New Statesman -- literary discrepancies -- May 24
 

Three Satiation Games wins should be enough to satiate us this week. Tesco vouchers for me, and wins for Bill Greenwell and Brian Allgar.

No 4228 Set by Leonora Casement
We want examples of literary discrepancies uncovered (for example, Lewis Carroll’s “golden afternoon” jaunt with Alice Liddell on 4 July 1862 was, according to the Met Office, “cool” and “rather wet”).
Max 125 words by 24 May comp@newstatesman.co.uk

Chris, entries as a poem or prose?

They don't specify that they're looking for poems, so they probably expect prose entries.

I'm afraid I don't understand this contest. After I look up the "golden afternoon" reference, maybe I'll understand. Also, what is the Met Office?

Roger, I think the "golden afternoon" refers to the poem at the end of Through the Looking Glass, "A Boat, Beneath a Sunny Sky" in which he recalls the supposedly sunny July day on which he first told the Alice stories to the Liddell girls. I'm guessing the Met office refers to the British weather authority (meteorological). This one would be more fun as a poem.

I suppose they're looking for something like "On the day that Anna Karenina allegedly committed suicide, pre-revolutionary records show that no trains were actually running".

I think that's EXACTLY the sort of thing they're after, Brian. Pad it out with a suitably trainspotterish reason why the trains weren't running and I think you've a winner.

Usually, when the number of words rather than the number of lines is specified, they're expecting (though not necessarily insisting on) prose. I once sent a winning verse entry to the Spectator when they had stipulated 150 words, so it doesn't seem to be an inviolable rule. But I don't know whether the same applies to the NS.