[John Whitworth]

The Literary Landscapes Competition was won by Chris O'Carroll and Frank Osen was also in the money. Gail White was honourably mentioned. Well done those three. As I understand it, the Speccie on line will still appear, but a week late, so all these fine winning entries will be there for you to look at NEXT week

Competition No 2617: Chasing the Ratings

Following the demise of Big Brother, you are invited to submit a proposal for a new TV reality show that is guaranteed to pull in the punters (150 words maximum) Entries to Competition 2617 by midday on 7 October. email lucy@spectator.co.uk

Well, taking a leaf out of the Roman Imperial book, we could feed the members of a minority religion to man-eating beasts. Beyond that, my mind is a blank.

I never actually SAW Big Brother. Anyone who can confess that he/she did, please explain how it worked. Is there an American
/Australian equivalent?

[Janet Kenny]

Congratulations to Chris (AGAIN!) and Frank! and Gail and Susan.

Yes John, Big Brother dominated the Australian TV screen, and like you I never watched it.
I think it was invented in America.

(Thanks Chris for the link.)

[Chris O'Carroll]

A little bit of online sleuthing turned up this link to the "Spectator" page that we're not supposed to be able to read until next week:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/wit-and-w...petition.thtml

I'm somewhat in awe of Frank Osen and Derek Morgan, who both managed to write tourism ads for Big Brother's dystopia.

And Susan McLean also scored a shout-out from the judge for her "Brave New World" poem.

[Clive]

Big Brother first appeared on Dutch TV. Being a low brow sort of person, I love it and have watched all 10 series of the British version. There are also American and Australian versions, the US one being run on somewhat different lines to all other national varieties.

[John Whitworth]

Apologies to Susan for missing her mention. And congratulations. And Chris that is very clever of you. I remember finding the COMPLETE Speccie (online is not complete) and then forgetting what I did.

I mighthave watched BB too, but I think it would have been a divorce matter. Doreen does NOT approve. Neither do I, but I might have watched anyway.

[Gail White]

Good news for all our winners! I thought FOsen had a winner in his BNW entry -- even though (shameful admission) I never read the book.

Still no check for contest 2611 -- suspect they sent it to Los Angeles, unless I happened to spell out Louisiana. I keep forgetting that our state abbreviations are great mysteries on the Continent.