[Brian Allgar]

We seem to have missed a few Washington Post competitions - perhaps they were of no interest? - but here's the latest one, which may have possibilities.

Speeding up Sports.


Electrify chess pieces so that voltage steadily increases until somebody makes a move.

If you take more than 60 seconds to take your turn in Scrabble, your opponent gets to whack your knuckles with his tile rack.


In a 4G world, who has the patience for 1G sports? When the two-minute warning means that the game should be over in a half-hour or so, you might as well compensate with some other pastimes that we could speed up to fit our ever more frantically ticking clocks. Loser Mike Gips suggests: Suggest ways to make sports and other leisure activities more time-efficient or exciting, as in Mike’s examples above.

E-mail entries to losers@washpost.com or fax to 202-334-4312. Deadline is Monday, Sept. 24; results published Oct. 14 (online Oct. 12). No more than 25 entries per entrant per week. Include “Week 988” in your e-mail subject line or it might be ignored as spam. Include your real name, postal address and phone number with your entry.

[Brian Allgar]

... and a few suitably idiotic ideas.

Cricket: Replace cricket balls by hand grenades. The winning team is the one with the most players still standing.

Croquet: Replace the mallets by flamingos and the balls by hedgehogs. This won’t actually speed up the game, but will give it a pleasing literary dimension.

Rifle competitions: Replace the standard target with a cardboard cutout of George W. Bush. Competitors will shoot faster and more accurately.

Swimming marathons: Empty the pool. Those that still try to dive in will be knocked out. The others will just have to run along the bottom of the pool.

Boxing: Lead with your left and lead with your right. With all that lead in your gloves, it should be over in one round.

Bridge: Whenever you Trump your opponents, Donald will send you 0.001% of his income.

Washington Post Competitions: In future, all losers who aren’t winners will have to send the Empress $5 per dismal entry. This should make the Empress’s job either a lot easier, or a lot more profitable.


P.S. to Roger. We were both wrong about my unprintable 'knobs' limerick, which ended up winning the "Scarlet Letter". Pat assured me that it's really hard to make her blush.