This week's competition

Entries for our next caption-competition picture (above) must reach us by Friday 4 July.

by email to: captioncompetition@churchtimes.co.uk

by post (postcards only)to: Caption Competition, Church Times, 3rd floor Invicta House, 108-114 Golden Lane, London EC1Y 0TG
 

Last week's competition

HOWEVER often we complain, readers can't resist submitting painful puns to the caption competition. We suppose the spirit of the Revd William Spooner lives on.

Thus we had: "Amazing grass! How sweet the smell" (Richard Barnes), and a variation: "Did Harley's Mum really want 'a maze in grass' for her funeral?"

(Ann Rance); "Virtuous circles? No. Hell's angles" (Ray Morris); and "The General Synod's 'going round in circles' testpad proves a Triumph" (John Saxbee).

At the risk of being completely self-referential, we had some entries from the Revd Jonnie Parkin, who submitted the photo, among which was: "The deliberately staged photo turned out to be a cynical publicity stunt for Lincoln Labyrinth Festival, 6-27 August, Lincoln Cathedral", which we reproduce in tribute to his audacity. There was also an entry from the biker in the photo: "I knew it was a mistake to let Jonnie Parkin point a camera at me" (Robb Sutherland).

Back to normal people: "No one had the heart to tell William that he had outgrown the church playgroup" (Vicky Lundberg); "The cycle of prayer took on a whole new meaning" (Peter Walker); "It was only now that he realised that his sat-nav had misread 'centre of Lambeth. . .'" (Michael Foster); and "As so often, the vicar found he had run out of options" (Richard Hough).

Others: "Well Lord, this is another tight corner you want me to get round" (John Rhodes); "Trevor confirmed Stevenson's maxim that 'To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive'" (Christopher Tookey); "The ancient volume had promised that the magic shape would transform him into an Angel, but someone had added 'Hell's' in biro" (Edward Mynors); and "As he peered over the handlebars, the incumbent wondered where the pet rabbit was" (Chris Coupe).

We especially liked: "Dean didn't get his passport in time for the Bikers' Pilgrimage to Chartres . . . so he improvised" (Ann Rance). Also, despite a clearly unfair association: "The vicar titled his conceptual art-work 'PCC meeting'" (M. J. Leppard); and "The vicar had thoughtfully provided a labyrinth to train prospective PCC member biker Bob in Anglican decision-making processes" (Russ Bravo).

Against our better judgement, we find ourselves rewarding one of the puns. We hope our sponsors, Divine, don't mind (divinechocolate.com).

He was delighted when the vicar announced a mazing race.

John Saxbee