Toilet prose wins bad writing contest

THEY'RE funny at first and lighten the heart, like a ray of sunshine, gleaming and sparkling on a perfect mountainous snow-laden landscape although just as the sun's gentle warmth, in caressing the tiny snowflakes, will result in a chilly, unsightly sludge, nature thus destroying its own beauty they too will become irksome and ugly to contemplate.

So the secret in reading the winning entries from this year's Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest also known as the Bad Writing, or Dark and Stormy Night Contest is to take them just a few at a time. One glance at the overall winner and you'll understand why.

"On reflection, Angela perceived that her relationship with Tom had always been rocky, not quite a roller-coaster ride but more like when the toilet-paper roll gets a little squashed so it hangs crooked and every time you pull some off you can hear the rest going bumpity-bumpity in its holder until you go nuts and push it back into shape, a degree of annoyance that Angela had now almost attained."