Set by Didier d'Argent We asked you for extracts from a book with one letter missing from the title, written in the style of the original.

We offered "Notes on a Sandal", "Lady Chatterley's Over", "The Da Vinci Cod" and "Of Ice and Men" to get your creative juices flowing

Report by Ms de Meaner

If only . . . I had more room. They were simply brilliant this week. Here are a few titles that didn't make it: The Big Seep, The Return of the Naive, 984, The Portrait of a Lad, Oliver Twit and Oldfinger. £20 each to the three longer entries, a tenner to the final two. The Tesco vouchers go to R A Collinssplatt.

Jacob's Rom Virginia Woolf

"So of course," typed Betty Flanders, leaning over her laptop, "there was nothing for it but to leave." Her eyes fixed, and tears slowly filled them. Absent-mindedly, she pressed a button, and a CD-Rom ejected. The wind flicked it and bowled it across the sand. Jacob, her younger son, howled. "My disk, my disk," he cried. He dashed away, swerving beyond a rock. Suddenly, he was lost. He was about to roar when he saw a whole skull -perhaps a cow's skull, a skull with the teeth in it. Sobbing, but absent-mindedly, he picked it up. "There he is!" cried Mrs Flanders, coming round the rock and covering the whole space of the beach in a few seconds. "Put it down, Jacob! Drop it this moment! Something horrid, I know. I'll buy you another disk."

Stuart N Clarke

The Name of the Roe Umberto Eco

It was in a manuscript of 1687 by William of Ilfracombe that I first caught a hint of the localised but fierce schism that entwined religion and gastronomy. In discussing the impact on monastic orders of the so-called Manchego Heresy (c.1408-11), he records incidentally that the Abbot of Quattroformaggio (Provençal scion of a Medici-allied family) was a connoisseur who claimed he could identify the home pond ("'estany natal") of any specimen of carp roe served to him. Such a boast naturally ascended to the theological plane, requiring the intervention of a papal plenipotentiary, Maurice de Roblochon. And it was in his encrypted memoirs that I discovered the long-suppressed ecclesiastical history of roe.

Basil Ransome-Davies

Holy Bile

Thou art my bloody husband, therefore will I spew thee out of my mouth. For thou hast taken unto thyself a concubine from among the heathen. Hearken unto my prayer, O Lord, and let a sudden destruction come upon them unawares. They grin like a dog, and run about through the city. Break their teeth, O God, in their mouths, and let their children be vagabonds, and beg their bread. Nay, let them not see the sun. God heard the prayer of his handmaiden, and lo! it was accomplished. Great is the loving-kindness of God. For His mercy endureth for ever.

R A Collinssplatt

Lice in Wonderland Lewis Carroll

"Off with her head," cried the nit nurse . . .

David Silverman

The War of the Words H G Wells

As the banner unfolded before me I gave a cry of astonishment. In huge red letters, such as I had never seen before, the words "LABOUR ISN'T WORKING" appeared . . .

Katie Mallett

No 3972 Poisoned chalice

Set by Corvus Maximus

Provide enticing job descriptions for posts that are best avoided - for example, Home Secretary, England cricket captain.

Max 125 words by 29 March

Email: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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