A few months ago I heard that the Grant Museum – the tiny, deeply fabulous zoological wunderkammer embedded deep in the throbbing heart of UCL’s Bloomsbury campus – was running a short story competition. The Grant is a delightful place, packed – and I do mean packed – with its curiosities. A three-legged quagga! Glass slugs! A walrus’ penis bone! A jar of moles! And that’s not even the beginning of an introduction to it.

The focus of the competition was none of these wonders, but rather an art installation by Amanda Schiff. Pandora’s Box: Curiosity and the Dangerous Pursuit of Knowledge comprised a succession of boxes containing evocative found objects; the competition was for the best story inspired by the artwork – a challenge I found irresistible. (Mind you, Monkeys will know that I find pretty much any challenge irresistible.)

But then I went off on an unexpectedly hectic holiday to the Hay Festival. Educating myself at author talks, rummaging around in cavernous bookshops and repressing bilious outbursts at the middlebrow excesses of my fellow attendees left me with little time to write anything. Upon my return, there was the usual house remediation to take care of – and so by the time I sat down to write it was 10pm on Sunday 6 June.

Entries, the rules said sternly, had to be in by the end of the day.

Oh well. Just made it that bit more exciting. Thirty minutes of research and one hour twenty-five minutes of frantic typing later, I had produced

Memories of Hope

Despite the haste with which I’d thrown it together, I was – and still am pretty pleased with the result. It’s not the most original of premises, but I flatter myself that the end result is quite thematically complex and genuinely derivative of the particular artwork I’d chosen. (More on that in the notes to the story, for those who care.) Not so much of the Grant Museum, however, which was a bit of a #fail on my part; after all, it was the setting that had attracted me to the competition in the first place.

Nonetheless, a few weeks later I got an email telling me that I’d won. Which is obviously very gratifying, though I do feel as though I should have worked a bit harder for it. (Those who’ve followed my fitful career as a writer of fiction may remember that I have previous form for winning competitions with a hastily submitted and somewhat off-topic entry.) But hell, I wasn’t going to let that stop me from accepting the prize, which includes some book tokens and publication on the museum’s website.

The best bit, however, is that I’m now an honorary Friend of the Museum – or rather, I will be once it re-opens, since it’s currently moving to new, less cramped premises. I’m quietly hoping they’re not too spacious; the density of exhibits was a large part of the Grant’s charm. But then, I don’t have to look after it; I suspect that it will end up in more modern surroundings that will both show off the collection to better advantage and allow the curators to take much better care of it. I’m sure it’ll still be be brilliant either way. Go visit when it reopens.

One thing you won’t see, though, is Pandora’s Box, which doesn’t seem to have been publicly documented anywhere, either. So it will have to live on – aptly enough – in the memories of those who saw it. ##

i/o Error didn’t get as uproarious a reception as The Man With The Musical Penis did, but then it’s not as uproarious a story. In fact, one of the things that I think got lost was the tragic element of the story – it wasn’t explicit enough to come over in a live rendition, and it relies on a few science-fictional references that may not have been clear to a general audience. I’m also a bit concerned that I might be typecasting myself as an impotence obsessive… but part three of the Penis Triptych is nonetheless on its way. (In a splatterpunk style, which should be interesting.)

The story’s undertones of coercion and homophobia also raised a few eyebrows. Not to have the whole “is The Phantom Menace racist or not?” argument all over again, but my intention was to poke fun at stereotypes, not strengthen them. If anything, I think of it as a tragicomedy about two individuals whose inability to express their sexuality – inability begat by purposeful engineering design, in this case – has disastrous and distressing consequences. Like Ted and Ralph. Only with, y’know, robots.

The reader was Will Goodhand, whom I was startled to recognise from his appearance on the UK version of Beauty and the Geek (my thoughts on which can be found here). Will’s claim to geekhood was his unashamed Young Conservatism, a position to which he apparently still cleaves – less geeky today than it was back then, I guess. Should you wish, you can amuse yourself by listening to the recording and trying to work out which leading – and definitely Not Gay – elder statesman of the Tory party Will used as the basis of Alpha’s voice!

I also enjoyed The Love Machines by Niall Boyce – another take on humanised technology, but more optimistic than mine – and Jerome McFadden’s wry Suicide.

By way of a bonus the Liars also read the  #llsatc Twitfic submitted months ago for their Sex and the City event, including one of mine. I actually submitted four Underground-themed #vss, tweaked versions of which I’ve recorded for posterity here since they’ve long since vanished from Twitter. (I’m sure posterity will be duly grateful.) The first’s the one they read (a good choice: the rude bit at the end works best when said out loud); the second is historically accurate, if you know your royal anatomy; the third is also v. rude (hint: think of tunnels and Tube colours); and the last doesn’t work but I thought I’d include it for completeness’ sake.

They met @Moorgate: she was Northern; he, Metropolitan. But he soon warmed to her country charms: and soon it was rus in urbe.

She assumed he would take the Hammersmith & City; he insisted on the Bakerloo. So they parted ways @Paddington

@GreenPark: Right Piccadilly, left Albertopolis. Victoria, in her Jubilee coach, recalls her consort’s barbelled end and is wistfully amused

Switched from Circle to District @NottingHillGate. Her Central concern: he might have left it too late…

Tube geeks will note that the stations cited actually are the intersections of the relevant lines. Yes, I know. You’re welcome. ##

P.S. Singletons, there’s a literary dating bonus feature. Send the League your preferences (including favourite book!) and they’ll set you up…

According to tradition, William Shakespeare was born 445 years ago on this day – and died on what would have been his 52nd birthday, in 1616. There’s no way to be sure about his birthday – he was baptised on April 26th, but that’s about all that can be confirmed. (Inevitably, some people have different ideas, just as they do about practically everything to do with Shakespeare.)

By way of tribute, here’s a cut-up of Sonnet 18 (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”) that I made at the V&A a couple of years ago, and my Quill Bill wallpaper.