It's with great sadness that we've lost another three competitors since the last challenge was set: Psycorp, Frenchbean and Trout. Our thoughts are with Frenchbean in particular, who has had to return to the UK to see her mother, who is very ill. Of course, we all wish her the speediest of recoveries.

With those withdrawals in mind, we're making this challenge the final one before our next eviction, when six become five. And if anyone does a Trout and drops out because the challenge was a bit difficult, we will be paying you a visit with some pointy sticks. We do actually want to evict some of you rather than this becoming trench warfare, ya know.

In a moment, we'll come to our reviews. But first...

I'm going to make a general criticism this week. Nobody really took on the Challenge. Some didn't brave a confrontation with the genuinely indefensible, while none of the rest took the risk of personalising the defence. It would be pretty pointless scoring everyone out of nine on the same technicality, though, and in several cases a shortage of Stretch has yielded a better Edited Guide Entry. So I will content myself by saying that you're all a bunch of pussies.

The personalisation thing might also be countered by invoking the Guidelines, of course. If you want me as a judge, then you'll have to accept that I have no truck with that. In spite of that wretched constraint, indeed, we are into genuine essay territory with a number of these Entries, the purest form of the utterly forbidden Opinion Piece. I only hope that a few of the direst Philistines of PR and the Towers read them, realise what we're missing and resolve to mend their small-minded ways.

OK. Now I've got that off my chest, let's judge some Stretcher Entries...

Galaxy Babe

The "Gotchas" were legendary. Unmissable. We were of course, hoping that DLT would get Edmonds back, and I believe Noel did hire bodyguards when receiving advance warnings of retribution, as DLT threatened to shave his head, and possibly, dye the beard. I don't recall the Trevor McDonald gotcha, but I do recall the Jon Pertwee one falling flat - why it was even broadcast I'll never know - it wasn't even funny and I think the whole nation was mortified along with Jon. NTV was just ... excruciating. A true precursor to Big Brother which I've just been reminded of, thanks Alex. This is indefensible tripe (NHP), and Mr Blobby was the revoltingly sickly icing on the soggy stodgy cake. Consign it to Room 101 and never mention it again. Please?

9/10

Skankyrich

And so Alex's see-saw journey through this competition continues. There have been moments of brilliance from young Mr Ashman in The Stretcher, but also an annoying tendency for Alex to stay within his comfort zone. This piece clearly falls in the latter territory.

Alex - this isn't a Stretch. This is what you do week-in, week-out in PR. We know you can do this kind of stuff in your sleep. It's a perfectly fine PR Entry, will make a great addition to the Edited Guide but in this company and in the context of this competition it's bland and uninspired.

5/10

Pinniped

We seem to have forgotten the defence aspect somewhere. Defending Mr Blobby would have been some trick, but this doesn't actually do it. As a consequence, it suffers the fate of the majority of Entries that describe something trivial and pointless. It comes over as trivial and pointless itself.

In a straight descriptive treatment with no self-sustaining angle, any piece of writing is ultimately as entertaining as its subject. The Entry itself acknowledges that its subject is not very entertaining. So even though it's broadly well written and undoubtedly well researched, its readers will be bored well before the end.

7/10

Galaxy Babe

Phew...some light relief from cannibalism and the end of the world. This made me chuckle, and also enlightened me, I had no idea we had an EGE on an album by William Shatner. It reminded me of the one time I got dragged up in front of the audience (my family) to 'sing', at my parents' 60th wedding anniversary doo. Luckily it was a duet with my gorgeous daughter so 7 minutes'-worth wasn't too painful (for the audience). I'd happily consign these contraptions to the dustbin of history and look forward to the day they're outlawed. Wonderful entry, Bea.

8/10

Skankyrich

You've just about got away with this. You know this isn't what we were looking for, and, while we don't want you to jump through hoops for us, you're unlikely to get decent scores in the final rounds if you only pay lip-service to the challenges. You're also dangerously close to reverting to the kind of piece that comes to you naturally, and the winner of this competition will be someone who shows they can write in a variety of styles.

Consider yourself warned. If it wasn't such a damn good piece, I'd have been much more churlish with my scoring, and you're lucky that the quality of your writing has carried you through on this occasion. Next time, I won't be so forgiving.

7/10

Pinniped

I was so tempted to mark this down as a cop-out. Bea practically demanded it. (If you know you're breaking the rules, why do it? I really ought to pull you up, only there are kettle-blackness issues here).

If we forget the Stretcher, though, this is an excellent Edited Guide Entry. The target may be easy, but every sentence is a bullseye. It's beautifully structured and just right for length, and it's funny and familiar. In fact it's an in-joke par excellence, and we all delight in sharing it, even though few of us could tell it so well. That last sentence is an exaggerated claim for Karaoke itself, but as self-reference to the Entry, it's brilliantly smug.

