[John Whitworth]

Bill saved our bacon with a fine cliffhanger. Good on him! This week's competition may favour Brits. Do Americans have tabloid newspapers? Aussies do.

No. 2719: telling tales
A well-known literary character of your choice spills the beans to a tabloid. You are invited to supply the resulting front-page story, including headline (150 words max.).
Please email entries, if possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 19 October.

[Gail White]

"Do Americans have tabloid newspapers", indeed. You should just join me in the grocery check-out line, where I get a choice of half a dozen.

[John Whitworth]

Are they owned by the great Rupert Murdoch?

[Lance Levens]

Don't know if Rupert owns them, but post-apocalyptic tabloid archivists will record that in the early 21st century Brad Pitt, Jennifer Anniston, and Angelina Jolie attained, jammed as they were between Butterfingers and Snickers Bars, a god-like status.

[John Whitworth]

Toybear Toyboy

‘I was his plaything of an idle hour’ claimed a tearful Winnie-the-Pooh (3) a Bear. 'We were definitely an item but he cast me aside and now I am suffering from an eating disorder involving honey. I blame it all on him.
Christopher Robin (8), a committed Christian, denies wrongdoing. ‘We simply attended small prayer meetings together,' Asked if these took place in his bedroom after they had shared baths, he said, ‘I wish to be left alone to complete my education. The Bear wrote poetry. We all know where that sort of thing may lead.’
Winnie is now considering a career as a singer. His 'Hundred Best Hums in the Hundred Acre Wood’, will be launched next month. The Hundred Acre Wood was a common scene of assignation, where they were often accompanied by a small pig. The pig was unavailable for comment.

[FOsen]

Henry Jekyll, acquitted on manslaughter charges last fall at a trial in which his legal team employed the novel and now notorious “potion metamorphosis” defense, has gone missing from a prestigious rehab facility in Southgate, just days before he was to have launched the book tour for his soon-to-be-released autobiography, Nothing to Hyde. Jekyll checked himself into the celebrity clinic last month, citing unspecified “anger-management” issues and, in an interview with our reporter Hastie Lanyon, promised to reveal exclusive details of a rumored dissociative identity disorder. Unfortunately, Lanyon suffered a stroke at that meeting, perhaps precipitating Jekyll’s disappearance. While confined, Jekyll had continued philanthropic work through his company, Jekyll Laboratories. Telephone enquiries as to Jekyll’s whereabouts elicited this response from an unnamed spokesperson: “He’s probably helping little African kids in the Amazon – that’s it – he’s pissed off there – now you go do the same, mate.”