Rob Manuel

Just reading this list of 500 Most Commonly Used Words in the English Language and I thought I’d attempt to transpose a famous poem using only these words.

I walked by my-self like a rain thing
that flys on high over up-side-down mountain and mountain
When all at once I saw many people
A group, of gold plants;
Be-side the round ground water, under the trees
moving in the wind

Ok, that’s your starter for ten. Can YOU re-write a famous poem or song? Go on, give it a go and add it to the comments.

Newsletter co-editor Dave, and his tiny Beadle hand.

Word up cyber-fruits. I’ve got a history lesson for you. Back in 2001 I met a bloke called Andy Sheerin, who was making a more than a little noise with his Hairy Tongue site, collecting together hundreds of rather naughty photoshops of Jamie Oliver.

Great stuff, and as we were hunting for ideas for the B3ta at the time, and we went, “Aha! We could run a photoshop competition and we could pick a different Jamie Oliver every week. It would be ace!”

This idea worked well, our photoshop competitions made our website notorious, and so props to Andy for giving us the steer on that one.

Fast forward a few years and Andy has fallen off my radar a bit, we get the odd email saying he’s working in the corporate sector and he misses the old days, but nothing that we can really tell our readers about.

Then, comes the magic day and Andy emails us asking to buy a “sponsored link”, i.e. the top bit of the newsletter which we pimp out to anyone prepared to give us cash really, he tell us that he and his friend Andy T are working on a board game that’s going to cause a lot of trouble.

Andy’s game, you see, is basically a re-working of the classic “Risk” but updated for modern times, with terrorists. A satirical view of the war on terror, if you will.

Anyway, to really fast forward now (missing out the bits about appearing in The Sun newspaper and getting into trouble at toy fairs), we got a finally got a copy of the game, and we figured the only right thing to do would be to put together a little competition to allow our readers to get their hands on one without paying out their hard earned cash.

The game also comes with a free rapist hat. Here’s me wearing it earlier.

Anyway, we obviously need a tie-breaker to win one of the three copies we’ve got to give away.
Complete this phrase in 15 words or less: “George W. Bush is a …”

And of course, if you fancy buying the game without chancing your arm on a web-lotto then pop over to waronterrortheboardgame.com

BTW: Dave has stolen the review copy from B3ta HQ on the pretext, “It’s really good, and will save me £££ buying my brother a present this Christmas.” Or maybe he wants the balaclava to liven up his sex-life? Surely not!

And for those having trouble hearing at the back, complete this phrase in 15 words or less: “George W. Bush is a …”