[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.

[Brian Allgar]

Ooops, wrong thread

[Terese Coe]

Just happened by after the deadline and rolled with laughter at Brian's entries! Only a rare mind could dream up the cream cheese, the weedkiller, the sewer maintenance men, the penniless kids, and the codswallop. Utterly professional plot twists, including the sly "Buster Keaton receives a warm welcome in Mesopotamia." A script whose time has come, if only Keaton hadn't died in 1966! He could have done wonders with Mesopotamia.