[John Whitworth]

Well, I thought I might score with my smutty Richmal Crompton but it was not to be. The usual suspects scooped the pool - O'Carroll, Bazza and you-know-who. I KNEW somebody would do a Bertie Wooster. Oh, and I spotted Bazza as a winner from the off. There ought to be some way of betting on these things.

The latest competition, though not a verse, will tickle the fancy of some, I'm sure. Even me perhaps.

Competition No. 2661 Short story
You are invited to submit a short story entitled ‘The Day of Doom’ (150 words maximum). Entries should be submitted by email, where possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 18 August.

[Roger Slater]

DAY OF DOOM

Mortimer woke to the sound of his alarm clock exploding with such force that it destroyed the lamp upon his nightstand and tore a hole in the plaster behind it. He staggered into the shower and turned on the faucet. Instead of water, a swarm of locusts came buzzing from the shower head, chasing him into the kitchen where the coffee maker was beeping. He tilted the carafe. Instead of Sumatra, his cup filled with bright red blood.

Looking out the window, he saw millions of people ascending a staircase leading to an effulgent crack in a black cloud that covered the sky. Beside it, another staircase burrowed into the earth, millions lined up to descend it.

"I wonder if there's anything on the BBC about this?" he asked himself.

He switched on the telly. And sure enough, David Cameron had become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

[John Whitworth]

Like it. Like it.

[Jayne Osborn]

Bob, I like it too, except that for a quintessentially English flavour like this you can't say 'nightstand' and 'faucet' - it's 'bedside table' and 'tap'.

On account of the 'making every word count' thing - you don't need ...and turned on the faucet. If you stagger into the shower it's implicit that you'll turn it on!

Sorry to sound picky but your entries are so good that it would be a pity if a couple of little flaws spoilt your chances.

[John Whitworth]

The Day of Doom

Death’s the rootstock, who’s the bloom?
Death’s the webster, who’s the loom?
Death’s the bride, but who’s the groom?

In the souk of old Khartoum, far beneath the traffic’s boom (all its cheerful vroom-a-vroom), in the inspissated gloom of the silent catacomb, stinking with a strange perfume, offspring of a dreadful womb, slither pallid from the tomb, seeking someone.

Ah, but whom?

In a pretty English coomb (wild dog-roses, shoots of broom), trembling from his heart’s simoom, Whitworth cowers in his room, waiting for the Day of Doom.

'Mr Whitworth, I presume.'
'No, that’s just my nom-de-plume.'
'Mr Whitworth, I presume.' (Freeze frame. Into close-up. Zoom.)
'MR WHITWORTH, I PRESUME.'

[basil ransome-davies]

And it certainly tickles me. Was it Isherwood who was sent down from Cambridge for writing exam answers in verse?

[George Simmers]

It tickles me, too. Definitely worth sending to Lucy.

[John Whitworth]

Thank you both. Has Lucy ever asked for a monorhyme? I've got four or five about the place. I hastened to get that done so that I could watch Pietersen bat, and now it's raining at Edgbaston. Humph!

Is that really true about Ishy? Good for him.

[Ann Drysdale]

Was he really? - I know I royally pissed off a couple of tutors at York by concluding my essays in the style of the poet under discussion (part of a one-woman crusade against the rising supremacy of the language of Lit-Crit). I was merely reprimanded.

The essays have long since gone the way of all waffle, but some of the summings-up have appeared in print. Waste not, want not...

[FOsen]

John, that's a winner - one might even say it's Wigglesworthy - perhaps it'll inspire Lucy to declare a monorhyme contest.

Frank