[John Whitworth]

Oh George, how brilliant!

[George Simmers]

Thanks, John.

[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by Jerome Betts

Somebody's bound to do the last Spectator competition on earth?

If it was the last NS competition on earth, it would undoubtedly be a re-run of one from the 50's.

George, yours are both excellent, although I confess to a preference for the first, especially "I allowed myself a small metallic chuckle".

[George Simmers]

Thanks, Brian.
I think I prefer the second, but I've bunged both Lucy-wards, in the hope that one or other might take her fancy.

'The Last Spectator Competition' - that's a thought. Are we competitors an ageing breed, with our range of literary reference and our delight in formal verse?
In the course of some historical research, I looked at some copies of the Westminster Gazette of a hundred years ago. Every Saturday the literary editor (Naomi Royde-Smith) set a competition, usually of a somewhat daunting nature. Readers might be asked, for example, to translate a poem by Robert Bridges into Greek hexameters.
In a hundred years time, will our Spectatorial amusements seem as recondite and strange to any readers of the future who chance to puzzle over them?

[Brian Allgar]

'The last book' was bad enough, but here's an even gloomier piece:

The last woman on Earth

Our deep underground shelter protected us for a long time, but when the life-support systems began to fail, we were obliged to return to the surface.

It was even worse than we had feared. The planet was barren. Not a bird, not an insect, not a blade of grass. What will happen when our survival rations run out? I see only one solution, even though it is one of our most deeply-ingrained taboos.

As the only woman among eight men, I am protected and pampered - for the moment. My companions constantly remind me that I am the sole hope for the future of the human race. They take it in turns every night, each of them no doubt secretly hoping that he will be the one to impregnate me.

But I’m very much afraid that when they finally discover that I, like the planet, am barren, they will eat me.

[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by George Simmers

Thanks, Brian.
I think I prefer the second, but I've bunged both Lucy-wards, in the hope that one or other might take her fancy.

'The Last Spectator Competition' - that's a thought. Are we competitors an ageing breed, with our range of literary reference and our delight in formal verse?
In the course of some historical research, I looked at some copies of the Westminster Gazette of a hundred years ago. Every Saturday the literary editor (Naomi Royde-Smith) set a competition, usually of a somewhat daunting nature. Readers might be asked, for example, to translate a poem by Robert Bridges into Greek hexameters.
In a hundred years time, will our Spectatorial amusements seem as recondite and strange to any readers of the future who chance to puzzle over them?

In a hundred years, the competition will consist of translating 150 words of the Koran into that other dead language, English.

[George Simmers]

Most effectively grim, Brian.

Do you think that Lucy's postbag this week is going to be unalloyed misery?
Maybe we could think of something to cheer her up. The last cholera germ? Or the last TV reality show?

[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by George Simmers

Most effectively grim, Brian.

Do you think that Lucy's postbag this week is going to be unalloyed misery?
Maybe we could think of something to cheer her up. The last cholera germ? Or the last TV reality show?

The latter is certainly a cheering thought, George. But in the main, the last anything is likely to be fairly depressing. I fear that poor Lucy will simply have to reap what she has sown.

[FOsen]

Too rude?

Kate smiled. It had been a grueling but successful gambit, this “Naked November,” during which the royals had pursued a breathtakingly audacious plan to end intrusive press photography by attending all public appearances in the nude. At first, there had been the inevitable embarrassments, such as that truly dicey ribbon-cutting ceremony. Prince Charles’s unfortunate gardening mishap while planting bulbs had undoubtedly been the campaign’s low point, but by month’s end even the Italian newspapers had capitulated and refused to publish any pictures of aristocrats or celebrities who weren't decently clothed. Then, too, everyone agreed that for sheer bravura performance, nothing had equaled Her Majesty, skydiving above Piccadilly Circus. In any event, the most scurrilous gutter publications now endorsed Mitt Romney’s statement, made on his post-defeat “Apology Tour” of England, expressing the hope that the world had seen the last photograph of “one of the naked members of the royal family.”

Frank

[John Whitworth]

Not at all. Very droll.