[Chris O'Carroll]

The Tesco vouchers for Basil Ransome-Davies this week. Hon menshes for Mary McLean, Martin Rocek, and me, and two for Brian Allgar, I believe. (He's certainly Alban Girral, and I think he's also Sylvia Smith. My apologies if I'm mistaken about that. Also if I've omitted anyone's name. The hon mensh roll is rather extensive, and I may have missed someone.)

There seem to be some typos on this week's comp page. For example, among the hon mensh proverbs, surely it's many hands that need many gloves.

No 4234 Set by Leonora Casement
We want emails, letters, even (wordy) postcards from a friend travelling abroad, which make you thankful you didn’t go. Herewith an example of an entry that won this comp in the 1950s: “Peace, perfect peace! The monastery is 15,000 feet above sea level . . . some of [us] troubled with headaches and nose bleeding . . . I never felt better . . . Strict monastic routine for all! No talking except for 45 minutes after morning service (4am) and then only Latin . . .”
Max 150 words by 5 July comp@newstatesman.co.uk

(I've fixed the email address for submissions. Sorry about the error.)

[Brian Allgar]

Guilty as charged - Sylvia Smith is my sister.

Congratulations to everyone!

I see they're still exhuming bodies from the 50's ...

[FOsen]

My favorite treatment of this is by Thurber. The most-quoted line is the postillion-struck-by-lightning, but the one about the porter always cracks me up.

Frank

[Chris O'Carroll]

That Thurber piece is hilarious. But if you're thinking about entering the phrase-book competition, that deadline is next week, the 28th. For the off-putting descriptions of foreign travel comp, the deadline is a week later.

[FOsen]

Thanks, Chris. I'm thinking about them both - but since that's all I'm doing, perhaps it's just as well I posted on the wrong thread.

[Susan McLean]

I loved the Thurber, Frank. I don't remember having read that one before.

Susan

[Marion Shore]

Actually, I find the description of the monastery quite appealing. Especially the Latin!

[Lance Levens]

A Card from Detroit


Cheers to all the family from vibrant downtown Detroit! We once had to prep ourselves for Maccu Picchu, but our Motor City training was even more exciting: crawling under machine gun wire, leaping water holes and hand to hand cutlery combat. Of course the twins, John and Jimmy, adored it. (Only Jimmy lost an absolutely integral member.) I do think for next month's crop of tourists the tour guides should opt out of the pre-dawn Zulu chants. Sleep is vital and I found, personally, the ululations gave my acid reflux quite a toggle. We did try awfully hard to see Motown's Birth Place but, sadly, it was sand-bagged and not at all green-zoned, as we were promised in the brochure. So the photo of the bullet-riddled plaque honoring Barry Gordon is all we could manage. Martial Law is not something you want to toy with, but during our last glorious days we were lifted out of the doldrums when John was kidnapped by the the Cribs. The SWAT team's precision was to die for.

[Gail White]

I tried sending an entry to the address given, but it was rejected as not deliverable (twice). Any further advice, please?

[Brian Allgar]

Gail, there is a missing blank in the original posting which makes it look as if 'July' is part of the address. The address should be

comp@newstatesman.co.uk