Lucy Vickery

For Competition 3461 you were asked to submit toe-curling analogies.This invitation produced a stream of entries that were glorious in their banal, laboured, overwrought and tasteless awfulness.

For Competition 3460 you were invited to write a sonnet beginning ‘Shall I compare thee to a [trisyllable of your choice]’. This challenge, which called for a twist on Sonnet 18, produced objects of comparison that ranged far and wide from bacon rolls to a simile. It was a popular competition, eliciting stellar performances all round; I was sorry not to have space for Helene Parry, David Silverman and Paul Freeman.

For Competition 3457 you were invited to submit a weather forecast in verse. There were nods to Shakespeare, Eliot, Hardy and MacNeice in a large, varied and accomplished entry. An honourable mention goes to John O’Byrne’s haiku: Mother Nature cries Stopping play at Wimbledon: Not any one’s fault. The entries printed below net their authors a £25 John Lewis voucher. It’s no go the beach today, it’s no go the picnic: There’s heavy rain from Kent to Wales and thunder storms in Whitwick.