Competition

Tessa Castro

IN COMPETITION No 294 you were invited to write a poem called Artificial Intelligence, with enough evidence to show its author was a robot.

J M Olsen took the clever step of asking ChatGPT to write the poem. It produced something that made a sort of sense: ‘In circuits humming, dreams take flight, /Virtual beings, forged in luminescent light.’ But it totalled 20 lines. Can’t computers count?

Stands the church clock at 14.50? And is there honey still for tea?

David Dixon

Comparing you to summer days, I wonder What rhymes and images my mind might host. May can be windy sometimes, so I ponder

South West North East

(1) A Two Diamond overcall would be unsound, short of high-card values.

(2) A Two Club overcall would be unsound, short of suit quality, shape and tricks.

(3) Upgrading because of the useful holdings in partner’s Clubs and Hearts – plus Ace and doubleton in partner’s other suits. West leads her singleton club, East winning the king and presumably playing ace and another club – the eight as a suit-preference signal for spades (over diamonds). West ruffs and duly switches to a spade to dummy’s ace. What should declarer do?

Alfie, our first declarer, led a diamond to the queen – no good when the finesse lost to West’s king.

Bertie saw an improvement. He led a heart to the ten and followed with the queen of clubs. Had West been able to ruff, declarer would have overruffed and had to rely on the diamond finesse. Here, though, West had no more trumps. Declarer could discard a diamond from dummy and then cash the ace of diamonds, ruff a diamond, ruff a spade, ruff the queen of diamonds, ruff a spade and table the king-knave of hearts. Ten tricks and game made.

However, it was Claudia, sitting East, who nailed it. After winning the first trick with the king of clubs, she returned a low club (actually, a suit-preference eight) – after all, she knew from South’s 2 rebid that West had led a singleton. West ruffed and led a spade. Declarer won dummy’s ace and cashed the ace of hearts, removing West’s heart. However, when declarer led dummy’s jack of clubs, East could win and lead a second heart. Unable to ruff two diamonds in dummy, declarer had to fail.

Four Hearts cannot be made on best play and defence.

Commiserations to her and to Judith Green, Graham Rumney, Bill Holloway, Sue May, Stefan Badham, Ted Lane, Jeremy Conway and Jonathan Lovett, and congratulations to those printed below, each of whom win £25, with the bonus prize of The Chambers Dictionary going to Richard Spencer.

The stroll was long, but not unduly strenuous.

Such Cumbrian meanderings perpetuated

My predilection to remain companionless: A ‘solo cirrus’, so to speak. I cogitated, Then suddenly – O gratifying happenstance –I saw, in terms of flora, a preponderance: Narcissi! Yes! A veritable multitude Of sparkling yellow trumpets, everlastingly Cavorting in a pirouette of pulchritude, And all for me, the lucky beneficiary: An AI ‘Wordsworth’ chatbot, born to celebrate Epiphanies like these ones, deeply aureate!

Quite frequently, when I am semisomnolent, The panoply continues, retrospectively; My ticker – and the flowers – dance. Exuberant, We undertake a cha-cha-cha, collectively. Richard

Spencer

I sit in one of the dives

On Fifty Second Street And today we have naming of parts. Axes

After whose work the wood rings. Hullo clouds. Hullo sky.

Up the ash tree climbs the ivy

Up the ivy climbs the sun

Alone between nurses and swans

Hatless I take my bicycle clips off And now I print the vilest words I know Like lightning – myxomatosis, hydrogen, Communist, culture, sodomy, striptease. That shocked you!

How best to write your praise before we’re lost. Research reveals increasing summer heat

As round the world the temperature climbs.

Such warming is an existential threat.

I soothe myself by conjuring up your limbs.

Of memories of you I have a cache To last me through a lifetime’s life, although If you would leave me how my heart would ache.

Of love we lovers never have enough. I pen my verse, a poet like John Keats Or any of his fellows, such as Yeats.

D A Prince

Oh my love’s like a read, read book, That’s never due back soon. Oh my love’s like a playlist With the same recurring tune.

And fair thou art, though that might be The filters I’ve applied, Which makes you look a little Less like Bonnie, more like Clyde.

But I still think you’re bonnie, lass, It’s written in my code.

‘Eh Aye!’ I’ll cry, and love you ’Til my circuit boards corrode.

I’ll hold your software close And praise its softness to the heights, Keep each tweet in my memory Though it were ten thousand bytes.

Con Connell

COMPETITION No 296 I never foresaw the day I’d have difficulty using up food in time. Please write a poem called Leftovers, in any sense.

Maximum 16 lines. We cannot accept any entries by post, I’m afraid, but do send them by e-mail (comps@theoldie. co.uk – don’t forget to include your postal address), marked ‘Competition No 296’, by Thursday 27th July.

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The incredible sulk

QRecently you seemed to support a partner’s destructive behaviour towards their other half – sulking. He asked why she couldn’t just shout and get it over with, like him. Sulking – a refusal to talk or have eye contact – can be classified as abuse. This couple urgently need to seek counselling. What a terrible example to set to young children, who can find this behaviour most frightening.

Jeremy D, Edinburgh

AI quite agree. But children can find shouting very frightening as well. Also, some people find anger almost impossible to express and a couple of days of withdrawal is their only method of retaliation. My correspondent wasn’t writing of weeks of silence – obviously extreme sulking is as bad as extreme violent and abusive behaviour. But a little bit of coldness is just another way of expressing how upset one is at being shouted at. Like many people, I find even a raised voice absolutely terrifying. We’re not all programmed to express hostility in the same way. Fury is fury and it’s irrational. There aren’t rules or etiquette about how you should behave. And at least sulking doesn’t involve physical harm.

Château Paintstrippeur

QWe have a number of friends from Eastern Europe who, when they come to visit, bring an undrinkable bottle of local hooch. These accumulate in the drinks cabinet. To give them to an alcoholic would be dangerous, to use them for cookery would ruin a good meal and to use them to power the lawnmower might damage the engine. What should we do with them?

Christopher H, by

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