[John Whitworth]

All the usual suspects, Bill and Bazza and Martin Parker with Frank Osen just missing out. I reckon my Andrew Strauss ought to have wonn for reasons of patrioism, but Lucy is but a poor woman and probably doesn't understand cricket. Here's the new one. It obviously wants prose but verse is what it will get from me.


No. 2684 question time
You are invited to take a well-known literary figure and put them into the role of agony aunt/uncle, submitting a problem of your invention and their solution (150 words max.). Please email entries, where possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 2 February.

[John Whitworth]

Dear Auntie Phil

Dear Auntie Phil, I want to know
Why life is such a frost.
It all went wrong so long ago.
Is hope entirely lost?

I often think I never will
Have any kind of fun.
Is that my lot, Dear Auntie Phil,
Is nothing to be done?

Dear Morbid Thoughts, I think perhaps
You ought to leave your shell
And meet a lot of other chaps
And maybe girls as well.

Your lonely lifestyle threatens you
With anti social forces.
Why don’t you go and join a few
Creative Writing Courses?

[Roger Slater]

I had to look up what an agony aunt/uncle is, but the answer was easy enough to come by. But I'm afraid, John, that I don't catch your literary reference, though your poem still sounds like fun. I stayed more obvious and mainstream with my first foray:


"Dear Uncle Hamlet, Here's the thing:
My uncle killed my dad, the king.
The situation grows absurder.
Dad's ghost said, 'Avenge my murder!'
Yet killing uncles doesn't strike me
as something, well, exactly like me.
I'm not the rash, imprudent type.
I'm more the bookish, student type,
theatrical, a bit pedantic."

"For starters, friend, I'd say an antic
disposition buys you time,
but after that, I'm sorry, I'm
confused as well what you should do,
except, to thine own self be true.
Does that help you? Maybe not.
I'm sorry, though. That's all I've got."

[John Whitworth]

Very nice, Roger. As for mine, well how many well known literary persons are called Philip? There's Marlowe but it isn't him.

[Martin Parker]

A first draft from another of the insomniac early-bird flock. It's an ancient joke guarranteed to produce a snigger from all the thousands of school-children who read the Speccie --

I'm stuck here weaving at my loom.
My curse confines me to this room.
And yet I yearn for Lancelot
Who lives downstream in Camelot.

I long to watch him "Tirra-lirra"
In my arms and not a mirror.
Should I go to him or not?
Your advice would help a lot.

Abandon both your web and loom.
No curse should keep you in your room.
So, whether it should strike or not,
Just take the boat to Camelot.

Do not waste another day.
Seize Love's pleasures while you may.
No maiden ever suffered worse
Than stomach pains from any curse.

[basil ransome-davies]

So far it seems to be assumed that a 'well-known literary figure' is a fictional character. To me the phrase suggests a famous author – Milton, Wilde, Tennyson, Beckett, whoever.

[John Whitworth]

It is obvious, as some of you have pointed out, and as I said at the outset, that Lucy is expecting prose. However, in these cases verse has sometimes won in the past, particularly if you can make out a case for it e.g. that the agony aunt is a poet, as in my case. I don't do prose for these things. I've never won with a prose entry, unlike, say, Bazza.

Yes, sixteen lines of verse in never as much as 150 words. The limits are set with an eye to how much space they will take up on the page. A lot of long entries means fewer prizes because of the space allotted (two columns)

[Jerome Betts]

Frank, your Coleridge is a COL (chuckle out loud) and has brightened my morning. Hope it does well.

[R. S. Gwynn]

Dear Auntie Kingsley: I like booze
And girls so much it’s hard to choose
Between them, never knowing what’ll
Go better for me, bed or bottle.
In staying home alone at nights
I save on cabfare, fags, and lights,
Tho’ I’ll admit that may be only
To justify my being lonely.
Is one impelled to get out more
If he finds social life a bore?
Should he try answering the phone
If one’s best company’s his own?
I think it would be rather nice
For you to send me sound advice
Even if it’s a bitter pill.
As ever your fond reader, Phil.

[John Whitworth]

Kingsley and Phil have truly joined the ranks of truly popular writers. Even peple who have never read a word of either would know what you're on about, Sam, just as it would be with Byron or Burns or Dickens. Phil is not just a miserable sod, he's THE archetypal miserable sod. And Kingslay's... well we know what Kingsley is.