Staggers; A Wet Weed
 

I won £25 in the Primitive Language Contest. Last week Bazza won £25. Posting these things up is quite tricky but I've actually bought a Staggers and will do my best. This week's winners are jolly good, though I say it myself.

The next challenge (No 4149):

According to Peter Wilby (NS 4 October), David Millband 'once expressed surprise that the New Statesman should contain humour and articles about Christmas food' and a contemporary claimed never to have seen him 'even mildly drunk'. If, for want of other career opportunities, Miliband Senior should take over editing the NS Competition, what challenges might he set.

A lot of you may say that you can't do this because you don't know about the man, but you do. The portrait is obviously of somebody who is, in Nigel Molesworth terms 'a wet weed and a sissy'. You know chaps like this, don't you? Of course you do.

Max 100 words by 21 October comp@newstatesman.co.uk

I'm an idiot. I sent the Staggers comp to Lucy. I had a fair chance of winning, too.

Oh Orwn, I'm sorry. Don't do it again. Staggers is Staggers and Speccie is Speccie and never...

We all dislike children and wish there were some way to avoid interaction with them until they emerge as educated adults of fine breeding. For this week's competition, devise a fanciful technique whereby the presence of children can be disguised or mitigated in a household wherein they in fact dwell. The winner will receive £25 and the Nobel Peace Prize.

david straighthead
 

D. Miliband is what we would at one time (i.e. 1940s/50s) have called a 'square' (& so probably is his brother). Ergo the challenge is to imagine how such a person could set a Staggers competition, where the idea is usually to be wackily humorous or irreverent. It's a toughie, but Roger has set a good pace.

And you've got to get a banana in somewhere. Note to transatlantic poets - the man was photographed holding one and looking goofy. No politician should ever be caught holding a banana, a leek or a carrot. I suppose Welsh politicians might have a special dispensation for leeks.

And here's mine, including banana.

New Staggers Competitions

Cain and Abel: A Treatment from Cain’s Point of View,
New Newspeak: Conflating the False and the True,
The Future for Labour: a Westminster Farce,
Some Tips for Distinguishing Elbow from Arse,
The Prodigal Brother Reborn as Piranha,
A Day in the Life of an English Banana:
Six new competitions, all set by Sad Dave
Who dresses in sackcloth and lives in a cave.

Imagine the ninth century poet Þjóðólfr of Hvinir had composed his Ynglingatal skald in the Dróttkvætt meter (see competitions 2216-2341). What would Þjóðólfr have written, had he chosen to devise a way whereby king Ragnavald’s elder brother might assume or even usurp the title the king bore. Each line of every eight line stanza should contain two internal rhymes (frumhending and viðurhending), the second of which falls on the penultimate syllable, and odd lines must contain half-rhymes (skothendingar), while the even lines should contain full-rhymes (aðalhendingar). 72 line minimum. As always, we will re-run the competition until there is a winner.

I think Frank nailed it.

Here's another try:

Who has not experienced a fine dinner ruined by a failed or misguided pairing of wine and food, a disappointment of ironic proportions when both the wine and the food would have been exquisite if served separately? Write, in one hundred words or less, your obligatory compliments to the host as you are taking your leave at the end of such an evening. The winning entry will balance graceful tact with complete honesty, and will employ the word "banana" at least twice.

Whoops, Orwn - Butterfingers Strikes Again, eh? ;)

Yeah, Frank's got it. (But what should we therefore conclude about me, given that just yesterday I was hunting online for learning materials in Old Norse and Old Icelandic?)

And again and again!

It is a well known fact that traditional culture often inculcates our children with misinformation for the sake of amusement and puerile entertainment. Take a well known children's joke and rewrite it in a way that substitutes correct information for pernicious attempts at humor that mislead and miseducate. For example, Q: Why did the chicken cross the road? A: Chickens do not have motives or thoughts, but are purely instinctual creatures. They have no concept of roads and are incapable of formulating a desire to arrive at the other side.

When young people attend a "concert" these days, they are less likely to hear the classics than popular "music" presented by the Beatles or the Bananas or another organization of that ilk. Compose program notes illuminating an actual or invented popular opusculum, as though it were to be performed as part of a real concert. Adhere to a strict 75-word limit; one can stomach only so much.

targeting david
 

Roger's latest is on the dime – po-faced & literalistic. I could be wrong, but I don't feel there's much room for side-jokes here.

Roger (Bob),
You're really fired up for this one, I can see, and I predict you'll be one of the winners... but fix this little typo, please.

Write, in one hundred words or less, your obligatory compliments to the host...

Roger, that kids' one seems to have the genuine flavour of bananaman. Go with it! I must say I never thought I would win in a Staggers competition. A good omen for Spherians!

Competition for The Staggers:
Marketing Research all shows
Needlers, naggers, boasters, blaggers,
Everybody reads The Staggers,
Carpet-baggers, camel-shaggers,
Half the world, we may suppose,
Warmly recommends The Staggers.
Do the same as one of those
In 100 words of prose.

Raj - you have nailed it - that last one officially qualified for laugh out loud funny, according to me.

this way madness lies
 

Competitors are invited to make as many words of three letters or more as possible from the expression 'the future of British social democracy in the age of American hegemony and global capitalism'. 60% of the words should include at least one letter from the first half of the alphabet. Words of seven letters or more will be double weighted. Any word using 'y' as a vowel will be awarded a 40% premium. Irregular, but not regular, plurals may be counted as additional words. US orthography may be used as an alternative to (but not in addition to) British.