[Max Goodman]

A further observation: homophones yield the most fun when both words make some sense. The assumed writer not only misspells a word but actually says something unintended.

Some of the homophones Lucy prescribes are challenging to use this way. I'm almost willing to bet they can't all be done.

[John Whitworth]

Quite right, Bazza, though ALL doesn't come to more than two of us so far. Noted, Max. So you want to make things MORE difficult. Jayne, yes you are.

I think it may have been Bill Greenwell who told the tale of Martin Fagg, the Shrewsbury schoolmaster (must have been a public school surely, or he'd not have had the time) who one week one ALL the prizes under six diferent pseudonyms. Try for that. I have a pseudonym myself which I may use this week if I think of another verse.

How about Clytemnestra Van Buren de Courcy? My wife and I won with her thirty years ago in a New Statesman crossword comp. I'm getting a bit old and stupid for crosswords now, and anyhow the Speccie one is far too hard. The NS was easier. We also won with Napoleon Bonaparte.
Auden used to do The Times crossword every morning as a kind of mental gymnastics, the only gymnastics that fine chain-smoking man ever did. I read in my Daily Telegraph that exercise does you no good at all. It's all a matter of genes. Ah, how G.K. Chesterton would have loved that news. It's a good idea for a comp, a verse against exercise. I might suggest it to Vicky and, no, I haven't written one.

A bear, however hard he tries,
Grows tubby without exercise.
Our bear is rather short and fat
Which is not to be wondered at.
He gets the exercise he can
From falling off the Ottoman,
But generally seems to lack
The energy to clamber back.

[Jayne Osborn]

John,

Thanks for letting me know that we can submit multiple entries to The Speccie; in the past I've only ever sent one at a time.
Without knowing for sure whether it was permissable, I sent in three poems this week - the last one was emailed at about four minutes before the noon deadline!

If you use a pseudonym, do you also declare your real name? I'm assuming not, if someone once won every prize with different names. But then what do you do with the cheque, if you win? How can you cash it without your real name on it?

To answer the question you asked me on another thread, in which I forgot to respond, sorry, - yes, it was in old Jaspistos' time that I had several wins in The Speccie. I haven't had a look-in since Lucy took over! Must try harder (as they used to put on my school reports).

[John Whitworth]

Jayne, if you don't declare your real name then they will make the cheque out to the pseudonym. Also, where will they send it? Nope - use the pseudonym and underneath put your real name and address. That's what I do. Of course it's true that a cheque made out to Fergus Pickering can always be endorsed to you, by you, can't it? I confess that had never occurred to me before.

Come on Bil and Bazza. What do YOU do?

[Jayne Osborn]

In these days of identity theft and money laundering, I'm not so sure the banks will allow you to endorse a cheque any more.
Of course, you could use a friend's name (and their address), for the cheque to be sent to, then simply get them to give you the money - but you miss out on the kudos then! It just wouldn't be the same, saying to everyone something like,
"Formica Fanshawe, this week's Spectator winner - that's me, actually."

[Roger Slater]

But Jayne, the kudos grows so tiresome. After a week of parades, toasts, dinners, and telephone calls from world leaders, I just wish people would leave me alone. I only wish I had used a pseudonym. I'm in this for the art, not the celebrity.

[Jayne Osborn]

Roger,

Hehe! That's the funniest thing I've seen on the sphere, I think.
Oh, would that I could be as highly acclaimed as your good self!

Thanks for making me laugh on a miserable, dreary day in good old Blighty. (I didn't know the origin of Blighty, - but I've just Googled it. It's a Hindi word for 'foreign'.)
I'm still chuckling.

[basil ransome-davies]

I'm going to try this one, though I dislike being told to 'bemoan' something, even if I have my own criticisms (I rather stand up for clause analysis – dry, perhaps, but it taught me a lot about the structure of language). I shall just have to contact my inner grumpy old right-wing fart.

[John Whitworth]

Excellent stuff, clause analysis, Bazza. I date our decline as a world power from the time (somewhere in the 60s I suppose) when it was scrapped in schools. Your inner right wing old fart is doubtless is splendid shape. My daughter (age 25) has become a right-wing young fart from the date she started reading her pay-slips and saw how much of her money was confiscated by the state. Clause-analysis would have done her good, but made no difference to her POLITICAL analysis.

[Marion Shore]

I'm a grumpy old left-wing fart.

Good to know there's some common ground.


Bob,
What about all those contract offers! The pressure to keep "grinding 'em out," the temptation to sell out at the cost of one's artistic purity! And what to do with all that money! And I don't even want to think about the taxes.

Dream on.