[John Whitworth]

Our Jubilee poets were Chris o'Carroll and Bill Greenwell with George Simmers just missing out. I must say I thought Mary Holtby's Dryden a tour de force. Join us, Mary!

This week it's a short story:

No. 2752: short story
You are invited to submit a short story (150 words maximum) that ends with the following phrase: It is not all pleasure, this exploration.’ Please email entries, where possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 20 June.

[Brian Allgar]

Con-grrrr-atulations to Bill Grrrr-eenwell and Chrrrr-is O'Carroll. (Please excuse the sound of gnashing teeth.)

[Jayne Osborn]

Congratulations Chris, Bill and George!

I don't feel angrrrr-y like Brian, just a small 'Tut' to myself, as this is one of those for which I missed the deadline.

Brian,
Come now, you can't win EVERYTHING!!! Give the rest of us a chance sometimes

Jayne

[Brian Allgar]

Jayne, you do me an injustice. Angry - me? Certainly not! I am known to my friends and family as 'Mr Sweetness and Light', except on those occasions when I'm complaining, which admittedly is most of the time.

And I am far too modest and unassuming to wish to win everything. Almost everything would do perfectly well.

P.S. Congratulations to George too, whom I missed the first time (he said in dulcet, emollient tones).

[FOsen]

Congratulations, Chris, Bill and George - and buck up, Brian. You ought to be more like that Alban Girral fellow.

[Brian Allgar]

Don't speak to me about that sneaky Alban Girral. The worst of it is that I can't even send the kneebreakers to sort him out.

[Marion Shore]

"I can't take anymore! All this suffering! People caught up in cyclones! Or head over heels in shit!" He buries his face in his hands. “Not to mention the extreme climate changes --"
"There's no turning back," I tell him. "Besides, don't you remember the mess you were in when we met?”
"But I'm so tired…”
I look at him. He is pale and trembling. I hope he isn't going to faint.
"Courage, my friend. And remember – she's waiting for you up there.”
His eyes light up. "Imagine seeing her –after all these years!” Then his face clouds. "But Virgil--does it have to be so hard?"
"You need to keep your eyes on the prize.” I'm getting a little impatient. “And remember, Dante,” I take his hand as we begin our descent into the next circle, “it is not all pleasure, this exploration.”

[Lance Levens]

A zinger, Marion!

[Lance Levens]

Dr. Detlev Heissliebe grazed with his pinky the plastic-gloved pinky of Dr. Erica Schnellkuss--the OR was the only place they could meet--as they both probed the allegedly diseased duodenum. Foot after foot of the unending gut their digits dandled amid the fetid stew. Their eyes never touched; their fingers never ceased touching. The other nurses observed, their nasal passageways a-tingle, as the pursuit of the sarcoma continued and the overpaid fingertips toyed with love's pleasures amid the chyme and a small sea of brown etcetera. As they ransacked the upper segment their index fingers rubbed--dos-a-dos. A shocked in-suck of breath from onlooking nurses. At the middle section their middle fingers wantonly hooked. There was a moment of bestial tugging and rhythmic heaving when an elderly nurse whispered: "Doctors!" But as they entered the lowest segment, a brown squirt arose, punitively, like Old Faithful high up out of the body's cavity and splattered the lovers. As nurses wiped both surgeons' masks, Dr. Heissliebe whispered to his colleague, impishly: "It is not all pleasure, this exploration."

Thanks to Jayne for correcting my sloppy copy!

[basil ransome-davies]

Lance, I woke up feeling like Poland after the war & that has cheered me no end. Thanks.