For Competition 3466 you were invited to submit a short story with a topical theme written in the style of hardboiled crime fiction. A smallish entry bore all the hallmarks of the genre: dames, sharp repartee, staccato delivery, black humour and grandstanding similes laid on with a trowel. Topics included the Clacton by-election, Andy Burnham’s
12 Sep 2026
issue 12 September 2026
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For Competition 3466 you were invited to submit a short story with a topical theme written in the style of hardboiled crime fiction.
A smallish entry bore all the hallmarks of the genre: dames, sharp repartee, staccato delivery, black humour and grandstanding similes laid on with a trowel. Topics included the Clacton by-election, Andy Burnham’s pledge on rough sleepers and Harry and Meghan’s return to these shores.
Competition 3462 invited you to submit a short story in which the protagonist lets an algorithm take charge of their life or an…
For Competition 3461 you were asked to submit toe-curling analogies.This invitation produced a stream of entries that were…
Competition 3459 invited you to submit a passage that lavishly depicted a heatwave. The entries accumulated languorously, replete…
For Competition 3457 you were invited to submit a weather forecast in verse. There were nods to Shakespeare, Eliot, Hardy and…
Comp. 3465 invited you to write a centre-aligned poem, with a hidden message running down the middle. The brief was tough, and…
For Competition 3451 you were invited to supply an acrostic poem praising or dispraising a public figure in which the word/s…
