[Chris O'Carroll]

No 4273
By Gordon Gwilliams
You are challenged to be comprehensively politically correct about any current item in the news.
Max 150 words by 9 May comp@newstatesman.co.uk

[Brian Allgar]

Can anyone explain to me what is going on with the NS deadlines? The last three have been April 4, April 18, and now May 9. The two-week gap was due to the Spring double issue, but that is now followed by a three-week gap. Are they planning to bring out a triple issue, or does it mean that there will be no competitions during that period?

Yours, etc,
"Deeply perplexed".

[Bill Greenwell]

Originally Posted by Brian Allgar

Can anyone explain to me what is going on with the NS deadlines? The last three have been April 4, April 18, and now May 9. The two-week gap was due to the Spring double issue, but that is now followed by a three-week gap. Are they planning to bring out a triple issue, or does it mean that there will be no competitions during that period?

Yours, etc,
"Deeply perplexed".

Dear deeply perplexed

It's at least partly to do with the fact that this issue is another double (a centenary issue)

cheers

Bill

[Adrian Fry]

These double issues are getting more frequent; the thin end of a wedge that will end (soon) with the magazine going bi-weekly on a permanent basis. You heard it irresponsibly rumoured here first.

[Brian Allgar]

Perhaps they'll go the whole hog and publish monthly. Then, following the example of "New Labour", they could call themselves "The New New Statesman", or even "The New Oldie".

[John Whitworth]

Well, I wouldn't mind if the competition was for verse every month. I'd like to say that lefties can't do verse but Bazza, Bill and even you Red Baron Brian, prove me wrong week after week.

[Brian Allgar]

The dismissal of Carol Thatcher for uttering a racist remark is reassuring for those of us who feared that the BBC was in danger of becoming soggily liberal. Childhood recollections of Robertson’s Marmalade cannot justify Thatcher’s insulting use of the word “Golliwog”.

But the BBC still has a long way to go. Only yesterday, I heard an announcer state that the next piece was Debussy’s “Golliwog Cakewalk”. Wake up, BBC! It is evident that this work needs to be renamed “African-American Cakewalk”, just as the racist title of Conrad’s novella should become “The African-American of the Narcissus”.

And what are we to make of those announcers who still refer to a whole body of music in racist language? The BBC should sack anyone who does not use the respectful term “African-American Spirituals”.

Their bridge correspondent, too, must learn to refer to the suits as Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts and African-Americans.


(The funny thing is that there a few people on this site, as I know from my own experience, who will agree with every word of the above!)

[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by Bill Greenwell

Dear deeply perplexed

[The three-week gap is] at least partly to do with the fact that this issue is another double (a centenary issue)

Now we know the rest of the answer - they got the date wrong!