[Chris O'Carroll]

Adrian Fry wins the Tesco vouchers this week.

No 4237 Set by Will Bellenger
We want film titles with a letter removed and a plot summary. An example by Rosalind Stopps: Brie Encounter – “Two lovers want the same piece of cheese, so neither of them gets it . . .” and so on.
Max 125 words by 2 August comp@newstatesman.co.uk

[Roger Slater]

How many of these do you think they would let each person enter? I can easily see writing a dozen or two. In fact, I came up with eight plausible entries already. This is very much like a contest the Washington Post Style Invitational would run.

[Chris O'Carroll]

I wondered the same thing, Roger. Someone might do a single long plot summary, I suppose, but I imagine that many people will enter multiple short ones, as many as they can fit into the 125-word limit. Sounds like you've already got enough for two or three such entries, so break out the pseudonyms.

[Roger Slater]

I thought the word limit applied to each separate entry, not all one's entries as a group. But I have rarely entered the NS, and never won it, so I don't have much of a feel for its rules. Does one need to be secretive about pseudnyms, or is it okay to disclose one's real name along with one's pseudonym?

[Chris O'Carroll]

Brian Allgar has plenty of experience as a multiple winner at the New Statesman, so he's better qualified than I to answer definitively. My guess would be that pseudonyms are pretty much an open secret there as elsewhere, so no eleaborate subterfuge is called for.

[Brian Allgar]

Roger, the 125-word limit means that you can submit, for example, ten titles of twelve words each, or six titles of twenty words each, or any combination that comes to an overall word-count of not more than 125. Any "overflow" will need to be sent as a separate entry or entries. (I once sent 8 entries, and much good it did me!)

As to pseudonyms, you can use "overt" pseudonyms, e.g. "Alban Girral" (Brian Allgar), or "borrowed" names and addresses, e.g. Nicholas Holbrook. Either way, despite what Chris has said, the last time I won with more than one entry in the New Statesman was back in the '70s, although in fairness to myself, I then took a 35-year break, so I'm still hoping to manage it again this time round.

[Roger Slater]

Thanks, Brian. But when you submit with pseudonyms, do you take steps to disguise that fact? For example, anything I send from my usual email account will show the same name in the "from" field. Do I need to use a different email account for my pseudonym so the pseudonym appears in the "from" field? And what about the address you give for mailing prizes?

It would be nice to win with more than one entry, but I'm mostly interested in winning with one. The more I submit, the better my chances, since you never know what the judge will like. I won the current Washington Post contest by submitting 25 (the maximum they allow), and my winner was among the few I thought had the least chance of winning.

[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

my winner was among the few I thought had the least chance of winning.

Don't tell me about it! I always send what I think is my best entry under my own name, but the number of times my pseudonyms win while I don't even get a mention is quite sickening.

If I send an "overt" pseudonym, then it's from my own email and postal address, and I make it clear that it's really me, so that they can send the cheque to someone who actually exists.

If I send it from a "borrowed" name, then I do so from a friend's email address (which he lends me) and use his home address. Usually (though not always) I'll start using borrowed names if I'm sending in more than two entries, since I think it unlikely that they would give three or more prizes to someone they knew to be the same person.

Three or more prizes? Wishful thinking, you may say - but I'm an incurable optimist, except for those moments when I'm sunk in the depths of pessimism. Roughly speaking, the former is when I'm asleep, and the latter when I'm awake.

[Adrian Fry]

Incidentally, I'm Brian and so is my wife

[Brian Allgar]

I don't usually do this (John knows why), but since this feels more like a Washington Post event, here's what I came up with while driving back from London to Paris (it's a long trip):

“The Blair Itch Project” - one man’s irresistible craving to go to war

“True Git” - George W. Bush stars as the world’s stupidest sherriff

“The Philadelphia Tory” - David Cameron is attacked by a maniac armed with cream cheese

“Sow White” - the heartbreaking story of an albino pig

“The Lad and the Tramp” - paedophilia among the down-and-outs

“Lice in Wonderland” - the human head as seen by parasites

“The Laykillers” - their mission is to wipe out everyone who is not in holy orders

“Honey, I shrunk the Ids” - a story of Freudian self-help

“Apocalypse Ow!” - yes, the end of the world will be rather painful

“How green was my Alley” - the hero solves the problem with weedkiller

“Where Angels fear to read” - young girls trapped in a pornographic bookshop

“The Hour of the Wol” - he’s delighted when Piglet finds his missing house

“The Rapes of Wrath” - a tale of angry sexual offenders

“While the City seeps” - an everyday story of sewer maintenance men

“I was a male war ride” - homosexual prostitution in the armed forces

“Kind Hearts and Cornets” - their business went bust because they gave all their ice-cream free to penniless kids

“A Bride too far” - the story of a serial bigamist

“The Bidman of Alcatraz” - a moving account of an obsessive bridge-player in prison

“Rear Widow” - she looks pretty good from the front, too

“Ringing up Baby” - the tragedy of a father who cannot understand why his six-month-old daughter never answers the phone

“The Da Vinci Cod” - a fishy piece of codswallop