[John Whitworth]

Bazza, Bill and Chris all up to their usual form. Well done lads. I had the misfortune to run into a Titus Andronicus of superior taste.
The competition could certainly be a verse. The trick I suggest is to pick a very quirky author.


No. 2740: DECALOGUE
No. 3 of Henry Miller’s work Commandments is ‘Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.’ You are invited to submit the ten work commandments of the writer of your choice, living or dead (please specify; 150 words maximum). Please email entries, wherever possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 21 March.

[Martin Parker]

I am pretty certain that if John had not been blinded by disappointment at "losing" to an inferior Titus Andronicus he would have seen me among the winners as well with Madame de Maintenon.

[Jerome Betts]

And in your Miles Kington vein too, Martin. I thought all the winners, apart from the last, but particularly the Spherean four, Basil, Bill, Chris and Martin (a new pop-group anyone?) were on brilliant form. Interesting that there were no higgledy-piggledy or jiggery-pokery openings, but every first line coinage had some thematic relevance. Perhaps the form is still evolving.

[John Whitworth]

I did, Martin, but somehow your honoured name slipped from my short term memory as I wrote. Many apologies and vive Madame!

[John Whitworth]

Writer's Decalogue

Cultivate the Wodehouse glide;
Let the public taste decide.
Don't upset the applecart;
Banish miserable art.
Be a crafter and a grafter.
Summon gaiety and laughter.
Read a bit; write lots and lots;
Keep it sunny. As to plots
Pretty girls and aunts should feature.
Don't have much to do with Nietzsche:
Don't have much to do with Germans.
Pass on politics and sermons.
Keep your writing light as air,
Sweet, untroubled, free from care,
Dancing like the dappled leaves.
Send the heavy stuff to Jeeves.

[Martin Parker]

Forgetfully-netfully
old poet Whitworth he
can't now remember the
names on a page.
Loss of most memory
neo-selectively
happens to poets who
reach his great age.

John, you are forgiven. Sadly, though, being even older than you I know from experience that the only way from now is down. Sorry to be depressing.

[John Whitworth]

I think I'm going for the century. There is a writer called something like Anthill who has almost made it. And Titian lived to 99 until he met that girl at the top of the ladder presumably. Wodehouse was ninety and died more or less pen in hand.

[Martin Parker]

You are looking good on it, John.

Sphereans, I can vouch for the fact that his photograph is entirely un-retouched, airbrushed, genetically modified or the result of any degree of successful wishful thinking.

[Jerome Betts]

Mr W.S.s Decalogue

1. The Unities are there to be ignored.

2. Consistencty in spelling is for wimps.

3. Keep a firm hand on uppitty clowns.

4. Try to get tedious old courtiers stabbed through arrasses or
pursued by bears early on so they can reappear as somebody else.

5. If in doubt, disguise a boy as a girl.

6. Bohemia is a country of the mind and can therefore have a sea-coast.

7. Bums in lines equal bums on seats, unless they're groundlings.

8. A play within a play works wonders.

9. Don't forget a song or two.

10. Ignore Ben Jonson.

[John Whitworth]

Nice one, Jerome.