COMPETITION TIME

Roll up, roll up.

I'm not the BBC and any competition I want to run here isn't fixed. I can offer prizes and will do so if and when I have something to offer.

I'm soon going to have two copies of James Sheard's fine book, reviewed however briefly below, because I waited three weeks for my order to arrive and then ordered it elsewhere, before the first supplier sent a replacement.
I'm a fan. I buy the books I review. I'm keeping the industry going. It's not like those old days on University Radio when one could keep the books one reviewed. I can't claim to have a readership big enough for publishers to send me review copies, concert promoters to send me tickets or record companies send me new releases. And, in a way, I'm glad they don't.

But Dammtor is a fine book, very much the sort of thing I want to promote and so I'll send my spare copy of it to the one of the people who successfully nominate the winner of the following award.
Over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to a few choice events and will review them here and then, for the sake of this competition, say which one I enjoyed the most. All you have to do to win the book is say which one it will be. There are five events and the runners, with notes on form and pedigree and betting forecast, are these.

Maggi Hambling at the Cheltenham Literature Festival.
The ferocious and alarming artist is highly entertaining in person as well as the most convincing living painter I know about. She is sure to go well and the only possible fault would be if she runs through stories I've heard before. I don't know if she'll take the stage clutching her own personal bottle of champagne but she's an obvious favourite for this at 6/4.

Hamlet at the National Theatre this Friday.
I collect Hamlets with only slightly less compulsion than Pete Doherty collects visits from the police. Rory Kinnear is a big ticket this autumn but I can be a contrary little difficulty when I feel like it and don't always admire the biggest names having seen several tremendous local Hamlets over the years, so he had better be good. But there's so much in the play, it's hard to see such high profile people making a mess of it. It is a contender at 2/1.

Philip Larkin at Cheltenham.
Not the poet himself, obviously, but his biographer, editor and the moody offspring of his best mate, Mssrs. Motion, Thwaite and Amis junior. On the occasion of the publication of the Letters to Monica. Will this be a step too far into Larkin's famously guarded privacy or will these stars in their own right, and of Larkinalia, find enough to say that hasn't been said before. And can Larkin's greatness as a poet cast enough light onto an event like this. It opened at 3/1 but, thinking about it more, it's drifted out to 4/1.

National Poetry Day on the South Bank.
Simon Armitage is a banker in this line up but I'm not sure if the supporting cast can make it a great day. Dalgit Nagra is a fine performer and you don't know what else the day might provide. It's a day that has in the past provided a sense of belonging to the poetry world that I don't feel on the other 364 days of the year, so you just can't tell. This could be a dark horse, as it were, but you'd still get 7/1.

Roddy Lumsden and Colette Bryce at Cheltenham.
Roddy's been a much admired poet for years now and I'm glad of the chance to catch him here for free. I'm thinking of growing a beard and wearing a hat as a disguise after my review of the anthology he edited earlier this year but I've never had anything but praise for his own poetry. I must dash to the Hambling event straight after so might not get a book signed by him but, up against Shakespeare, Larkin and Maggi, even with the help of the fine Colette, he's got a job on to win this at 7/1.

So, place your bets at dg217.888@ntlworld.com with an address to send your prize to.

The questions to think about, the prize to be won. You have to admit, it's a fascinating competition. Autumn is the kindest season.