[John Whitworth]

Great stuff Jim, particulary a hen's gonad. But, alas, the woman is Charlotte Mew, so you'll need to fix that.

[Jim Hayes]

Yipes!

Do a cartwheel Tom, begged Charlotte Mew, OK?

Should do it eh? Many thanks John.

BTW I've asked the adorable Lucy ( I can suck up too) which half of the competition Bill Greenwell entered and to put me in the other.

[John Whitworth]

Didn't Bill Greenwell say he was in for the whole nine yards, the difficult bit. But of course he could do one of the others too. You can actually put in additional entries, under your own name or using a pseudonym. Maude Gracechurch, who used to win regularly, was actually a canal barge belonging (I think) to E.O. Parrott who won even more often.

[Marion Shore]

I swore I wouldn't waste time on this.
I'm hopeless.


Emily Dickinson, iced, solemn, inky;
Robert Burns, why are your rubbers torn?
DH Lawrence, darn lech! We find you so kinky!
Dylan Thomas, sadly, a month now you mourn.
TS Eliot--ole Tits! Are you wearing a bra?
Reveillez-vous, Baudelaire! L'aube delira!

....................--Sari Hormone

[R. S. Gwynn]

But what about Hughes? He hugs.

[John Whitworth]

Marion, no time could possibly have been wasted that produced Robert Burns rubber's torn. Just think. It was there all the time until you uncovered it but NOBODY KNEW IT. I suppose Lord Byron Lor! Dry nob! is simply rude.

[Bill Greenwell]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

Maude Gracechurch, who used to win regularly, was actually a canal barge belonging (I think) to E.O. Parrott who won even more often.

You can say that again. He was Maud (sic) Gracechurch, A. Boteman, Wayne Sidesaddle, B. Mooring and a whole host of others. I went on his barge once. It was dominated by a huge projection screen (he was so short-sighted he was registered as blind) so he could see what had been sent him. He also, and I know this not politically correct, but it was comical at the time, mistook Fiona Pitt-Kethley for a hat-stand, and gave her chase for a bit round the local pub.

But the bigger winner was Martin Fagg. It was said that he had once won every entry in a Spectator Comp under five different pseudonyms. I can't remember them all, but he was certainly Molly Fitton and Rufus Stone (a Dorset village), and there were at least twenty of him.

Bill

[John Whitworth]

Thisis all a bit in the English reminiscence mode, but why not. These competitions may be one of our most lasting literary monuments. 1. Was Martin Fagg in fact a Shrewsbury schoolmaster? 2. It's true: Fiona Pitt-Kethley did (does?) look a bit like a hat-stand when you would have thought she'd look like the blowsy version of Diana Dors. She gave me marsala and fruit-cake once and proved to have a very sound classical education. Her house in Hastings had the Pompeii mosaic of the dog with cave canem set into the hall floor. For our transatlantic readers, Fiona Pitt-Kethley, as well as being a competition winner (as was her mother Olive, with whom she lived) enjoyed a certain brief but considerable fame as a priapic poet and quarrelled publicly with the Faber Martian poet, Craig Raine, about whether he had, or had not, actually read any of her poetry collection 'Sky Ray Lolly' before turning it down. I interviewed her for a Sunday newspaper and used to possess her notorious book, but I seem to have lost it. It sold very well, better than any of mine and, I suspect, better than any of Craig's too, but mine was (I stoutly aver) a review one. As a poet she was (I thought) over fond of the unrhymed iambic pentameter. She edited a book of dirty verse and prose which was (again I thought) not as good as mine. 3. I met Roger Woddis (another doughty comp winner) in a London bookshop, a dissatisfied man. Perhaps it was his failure to make it with the TLS crowd. Perhaps it was just his politics.

[Bill Greenwell]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

Was Martin Fagg in fact a Shrewsbury schoolmaster?

Not sure, but he did teach at a private school. He lived in Chichester Cathedral, but maybe that was when he'd retired. I've remembered another of his pseudonyms: Tim O'Dowda.

And another of EO Parrott's: Harrison Everard.

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

I met Roger Woddis (another doughty comp winner) in a London bookshop, a dissatisfied man.

And Roger's pseudonym was Naomi Marks.

Bill

[Jim Hayes]

Isn't this the same person who turned up as Felicity Shagwell at the Ossuary book club in Kilkenny dressed in a tutu and a green bandana, or was it a green tutu and a banana? My memory hasn't served me well since I floundered ashore from the Lusitania and was brought up by the nuns in Swastica House in Cork. But I digress- I never met a man with a barge, it must be a moving experience.
Do women have them?