the operation was merely a matter of putting two and two together. Two incidents made intervention unavoidable: a WI lecture on bombe-making and the selection of The Bookseller of Kabul as a springboard for open discussion in the Ladies' Reading Circle. It was conclusive: parishioners were clearly inculcating their children with fundamentalist military values by means of a Scout troupe; foreign foods and potentially explosive home brew were stored pending an operation code-named Harvest Festival; and the cleaner Miss Mottershed repeatedly hummed "The Sheikh of Araby".

Adrian Fry

Secret links

Several theories were put forward about the presence of the electronic bug found in the wall socket. One suggested, as the site is approximately 25 miles west of Menwith Hill, that it must be an outpost for US surveillance systems. Another hinted at a sleeper cell for al-Qaeda. An odd suggestion was that the bug was a WI listening post seeking information on local recipes.

But it was only when the minute letters PS were discovered that it became apparent there must be a connection with the Priory of Sion. Investigation has revealed that Malham still retains secret links with the Knights Templar. Could it be that some arcane sect is guarding the hiding place of the Holy Grail somewhere around Malham? In the depths of the Tarn? In the parish hall?

Sid Field

Stan's the man

One day Stan Knafler, an obvious pseudonym, with his set of brilliant but improbable solutions already prepared, planted the bug and tipped off the Observer, so that a fiendishly difficult comp about it could be set and then won by himself. This would frustrate the plans of the other comp setters, who had suggestions for easier comps such as Orange Order marching songs as written by Bob Dylan; the first draft of the Ten Commandments; a speech in verse by John Prescott where he explains Labour's failure to renationalise the railways. Ms de Meaner should also check the real identity of all winners, especially the Vouchers Man. Probably all pseudonyms for the pseudonymous Stan Knafler.

J Seery

No 3938 Abuse of terms
Set by Ian Birchall

That well-known teenager, Chris Moyles, used "gay" (youth-speak for "lame" or "stupid") on his radio show. Give us new teenage slang, with examples of how it is used, in which terms of abuse are taken from the other end of the spectrum. eg, "married", "hetero", et cetera.

Definitions in by 13 July
E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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