Set by John O'Byrne
We asked you to detail the quarrels/makings-up of famous people using literary quotations
Report by Ms de Meaner
Difficile, non? However, well done those who made it to this page, even the up-to-the-minute reference to the famous affair in The Archers. £20 to each winner, the best of whom (Bill Greenwell) also gets the Tesco vouchers.
Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh
Louis: You think I'll weep.
Simon: You look as if you had something more to say.
Louis: Her voice was ever soft, gentle, and low.
Simon: Never, never, never, never, never!
Louis: She was a queen over her passion.
Simon: Such groans of roaring wind and rain I never remember -
Louis: The trick of that voice -
Simon: I shall never endure her.
Louis: No, no, no, no.
Simon: With so small a number?
Louis: Ripeness is all. Come on -
Simon: And such a tongue!
Louis: But she knows what she does!
Simon: Who is it that can tell me who I am? I think the world's asleep.
Louis: Fal, sol, la, mi.
Simon: Louder the music there! Howl, howl, howl, howl.
Bill Greenwell/Shakespeare
Ruth and David Archer
Ruth: The glare of that much-mentioned brilliance, love? Broke out to show . . .
David: Home is so sad.
Ruth: Oh well,/I suppose it's not the place's fault, I said/Nothing, like something, happens anywhere.
David: A serious house on serious earth it is. I thought it would last my time.
Ruth: Up till then there'd only been/A sort of bargaining.
David: Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork/And drive the brute off?
Ruth: What do they think has happened, the old fools.
David: Man hands on misery to man.
Ruth: They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
David: Work has to be done.
Ruth: Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
David: Once I am sure there's nothing going on . . .
D A Prince/Philip Larkin
Anne Robinson and Weakest Link contestant
Anne: You leave . . . with nothing.
WLC: Nothing?
Anne: Nothing.
WLC: Nothing comes from nothing: speak again.
Anne: Unhappy that I am. I cannot heave/My heart into my mouth. Now get thee hence.
WLC: On what compulsion must I? Tell me that.
Anne: Go to, I'll no more on't. I bid thee, go./To a nunnery go and quickly to. Farewell.
WLC: The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven/Upon the place beneath. It is twice bless'd .
Anne: Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee!
WLC: Et tu, Anne? Then fall . The rest is silence./From this time forth I never shall speak word.
David Silverman/Shakespeare
No 3958 We meet at last
Set by Hank T Romein
Radio 4 has just broadcast a series entitled Humphrys in Search of God. Sadly, our John failed to find Him. But just suppose he'd succeeded. An extract, please, from the resulting interview.
Max 120 words by 30 November
Email: comp@newstatesman.co.uk
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