[Chris O'Carroll]

A win for Brian Allgar (Alban Girral) this week. The new comp seems strikingly similar to a recent one.

No 4232
Set by Leonora Casement
We would like confidential testimonials from staff or servants working for a well-known personage of your choice, dead or alive (if alive, make sure it’s not libellous!), to someone thinking of taking up employment with that same personage.
Max 140 words by 21 June comp@newstatesman.co.uk

[Brian Allgar]

Yes, it was this one:

No 4218

Set by Leonora Casement

We’d like confidential testimonials from the servants or staff of well-known people. As an incentive, we reprint a winner of this competition from back in the 1950s for Henry James, although in this instance we would like the well-known figure to still be alive: “I’ve worked for Mr James for 20 years. They tell me you might find yourself in one of his books but there’s nothing to worry about. I tried to read one once; too artistic for anyone to know it was you, even if it was.”
Max 150 words

Have they forgotten they had already set it? If not, the only differences that I can see are a) the person this time can be dead or alive, b) the warning against libel, and c) the new even stingier limit of 140 words instead of 150. Plus ca change ...

[Chris O'Carroll]

Also, the servant or staff member's remarks this time have to be in the form of advice to a prospective employee, not memoir for general consumption.