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The Lady of Shalott looked at her weaving frame. Another bloody cushion cover. Here she was, stuck among four grey walls and towers (and not even a nice turret extension), forbidden to gaze through the window at the river flowing past the barley and rye and under the bridge down to Camelot. She took out her pocket handkerchief and sniffled into it. Her life had gone to pot. Nothing to do but weave. Even the busiest spider would balk at the amount of weaving she got through. Suddenly she heard noises: wild bells ringing out, bugles blowing, the break, break, break of the water, cannon to right and left. In the mirror she saw the Light Brigade. But who was that handsome knight leading them? How she longed for his kiss! Above the din she heard his ‘Tirra lirra’ and rushed to the window. On cue, the mirror cracked …
Nicholas Hodgson
A Cannon for Jaspistos (Sky Movies 6). Taking its cue from a wagonload of 90s box-office turkeys, this weak rites-of-passage movie about a vengeful pot addict’s quest for competitive glory in dingy WC1 won’t so much break your heart as leave you with severe reactive arthritis of the eyeballs. Star Gary Kemp, sporting teeth that are a bridge too far and a hair extension even Steven Seagal would balk at, turns in a performance so dire that long before the final frame — truly the most bizarre same-sex kiss on celluloid — you’re itching to place a cushion over his face and leave it there. Watch out, though, for a gently self-mocking cameo from tennis’s Tim Henman where the former British No. 1 takes a live bird-eating spider from the pocket of his shorts and can’t serve it to save his life. Bliss.
Richard Ellis
Gogarty has all the accoutrements of a successful gambler — pair of bins round his neck, formbook in top pocket, Racing Post annotated in spider scrawl — but hasn’t seen a selection make the frame for 20 years. ‘The form’s all to pot just at present,’ he opines as his latest ‘sure thing’ — which, to be fair, went off like a cannon in the first furlong — saunters home last. His fancies balk at the gates or just finish midfield, though optimism and amnesia cushion the blow, keeping him fixated on the next certainty where lesser punters might contemplate jumping from the nearest bridge. Logic would dictate I break with this loser, any extension of our acquaintance inviting bad luck, which all gamblers suspect is contagious. But wait: in two-horse fields, being a surefire kiss of death, Gogarty’s preference is my cue to put my increasingly expensive shirt on the other fellow.
Adrian Fry
‘There are many things’, remarked Mrs Tuttle, ‘that I will do for charity. I will help to fund an extension to a school science block. I will assist an amateur actor to learn each cue for an entrance. I will cross a bridge carrying a pot upon my head. I will stitch a cushion in any style or fabric. I will help to frame the constitution of a parent-teacher association. I will empty the pocket of an unusually unpleasant boy such as yourself. I will allow a teacher to break an egg over my head, and, if need be, I am willing to be shot from a cannon, providing I am issued with a crash helmet. But I balk, I absolutely balk, at giving the kiss of life to your spider.’
‘Gran,’ said Justin, ‘haven’t you ever watched I’m a Celebrity?’
‘Get me out of here,’ Mrs Tuttle replied.
Bill Greenwell
Nelson, his slight frame weary from the battle, stood irresolute on the bridge. He would have to make a decision soon. The sailors were beginning to balk at a further extension to the fighting and he didn’t want a mutiny on his hands. Steeling himself, he joined Hardy on the quarter-deck. ‘Give the cue to silence the cannon,’ he ordered. ‘And signal the French fleet that we’re taking a tea break.’ Just then, however, a dastardly Frenchman took a pot shot at the Victory and hit Nelson. Hardy caught him as he fell and placed a cushion under his head, while surreptitiously tucking his flapping sleeve back into its pocket. ‘Spider, Hardy,’ Nelson whispered weakly. ‘A spider? Where?’ ‘No! I …spied …her.’ Nelson forced the words out. ‘Lady Hamilton …with you …I heard her say, “Kiss me, Hardy!” And, with his accusing eyes fixed on his rival, Nelson died.
Virginia Price Evans
No. 2448: The weather in the streets
If Jonathan Swift could write a poem entitled ‘A Description of a City Shower’, so can you. Carry on (maximum 16 lines). Entries to ‘Competition No. 2448’ by 15 June.
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