[John Whitworth]

Lucy Vickery presents this week's competition

In Competition No. 2693 you were invited to supply a hitherto unpublished extract by Lewis Carroll relating the further adventures of Alice. The location was left up to you. Parliament was the most popular choice of venue, which was no surprise. Westminster feels like a natural successor to Wonderland, with its circular arguments, twisted logic and cast of bickering contrarians. Unlucky losers this week were Frank McDonald, John O’Byrne and Max Ross. In the money, to the tune of £30 apiece, are the winners, printed below. Brian Murdoch bags the bonus fiver.

Alice’s chair expanded, then she was in a room full of people, all screaming. Alice shouted, ‘Order! order!’ imperiously, and they went quiet. She pointed at the front row and said, ‘First Boy!’ He jumped up and shouted, ‘We didn’t break it. It’s all their fault!’ Then she pointed at the other side. ‘Second Boy!’ He shouted, ‘T’isn’t! It was global! It was Thatcher! Or Disraeli!’
Alice slipped away into a huge vestibule. A bald caterpillar with round glasses was sitting on a mushroom in front of a camera. ‘He’s having his photograph taken,’ thought Alice, like Reverend Dodgson does of me, only with more clothes on. ‘Which boy was right?’ asked Alice. ‘Well, right’s right, but I always say the left is right, but nothing’s all right and we’re all right up the creek.’ ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ said Alice. ‘Of course not,’ said the caterpillar. ‘It’s parliamentary democracy.’
Brian Murdoch/Alice’s Adventures in Westminster

‘This is your desk,’ said Old Mother Hubbard. ‘Refer any queries to Jack Frost.’
‘Where is Jack Frost?’ enquired Alice, noticing nobody else in the office.
‘He’s off with a cold!’ snapped Old Mother Hubbard. ‘Begin when you will!’
Alice glanced at the mountainous in-tray of papers bespattered with meaningless figures. ‘What do I do with these?’ she asked.
‘Figure it out!’ replied Old Mother Hubbard, handing Alice a pair of scissors then vanishing into an empty cupboard.
Moments later the Queen of Clubs came storming out of the Counting House screeching, ‘Off with their heads and their tails! There’s nothing to count.’ and, with that, she glowered at Alice and screamed, ‘Get on with it girl!’
‘Get on with what?’ sighed Alice.
‘If you can’t use your head use your scissors!’ bellowed the Queen. ‘Cut up those papers! That’s what we do here, cuts!’
Alan Millard/Alice’s Adventures in the Treasury

‘What exactly is a coalition?’ asked Alice.
‘That’s a good question,’ replied the Prime Minister, who had been fishing about in a box labelled IDEAS for some time.
‘That’s a very good question,’ said his Deputy.
‘Is it a meeting of minds?’ asked Alice, cautiously.
‘It depends,’ said the Deputy, ‘what you mean by minds.’
‘I agree with Nick,’ said the Prime Minister.
‘But I thought you agreed to disagree,’ said Alice, rather more sharply than she had intended.
‘That would be very disagreeable,’ said the Prime Minister.
‘And bad for the country,’ said the Deputy.
‘The country is a Big Society,’ added the Prime Minister.
‘Is that very big?’ asked Alice.
‘It depends upon what you mean by big,’ said the Deputy.
‘It means cutting it down,’ said the Prime Minister.
‘By cutting it up,’ said the Deputy.
‘But then it would be smaller,’ remarked Alice.
‘Exactly so!’
Bill Greenwell/Alice’s Adventures in Downing Street

‘Well,’ thought Alice, ‘Society has been getting very big since I got up, or I’m growing smaller again, which would be most inconvenient.’
‘Pay attention!’ said a Voice.
‘What a plump Voice,’ she said aloud. ‘I wonder whose it is.’
‘It’s mine,’ said the Voice. ‘Look over here.’
Sitting on the mantelpiece was a curious little man in a tricorn hat. ‘Where are you going?’ he said.
‘I don’t know,’ Alice replied. ‘Since I woke up this morning Society has grown and grown and I feel so very little.’
‘School!’ he said. ‘That’s what you need. I’m Toby Jugg. Go to my school. You can learn everything there: Weeding, Lighting and Rhythm-tick, not to mention Tinglish Vistary, Juggraphy, Boy-allergy, Fizzits and Christmastry.’
When Alice tried to reply she saw that the little man had turned into a china ornament which sat staring at her.
‘Odder and odder,’ she thought.
Gerard Benson/Alice’s Adventures in the Big Society

‘And this,’ said the armadillo grandly, ‘is what we call the counting house.’ ‘But nobody is counting,’ said Alice. All she could see was a group of crocodiles and rhinoceros watching drops of water running down the window pane.
‘No, no,’ said the armadillo, ‘I mean these are the people who count. They are our brilliant bankers. Here you see them engaged in healthy speculation about whose drop will reach the bottom first. London is the world capital for raindrops.’
Alice couldn’t imagine a brilliant banker, but realising she didn’t count, she said, trying to be polite, ‘They are certainly showing considerable interest.’ The armadillo paled. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is a little word we don’t use.’ ‘Have they a great deal of Principal?’ asked Alice. ‘Lord bless the child,’ said one of the bankers, ‘We have no principles at all. The stake money comes from the people who don’t count.’
Noel Petty/Alice in the City