Now you’re talking
No 4083
Set by Hank T Romein
We asked you to go metonymic and send in actual statements or reports from famous streets or buildings. In an unfortunate error, this comp was set twice, as 4083 and 4085. Any compers who hadn’t spotted this and who entered 4085 in time had their entries put into the bag to be judged along with the others.
Report by Ms de Meaner
The winners get £20 each, the best of whom – dear Bill – also gets the Tesco vouchers. An hon mensh
for G M Davis’s Kremlin (“Do I feel used? I’d have to say yes”).
Stonehenge
Be honest. Were we brought all this way for a host of men in white coats – and pointy hats – to wait till the sun hits the altar, and the ritual kicks off – Isn’t that Ken Barlow? – So? We’re fenced off like Guantanamo detainees, barbed wire and strange music, and druids wailing – extraordinary rendition – haha, well put for once. To think we were hauled over hill and dale, mire and moor, to stand grandly here – drawn by articulated lorries on the R51 by time travellers – yes, and not from Wales – these archaeologists know nothing – to become the Alton Towers of the first millennium – better than that, more Disneyland Paris – Now look at us! No fun at all . . .
Bill Greenwell
The Kremlin
It is dawn on a frosty May morning, and my cherry trees are in blossom. Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, a businessman, is eagerly awaiting the return of Vladimir, my owner, who has been away for 15 months. Dmitry recounts a story of how Vladimir was kind to him when working in the St Petersburg Mayor’s Office. Then the maid, Dunyasha, enters. She worries and fusses with her appearance. They are joined by the clerk, Simon Yephikodov, who drops flowersat Dunyasha’s feet as he enters. Afterwards, Dunyasha confesses to Dmitry that Leonid has proposed to her . . .
John O’Byrne
John Lewis, Oxford Street
I’ve had them all in here; cabinet ministers, opposition spokesmen, that bloke who used to go out with a Cheeky Girl (or was it a weather woman?). The stock would fly from the shelves: plasma TVs, pagodas, wigs. “Never knowingly underclaimed” – that was the motto. To be honest, it’s all gone a bit quiet recently. We had a run on black redacting pens and hair shirts for a while, but since then, nothing. I suppose the recession must be hitting everywhere. I’ve got a glut on duck houses and moat-cleaning equipment, if you’re interested in a bargain.
Neil Rennick
Vatican City
Nineteen twenty-nine, the year of the St Valentine’s Day Massacre and the Lateran Treaty, the latter being where yours truly comes in. I gotta hand it to Ratti – he had the moxie to sit down and talk territory with Musso. Not everyone liked that, but ya gotta deal with the enemy sometimes. In this case Ratti got his independent turf (me) in exchange for some old stuff he didn’t have anyway. Smart work, huh? A unique concession, what more could you want? The knockers said it wasn’t very spiritual, but hey, forget spiritual, there’s a business to run here. That’s what counts, capisce? Holy Fathers come and go but the racket lives for ever.
Basil Ransome-Davies
No 4086 The missing body parts
Set by Ian Blake
In Jumping the Cracks by Victoria Blake, an Oxford don remarks: “I bumped into someone carrying a shrunken head in Holywell.” Beginning or ending with this sentence, we want your statement to the police, who have just arrested you as a murder suspect.
Max 125 words by 23 July
Email: comp@newstatesman.co.uk
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This England
Each printed entry will receive a £5 book token. Entries on a POSTCARD, please, to This England, NS, 1st Floor, Boundary House, 91-93 Charterhouse Street, London, EC1M 6HR
No offence!
Visitors to the Severn Valley Railway’s World War Two-themed weekend were banned from dressing up as Hitler or SS officers. They were invited to don 1940s-style clothes, both British and German, for the event at the 16-mile railway, which runs between Bridgnorth and Kidderminster. But the swastika, Nazi uniforms and Hitler impersonations were barred from the event. The event organiser Steve Fulcher said: “The public like to see both sides of the re-enactment and we do have people dressed in the uniforms of German soldiers.
“But there were some pretty nasty things that went on in that war and we didn’t want to cause offence to anybody.”
Shropshire Star (Ivor Yeloff)
Silence is golden A man who harassed neighbours by whistling the Addams Family theme tune at them has been jailed. Leopold Wrobel, 51, made the lives of Michael and Kathleen Sharpe “an absolute nightmare”. Julia Bosworth, defending, said Wrobel disputed he was the perpetrator of all the whistling and his whistles were directed at his dog.
Daily Telegraph (F Harvey)
