Monday 30 May 2011

More NS competitions

Writing a post the other day about the famous New Statesman competitions, I recalled some of the prizewinning entries in (much) earlier years. Not the long ones; I imagine there have been anthologies of winning entries, though I haven't been able to find one, in which I could have looked up such things as the winning entry for An Imaginary Discussion between Oswald Mosley and Ian Paisley Written in the Style of Hemingway. (I often wondered why anyone would expend the huge effort needed to write things like this in the hope of winning a small book token.)

No, it was the one-liners that stuck in my memory, such as:

Great Boasts:
At the wedding: "Yes, charming couple, I've slept with both of them."

or
Irregular Verbs, along the lines of I am firm/ you are obstinate/ he is a pig-headed fool:
"I am Oxford/ you are Cambridge/ he is London School of Economics."
"I like boys/ you are a scoutmaster/ he is in prison."

or
Announcements which make the experienced party-goer/ diner-out wish he had stayed at home:
"This is something rather special: we trod the grapes ourselves."
"And now, who's for some mead?"
"Oh goodie, Deirdrie's brought her zither!"

I wish I had made a note of some of the others; I could have made fifty posts out of them.

2 comments:

Davoh said...

mm, know that you are careful wirh responders ..

but oy, fell orf me tree on a couple.

"couple" .. nah, live by self an chortle

Tony said...

I'm not sure that I know exactly what you mean, Davoh old friend, but it sounds complimentary so I'll just say "thanks".