8/10

Galaxy Babe

Tried hard, couldn't fault this. It was going to be a 8/10, but then I realised what date the Government paper was released, and couldn't believe some jobsworth didn't earn their expenses and delay it for a couple of days. "Further details were presented a year later in a government paper called A First Class Service - Quality in the New NHS, and NICE finally came into being on 1 April, 1999" - priceless.

9/10

Skankyrich

Like Alex, you're guilty of taking a step backwards here. Your best pieces have been lively and witty, and although this is comprehensive and diligent in its detail it's rather dry and lifeless. I appreciate that the subject matter doesn't lend itself to sparkling prose, but I think you were very much writing within yourself.

That is, for the most part at least. The closing paragraphs are lively and passionate, intelligent and thoughtful, and go a long way to saving the piece. The biggest problem is that the reader has to wade through a lot of fairly heavy stuff to get to the interesting bit, and I'm not sure how many will.

6/10

Pinniped

Very instructive, diligently researched, beautifully written and balanced. Just a bit flat and worthy, and particularly in a week where the theme implicitly demands risk, that's disappointing.

I'm sure I'm not alone in considering the principles of NICE to be entirely sensible, which is probably why I'm struggling to find any real indefensibility. The full treatment here might have questioned the validity of the Hippocratic Oath itself on sustainability grounds. Or even suggested that those presumptious enough to protest their own precedence for medical treatment might be the last people society needs to keep alive.

8/10

Galaxy Babe

"Food for thought" tee hee hee. Oh dear, not a good start, I shouldn't be giggling, should I? "Cannibalism as Foreign Policy" (snigger) oops... "Free-range Rude" (snork). Now, I am sure I shouldn't be laughing - "more advanced peoples now accuse their neighbours of it" (helpless with mirth). "Gift boxes of spam are available as wedding gifts in South Korea" - (rolling on the floor clutching tummy). They built a school and a college in his honour? Awww. What an uplifting end to an already shouldn't-be-funny-but-is tale. Almost worth getting beaten to death then eaten. I should feel guilty for laughing but I don't. Here's my first ten out of the whole contest.

10/10

Skankyrich

It's tempting to give this a high score just because it is a tremendous PR piece. When I joined the site, I thought most EG-style writing would be like this, and it's always been a disappointment to me that it generally isn't. This is so good the rest of us might as well give up and just hand you the Entry of the Month award on a monthly basis.

But as ever, we come back to that tiresome qualifier we have in The Stretcher; that we do prefer you to write to the challenges we set. You barely make cannibalism sound indefensible at all, and you only nod vaguely in the direction of defending it. It's a great story, brilliantly told: but it's a story about the indefensible rather than defending it.

7/10

Pinniped

Diamonds are brilliant because of their many facets and tangents. The same is true for Guide Entries. I hope plenty of people read this masterclass in making a factual story stimulating, and learn from it, and start looking for the imaginative angles in their own Entries.

That said, there's a slight overdoing of the microparagraph, and I have to assume that the clunky double-culture in the opening is misguidedly deliberate, because the alternative is carelessness. Minor criticisms these, though, because this is near-perfection in Edited Guide terms. In Stretcher terms, still pretty good, but the defence aspect is a bit of an 'All's Well That Ends Well'. The Challenge really called for some creepy relishing of the juices.

9/10

Galaxy Babe

Well this sure brought me back to Earth with a bump. Right on the boil with the Antarctic ice bridge shattering, which I've just been reading about on the main news page. Truly scary; I didn't see the 'defence' angle until the sickening conclusion. I'm reminded of the Einstein quote: I do not know with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones. A devastatingly stark piece of writing, well done mVp.

9/10

Skankyrich

Not much point in reviewing this then, eh?

This is a terrific piece, for a number of reasons. Firstly, you've managed to more-or-less fulfil the challenge, an almost unique feat among contestants this week. Secondly, it's a personal stretch and quite a departure from your usual work. And thirdly, it's exceptionally well-written, with a cold tone that matches the subject matter perfectly. Great work.

8/10

Pinniped

The PR threads first highlighted (another) coincidence of subject matter between the Cannibals. In fact mVp and TB are more similar in their pitch, and of those two this one is much the blacker. It doesn't construct its case particularly evenly, but that only serves to heighten the hysterical tone. Try reading this one aloud, and injecting some rhetoric. It's pretty shocking. (Are you listening, Aviators?)

Although I find this a very compelling piece of writing, I don't like it at all, and I reject its pessimism. In terms of inducing an emotional reaction, though, it top-scores this week. Now somebody please give her a slap.

8/10

Galaxy Babe

An engrossing entry. Although I was disappointed to be reading the same subject as another contestant had submitted, this is radically different. The final paragraph almost had me convinced (shudder). I was totally grossed out by this, which is why it is getting a deserved high score.

