The unusual suspects No 4073
Set by Hank T Romein
Samuel Goldwyn once complained of being offered nothing but old clichés. What was needed, he declared, was some new clichés. We asked you to supply some for reality TV contestants, politicians and sports personalities – all the usual suspects, really. So step up to the plate and give 120 per cent. There are three to be replaced for a start!
Report by Ms de Meaner
Very, very hard. The way clichés come into being is they’re metaphors that so exactly fit the moment that they become overused and then sadly to be avoided. Merely to substitute strange words (“flat as a pancreas”) that don’t at all fit, even if the phrase sounds quite funny (a pancreas isn’t flat – I should know: I’m a diabetic) meant those entries got filed in the bin. But it did give me an idea for a future comp. Hon menshes to Frederick Robinson (“conspicuous by his presence”), Adrian Fry (“Never judge a blog by its wallpaper”) and Brian D Allingham (“It was a game of four quarters”). The winners get £20 each, the best of whom (Dear Bill) also gets the Tesco vouchers.
Giving it the full . . .
Well Brian, we’re gonna go out there and give it the full Rommel today. We’re the underrats, on a desert storm to absolute zero, and if it doesn’t work out, well it’s back to the window box again. Mind you, the lads’ gonads are twitching, they’ve all got a touch of the Germaine Greers, so look out, United, you’re not facing a bunch of jellied amoebas. And I’ll say this to Sir Alex: you may be the panda that got the bamboo at the moment, but cut it short and put it in a Jiffy Bag, nobody’s logarithms always come out as they should. Football’s like shaking the drainpipe for a frog, know what I mean?
Basil Ransome-Davies
The show’s not over till . . .
At the end of a dark day, an Olympic ballpark figure would be in the trillion trillions, but remember the show is not over until the obese male has croaked. We have ended the cycle of buggered and botched, and kick-started the defunct Harley Davidson of the economy, so we are intensely relaxed about the fat pussies so long as they employ a crack team of tax consultants to tell them how to move the crossbar. We are now at a T-junction in a minefield, but there will be no collective aphasia, no more haves and have-squats, yet nor will we dress up in cheesecloth and ashes.
Josh Ekroy
For all the tea in . . .
Listen. I know the tropes. I wasn’t born singing “Yesterday”. And what you’ve told me is a bare-bottomed lie, the sort that goes down like a tungsten Frisbee. You may think you’re the whale’s dick – but people will read you like a Sony PRS-505, and they won’t believe you for all the tea bags in Tesco. Their systems will crash, and you’ll be off the Forbes List quicker than you can whisper Woolworths. One wallow doesn’t make a swimmer. Face factoids, and come off your keyboard. And no McBrides. Spend less time on your space shuttle, and more in the bus queue. What the Dawkins were you doing? What repossessed you? Have a quick Brazilian, or no one will chew your Twizzlers.
Bill Greenwell
No 4076 The right tool for the job
Set by Hank T Romein
“She’s got a Hockney in her kitchen.” The recipient of this overheard revelation was momentarily baffled, thinking in terms of gadgets rather than art. But exactly what kind of device, for example, would a hockney be? Or a paxman? A miliband? An obama? A pinter? We want you to take some famous names and find a use for them about the house or garden.
Max 10 gadgets by 14 May
Email: comp@newstatesman.co.uk
