[Chris O'Carroll]

This was Competition No 4301, set by Gordon Gwilliams. Evidently, Richard Dawkins writes in “Unweaving the Rainbow” about W.H. Auden feeling inferior in the presence of scientists. “What about the other way round?” the setter asked. “We want an uncomprehending scientist’s words on a poet of your choice.”

The judges describe this as “A very popular comp” with “Super” entries. Rob Stuart, Adrian Fry, and Carolyn Thomas-Coxhead are all £25 winner. (Alison Zucker scores the Tesco vouchers.) Brian Allgar and I have to settle for hon menshes.

I hope the winners will post (or let me post) their entries there.

[Chris O'Carroll]

Turns out this was a double-win week for Rob Stuart, who is also Alsion Zucker. He has given me the go-ahead to post his two winning entries.

Richard Dawkins on T S Eliot’s The Waste Land

April is most certainly not “the cruellest month”, for the reason that cruelty is an exclusively human behaviour. This attempt to apply emotional states to lunar cycles is primitivistic and absurd. Mr Eliot compounds his error by asserting in the next line that this month “breeds lilacs out of the dead land”. This is, of course, oxymoronic: land capable of germinating specimens of Syringa vulgariswould not be dead by definition,QED. He follows this with some wishy-washy nonsense about Tarot cards in the company of a New Age shyster and then embarks on a frankly bizarre discussion with a friend regarding the likelihood of a dead body “sprouting”. Let me assure both Mr Eliot and Mr Stetson that the chances of this are literally nil: any buried corpse will simply be broken down by the cumulative action of bacteria.

Alison Zucker


Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, on Jane Taylor’s “The Star”

It is not clear if Jane Taylor realises that stellar scintillation (her “twinkle”) is an optical effect created by a star’s light passing through our planet’s turbulent atmosphere as opposed to an essential property of the star itself, so we must give her the benefit of the doubt. But her assertion that this unnamed star is “little” cannot be allowed to pass. Even the very smallest red dwarf known is 96 times more massive than Jupiter and although neutron stars may be far smaller than planets, these are non-luminous bodies that cannot be seen from earth and are therefore unlikely candidates for the subject of this rhyme. The author opines that she does not know what the star is, as well she might, but then goes on to make specious comparisons between what is essentially a gigantic fusion reactor and a metastable allotrope of carbon. Unimpressive stuff all round.

Rob Stuart

[Carolyn Thomas-Coxhead]

I 'ad stars in me eyes too. I thought they were all good but "Alison's" an absolute beaut.

[Brian Allgar]

Well, congratulations to all, amd of course, doubly to Rob! Chris, does that mean that the Sphere scooped all the winners and HMs?

I hope no one minds if I post my "mere" HM:

O for a beaker full of the warm South
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;

As a world-renowned geographer, geologist and archaeologist, I must take issue with these lines by John Keats. “Hippocrene” is the ancient name of a fountain on Mount Helicon, and my recent investigations there have proved conclusively that the well I discovered is indeed the long-sought Hippocrene or “Horse’s Fountain” (see Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society for March 2013). I sampled and analysed the water, which was crystalline, with no traces of the iron oxides that might lead one to describe it as “blushful”. Moreover, it was entirely uncarbonated, and could never have produced beaded bubbles winking at the brim. Finally, convinced of its purity, I drank a beaker-full, and can assure you that I did not end up with a purple-stained mouth. It was also ice-cold.

[Sylvia Fairley]

Great stuff! And, yes, 'Alison' well deserved the Tescos! If I'm allowed to post my failure, here it is. If not, feel free to remove it... Looking again, I see that my scientist becomes a biologist towards the end.


I’ve just read my first poem: Ode to a Skylark – yes, alauda avensis – by a chap called Shelley. I must admit I found much of it incomprehensible. At the start he states: ‘bird thou never wert’ – I searched for evidence to support this surprising assertion, but in vain. Proceeding to stanza 7, there are rainbow clouds (that’s fine, an optical phenomenon caused by diffraction of light) but later in the poem we have ‘a rain of melody’. How can a succession of frequencies be combined with the precipitation of a condensed liquid? My confusion increased in stanza 10 concerning bioluminescent beetles; ‘glow-worm golden’. The lampyrus noctiluca is brown, its luminescence yellow-green. Golden? Could this be a species I have failed to identify? Are the results of my scientific investigations flawed? I’m developing a nervous twitch (blepharospasm) and feelings of insecurity, hence my decision to resign from my research fellowship.

[Mary McLean]

Great fun! Is Martin Rees a recognizable figure? I haven't come across him in the media, though I met him once. He was jovial almost to the point of Dickensian caricature, and then I found out he'd written a book about how doomed the planet is:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/...rs/2976279.stm

[Chris O'Carroll]

Originally Posted by Brian Allgar

Chris, does that mean that the Sphere scooped all the winners and HMs?

That's right. Four (or three) winners this week, and just two HMs.

[Chris O'Carroll]

And here's Adrian Fry's winner:

A meteorologist specialising incloud physics on Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”

Lonely as a cloud? Familiar as I am with the microclimate of the Lake District, even I am at a loss to comprehend. Not only are clouds rarely unaccompanied in that locale but they are always collective entities comprising myriad water droplets. Your failure to offer specific details on the type of cloud to which you allude also frustrates comprehension, there being a world of difference between, for example, a dark-based cumulonimbus and a streak of high cirrus. Further, clouds are without the volition you ascribe; the most perfunctory observation of the skies should at least hint at the rather complex role of air currents in cloud movement. Having, albeit shoddily, set up the expectation of an insightful disquisition on my specialism, you inexplicably – via the claim that clouds can see; evidence not appended – digress into matters horticultural, hence outside my remit.

[Janice D. Soderling]

That's right. Four (or three) winners this week, and just two HMs

Youse guys are just plain old brilliant.

[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by Janice D. Soderling

Youse guys are just plain old brilliant.

Right, Janice. I probably got the HM for being plain and old.