Every Saturday morning after we’ve had breakfast, we retire to the living room for the ritual of poring over the papers, or more accurately, reading as much as we can before unfinished chores start tugging at our conscience.
One of the constant highlights is Warren Clements’ Challenge contest, which is always opposite the cryptic crossword at the back of the Globe and Mail’s book section. (Thank goodness one of those still survives).
He sets a word task every week for entrants. Many of the responses are clever and often hilarious, in a particularly punny sort of way. We’ve often thought about entering, but never seemed to get around to it.
Until a couple of weeks ago, that is, when the test was to choose a well-known author and, by changing a word or two, match them up with a well-known movie.
The winner, published Saturday, was Noel Coward: Stagecouch.
Other entries, and there are always several that deserve to win, included Leo Tolstoy: Tsar Wars, Charles Darwin: Shipping Newts and Jane Goodall: Primates Of The Caribbean.
Here, in no particular order, are the titles we came up with:
William Golding: Silence Of The Hams
John J. Audubon: Close Encounters Of The Bird Kind
Julia Child: East Of Eatin’
Bram Stoker: Planet Of The Napes
Casey Stengal: Great Expectorations
Marquis de Sade: Citizen Pain
Mr. Blackwell: The World According To Garb
Helen Fielding: Panties’ Inferno
Marie Curie: One Half-Life To Live
P. Diddy: Lord Of The Blings
Lech Walesa: Shall We Gdansk?
I’m proud to say that one of our entries, Helen Fielding: Mopey Chick was actually published among the honourable mentions.
If you drive by my house in Erin Mills on a Saturday evening this winter and wonder why the driveway's still piled high with snow, you’ll know what we've been doing.