So. Here we are. The Final.
How we do decide this? By random word penalties of course. It is the fairest way.
First to seven wins:
Penalty One
- Jansson = wild
- Baines = path
A good start by both here. Two nice words but neither of them breaking out the big guns yet either. Baines just nods it with path.
Jansson 0 – 1 Baines
Penalty Two
- Jansson = and
- Baines = simply
Oh. The nerves have got to Jansson. She comes up with the uninspired ‘and’ and ends up two-nil down.
Jansson 0 – 2 Baines
Penalty Three
- Jansson = midsummer
- Baines = stolidly
Bang! That’s the sort of performance we were expecting from Jansson. Midsummer. Brilliant.
Jansson 1 – 2 Baines
Penalty Four
- Jansson = answered
- Baines = answered
This is getting exciting now. Two titans at the top of their game trading word for word. Could this be any closer? This is incredible. Incredible.
Jansson 1 – 2 Baines
Penalty Five
- Jansson = even
- Baines = rowing
Jansson 2 – 2 Baines
Penalty Six
It is all square at two all. This could still go either way.
- Jansson = brown
- Baines = splotches
Well well well. Fans of Baines were starting to worry as Jansson had clawed back from two down to all square but Baines has just smashed her out of the boating lake with that one! We may be witnessing history here. We may we witnessing geography.
Jansson 2 – 3 Baines
Penalty Seven
- Jansson = Fillyjonk
- Baines = hair
Controversy as Jansson starts to break out the made up words. Baines will have to sit down and rethink the envelope here!
Jansson 3 – 3 Baines
Penalty Eight
- Jansson = used
- Baines = kingcups
The Zedster shows her metal and her mettle to be fine fettle as a nettle as Mohammed Ali once said in one of my more painful to remember acid flashbacks. This is serious wordage!
Jansson 3 – 4 Baines
Penalty Nine
- Jansson = well
- Baines = keeping
Is it all over? Has Baines stepped out over the blue ribband to take the chocolate biscuit. Has the yellow jacket scored a hat-trick in injury time? Has the fat parrot as sick as she sings?
Jansson 3 – 5 Baines
Penalty Ten
- Jansson = hemisphere
- Baines = nods
A hemisphere is better than a nod to a blind bat. Nudge, nudge, think, think. This is going all the way to the plimsole line.
Jansson 4 – 5 Baines
Penalty Eleven
- Jansson = volcano
- Baines = of
Jansson is back in the picture frame. And she’s framing Baines for a crime she didn’t commit. The crime of not winning. If the frame is right. Are you getting the picture?
Jansson 5 – 5 Baines
Penalty Twelve
- Jansson = frightened
- Baines = scary
And. For. The. First. Time. Jansson takes the lead. The Finn eyes the finish. This is scary for Baines.
Jansson 6 – 5 Baines
Penalty Thirteen
- Jansson = said
- Baines = felt
The trip goes to the wire. The hanger sits on that wire on its cliff. The big end hasn’t gone. One last kick of the cue for both of these two will decide the whole banana.
Jansson 6 – 6 Baines
Penalty Fourteen
- Jansson = with
- Baines = frost
It’s all over! It’s all over!
Baines wins! Baines wins!
Elizabeth Baines is crowned the champion of the Literary World Cup.
Oh for god’s sake! Wow!! Probably haven’t laughed so much all week!
Thank you so much, Ben!
A perfect way to end this! Wonderful!
wow this was the most exciting thing i’ve read for a long time. more exciting than most actual football.
incidently, i know use the random word selector to choose the next book to read. last night i had to choose between Arthur C. Clarke, John Wyndham and Glen David Gold. It went like this:
Clarke: Saturnia
Wyndham: into
Gold: become
it was a decisive victory, as you can see. I think this will forever be my method. it makes things a lot easier, so my thanks go to you Ben sir.
Hahaha! I’ve had tears in my eyes since Penalty Eleven. And I’ve finally got round to reading Elizabeth’s Too Many Magpies as a result of all this. It’s meant I never finished the latest tome for Sci-fi Book Club, but there you go. I’ll just have to bunk off this month.