[John Whitworth]

Brian Allgar wins the fiver. Bill Greenwell wins also. A couple of very assured entries.

Lucy Vickery 29 December 2012
In Competition No. 2777 you were invited to take inspiration from pupils at a Cambridge school who may escape punishment for minor offences if they can come up with a quick and clever excuse.

Juliet Walker showed impressive ingenuity: ‘Yes, I did have my pet rat in my pocket, and I’m sorry if he frightened Miss, but she talks about “living history” and I’m just recreating the conditions in the trenches.’ As did Mark Ambrose: ‘The blankness on the paper is my answer to the existential problem posed by Sartre in the question.’ A skilful bending of the truth was called for here rather than outright outlandish lies. Could do better is the judge’s verdict on the overall standard, though there were some admirable exceptions. Top of the class this week is Brian Allgar, who earns £30 and a gold star. The rest take £25.


‘Scrumping’, sir? No, I can assure you that Cox Minor and I were conducting a scientific experiment. We’ve been taught in Physics that all theories must be tested empirically, and that’s what we were doing. Our class has just got to the Law of Gravity, and we decided to try to confirm it. I climbed into the tree and detached an apple. As predicted by the theory, it fell straight to the ground, where Cox Minor caught it and put it into a bag, since we didn’t want to litter the orchard. Of course, a single event is statistically meaningless, so we repeated the experiment a couple of dozen times with consistent results. At this point, Farmer Brown collared us and brought us to you. I can only say, sir, that far from being ashamed of ourselves, we are proud to have been able to vindicate Sir Isaac Newton.
Brian Allgar

Please sir, you gave us all such pleasure
When you taught us Davies’ ‘Leisure’,
Words, for me, that brought to light
Dreams ‘full of stars like skies at night’.
Those rhyming couplets thrilled me so
I felt compelled to have a go.
You’d left the room and, fired anew,
I wrote a couplet, sir, for you.
It’s on the board, as you can see,
A tribute, sir, to you from me,
A ‘thank-you’ poem to a friend
That’s not intended to offend.
The end-rhyme, written on a whim,
Is meant to be an acronym:
By ‘sir’s a DICK’, I had in mind,
Deft, Inspiring, Clever, Kind!
Alan Millard

—Sir, I wasn’t really chattering during the Lord’s prayer, I was merely saying the responses. You see, my family are Perkinsites, one of those 17th-century sects that has survived. We Perkinsites place ourselves somewhere between the Levellers and the Fifth Monarchists. But I expect you know the history of all that, sir.
—Well … yes. But haven’t I seen your parents worshipping at St Thomas’s?
—Oh yes, sir. That’s because the Perkinsites have no local meeting-house, and we do approve of the C of E. Besides, I expect they were very keen to have me accepted into this very excellent school. But we do believe in increased congregational participation. So on ‘Hallowed be thy name’ we add ‘And may it be so for ever’, and so on. That’s what I was doing.
—Well try to do it a bit more sotto voce in future. Now run along.
Noel Petty

Point well made, sir. The ladies are indeed in a state of undress and I know there are strict rules about not having guests in the dormitory, particularly if they are drunk. I can see your perspective too with regard to the horse, the traffic cone, the pub sign and the wheelie bin. I suspect also that you are focusing on the spray-painted writing on the wall and the shaving-foamed carpet. If I could just put this par bench upright and ask you to sit, I can explain. You see, I know funding will now be a challenge with the new foreign student rules, so I thought we could earn a few extra bob by applying for next year’s Turner prize. What you see is something of a work in progress but I hope I can count on your support in helping this evolve into a finished piece in time for the nominations.
Steve Baldock

—You are not wearing a tie.
—This is because I have conducted some experiments as additional homework into the effect of a tie on public health. Wearers make themselves more susceptible to garrotting, since a tie has two lengths that could be seized and pulled, leading to lacerations and asphyxia. As you know, sir, violent crime against ten- to 15-year-olds is over two times, and arguably over three times, as common as that against adults, as Chaplin, Flatley and Smith have shown. Not only that, although China has laws against child labour, they are flouted in a significant number of cases, especially through the summer ‘work-study’ schemes. Shenzhou alone makes 40 per cent of the world’s ties. To wear a tie, then, is to sanction the underpayment of countless Chinese children of my own age. Finally, is a fashion accessory derived from the dress of 17th-century Croatian mercenaries suitable as school uniform?
Bill Greenwell

Well, sir, a funny thing that happened on my way to school this morning. When I left my home I was on time, but was accosted on the street by a reporter from Sky News. She was doing a vox pop on the comprehensive versus the selective school system. She asked me what I thought of Mr Gove’s Academies programme. I think you will be impressed with my answer. I said that the outfit I attended was better than any stupid academy, that it put the interests of the pupils ahead of ideologically motivated bulls**t. You and I both know that it is teachers, not councillors, not bureaucrats, not advisers or consultants, who guarantee high educational standards. Strange things happen in pairs. Because of this interview I missed my bus — so I’m a little late.
John O’Byrne