9/10

Skankyrich

I'm on a diet so severe that my pet rabbit would consider my vegetarian rations to be excessively meagre, so perhaps I'm a little more open to suggestion than I was a few weeks ago. You make a compelling case, and you almost convinced me...

Just about pips mvp's submission for the best of the week from me, and scores highly for almost exactly the same reasons. What makes this really stand out for me is the chatty, conversational tone you've adopted, rather like you were explaining the idea to someone in a short bus journey.

9/10

Pinniped

This is the best of those essays I was referring to. There is comparatively little fact here against a lot of philosophy, but I have no problem with that since the message is so cogent. TB is a writer who can make you look at things you'd rather not see. Though a very understated example, the familiar power is there and the result is disturbing and effective, as well as original.

I had a setback in paragraph one, mind you. Cannibalism as much a taboo as paedophilia? So which of the two do you suspect might be happening in your own street? The complicity of us all in planet-rape redeemed the piece eventually, but beware the distraction of the forked road in your writing. You're onto a loser if you invite your reader to contemplate a story you didn't tell.

8/10

Here is the current table going into the final round before the next eviction:

1. You may vote once, and once only. Please email your votes to The Stretchers. If you can't use this direct link, hovering your mouse over the link should reveal our email address. If you cannot get the link to work, simply post below and we'll try to help you. You must quote your username and h2g2 Researcher number (U-number) with your vote; votes without these will be rejected without query.

2. Votes received after the deadline or cast onsite will not be counted.

3. If you're taking part, do not ask other people to vote for you. This is not a popularity contest, and we hope that everyone will vote for the piece they genuinely feel is best each issue. We reserve the right to discount votes if we feel that contestants are canvassing, votes are being traded or unusual voting patterns are developing.

4. Contestants are perfectly entitled to vote for their own pieces if they feel their writing is the best submitted; however, please note that we will be on the look-out for dodgy voting patterns, and that includes contestants who consistently vote for themselves.

5. Votes will be tallied using a formula that normalises the votes cast and scores given, then returns a number between 0 and 2. We will publish the rankings, but not the actual scores as they are rather undramatic, relative rather than absolute, and fairly meaningless to look at. In the event of a tie, whichever piece is scored highest by Skankyrich is ranked highest. If there is still a tie, Skankyrich will decide who is placed higher.

Here's the final challenge in this round:

For the next Stretcher Challenge, the theme is the Seven Deadly Sins. The judges are not impressed, incidentally, by your collective ingenuity in being only six in number this week. This means that the method of Sin-allocation has become even dodgier than originally planned, but please do not protest, or we will arrange for you to spend Eternity in Purgatory. You know we can do it, because we practically personify the concept, right? So shut up and listen.

The Seven Deadly Sins in alphabetical order are:

Anger, Avarice, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Pride and Sloth

The final words in the seven most recent Stretcher Entries, arranged in alphabetical order and discounting footnotes, are:

Believe (Danny B), Despair (minorVogonpoet), Gunge-Fest (Alex), More (Beatrice), Progress (dmitrigheorgheni), That (Montague Trout), Us (Tibley Bobley).

Trout is included as the last to drop out. The Sins are thus allocated as follows:

• Danny B = Anger
• minorVogonpoet = Avarice
• Alex Ashman = Envy
• Beatrice = Gluttony
• Dmitrigheorgheni = Lust
• Tibley Bobley = Sloth

The odd Trout-matching Sin, that of Pride, is thrown open to everyone, Stretcher-watchers, past contestants (you too, Fishboy) and even judges. Come to think of it, the judges are pretty adept at this particular Sin, so that would be kind of appropriate, wouldn't it? Anyway, we want lots of Pride Entries from all quarters, and part of the public vote will be picking a winner among them.

The seven resulting Sinful Entries will receive a special collective treatment within the h2g2 pantheon. We'll reveal what this is later (yes, you guessed it. The Skanky One is winging it beyond the limits of his authority as usual).

Now, DO NOT leap in and start writing an EG-suitable Entry on your Sin – because that is NOT how this works. Instead, we want you to write an EG-style Entry about someone who enacted the OPPOSITE trait to your Sin, and yet caused something bad to happen as a result.

Because you always seem to ask annoying questions around the time we're trying to get to the pub on Friday evening, this single point of clarification is offered: you could choose to treat the ‘opposite trait to your Sin' as the corresponding virtue. You could equally well choose to invoke another antisocial trait that just happens to be diametrically opposite the Sin. To illustrate what we mean, the trait for the open topic of Pride could be anything from genuine humility to a psychosis founded in a lack of self-esteem.

There. Easy, innit? Deadline for submissions, posted to PR and notified in the new Submissions Thread of course, is midnight on Thursday, April 23rd – good luck!

The Stretcher Archive

Galaxy Babe, Pinniped and Skankyrich

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