The rules were simple: eight writers (and one songwriter) against FIONA MCCANNin a Scrabble game that took place during the Dublin Writers Festival. Each had one move, taking up where the previous writer left off. Would a team containing three Booker Prize winners triumph?
IAN MCEWAN
Ian McEwan has the unenviable task of kicking off the game for the writers. He confesses he's not much of a Scrabble player, before drawing seven tiles, six of which turn out to be vowels. Not a promising start for the writers, then. In each round, tiles will be drawn to decide who goes first – closest to an A has the honour. I kick off proceedings with the word bogus. Though pressed for time due to a pending interview, McEwan does manage a little conversation between our two moves. He answers a question about what the 61-year-old writer does to keep the brain active with the deadpan: "Oh, I write the occasional novel." The word he finally comes up with to counter my "bogus" claim is beep. Round one over, he shows me his letters and suddenly spots a might-have-been among the now discarded tiles: agape. An opportunity missed, he bows to "the spirit of the staircase".
Ian McEwan:Beep (8 points)
Fiona McCann:Bogus (16 points)
STEWART BRAND
Stewart Brand claims to know even less about Scrabble than Ian McEwan, but sums up the premise of this particular game: “Since you have a consistent game and the writers have a fractional game, I’d imagine that you’ll win, but who knows? Either that or they will have the wisdom of swarms.” He takes his time, but having drawn a blank tile he immediately uses it to his advantage, placing the word pest. One decides not to take it personally.
Stewart Brand:Pest (10 points)
Fiona McCann:Evinces (13 points)
ANTONY BEEVOR & DAVID MITCHELL
Antony Beevor is only just off the plane and tucking into a glass of Guinness and a smoked salmon sandwich while the board is reassembled before him. He is instantly enthusiastic, keeping up a running commentary of the words he could almost make and the triple letter score he will just miss, before placing his own words: "I can't quite do pestilential, which would have been rather nice. But I can do devote, which is not great," he says modestly, though it still scores him the highest so far for any writer. "All one can hope to do in these circumstances is avoid humiliation."
He enjoys the symbolism of our endeavour, “the image of writers scrabbling for a word”, though adds he’s heard of stranger things put to writers at literary festivals. He recalls a Michael Palin anecdote in which “this woman stood up and said: ‘Mr Palin may I ask you something?’ He said: ‘Yes.’ She said: ‘Are those all your own teeth?’”
Antony Beevor:Devote (12 points)
Fiona McCann:Is (22 points)
David Mitchell arrives as Beevor has completed his turn, and admits to having played "once or twice" before. Beevor sticks around to watch Mitchell play, and the two writers are equally dismissive of the new version of Scrabble that allows proper nouns. "I don't think that's right," says Beevor. "I'm anti that rule actually," says Mitchell, with Beevor adding: "I think everybody agrees on that, then." With a running commentary from Beevor – "there's one space too little but you could have done foulpest" – Mitchell tinkers with his tiles. The two men talk of the anecdotes Beevor employs with such skill in his own books, and the temptation to turn such moments of historical truth into fiction, before Mitchell places his word, equal. "This word has to be Antony's because he thought of it," he points out, and requests that I enter the score as a Beevor-Mitchell score. Conscious that he collaborated, Mitchell offers to go again, alone. Given that I'm still ahead of these so-called wordsmiths, I foolishly agree . . .
Beevor-Mitchell:Equal (28 points)
Fiona McCann:Lax (26 points).
Beevor is still on hand, and Mitchell can’t resist the opportunity to consult once again with his fellow writer: “This here isn’t a word, is it?” he asks showing Beevor his tiles, only to meet with a definitive “no”. “Are you sure it isn’t a word you discovered in a Belgian archive?” Once the word is dismissed, Mitchell manages to make another from the tiles drawn but Beevor is the one who finds a place for it, though Mitchell asks him to keep it to himself. He keeps mum with evident difficulty. Seconds tick slowly by until Mitchell finally sees what Beevor has been hinting at, and plonks down all seven tiles to earn himself 90 points on a single word. “Would you like me to put the score down for you?” he offers the slack-jawed journalist. “Record it as a Mitchell-Beevor, definitely. What a beautiful afternoon.” I mutter in reply: “Right, I’ll just go and . . . ” before Beevor finishes my sentence for me. “ . . . just go out and shoot yourself, I would think.” Magnanimous in victory, the two writers offer to help, and find all sorts of canny locations and possibilities that in the end lead to my own entry. The location on the board is a sort of writer/journalist collaboration. I hasten to add that I came up with the word without their assistance.
Mitchell-Beevor:Frothed (90 points)
McCann-Mitchell:Sip (47 points)
NEIL HANNON
Neil Hannon, it turns out, is another big Scrabble fan, though he confesses he’s not of the “open up the board” school of playing. “I’m very closed. I’m the Cliff Thorburn of Scrabble. I really make it very hard for people because that’s the only way I win.”
With alarming alacrity, he manages to play a word containing a Z, while simultaneously carrying on a conversation about whether lyrics or music should take precedence when it comes to songwriting. “The words and the music are of absolute identical importance because if they’re not, then it’s not a song, it’s a poem set to music or it’s a piece of music set to words to give you an excuse to sing,” he says, before coolly placing his 10-point letter on the board.
As I take my turn, he asks which “incredibly cool writers” did he manage to beat, particularly because, as he points out, he is “a complete imposter. They write books! I write verses.” Delighted to hear that he has beaten a Booker Prize winner, he leaves for his festival event on the art of songwriting. “That was the most pressure I’ve ever had in an interview,” he admits as he heads for the stage. “I’m so glad I had a half decent word”
Neil Hannon:Zero (26 points)
Fiona McCann:Bride (22 points)
ANNE ENRIGHT
Anne Enright is clearly au fait with a Scrabble board, though manages to draw only one vowel when her turn comes around. While I place a rather unimaginative beefon an otherwise eloquent board, we talk about the importance of words and precision of meaning when it comes to writing.
Enright separates the writing process into two stages: “One is where you have a bit of flow and you write without thinking all that much,” she says, adding that at this stage she often just writes out the rhythm of a sentence – literally typing out “da de da de da”– returning later to fill in the missing words. “The second thing is that you edit and that is a more careful selection process and then sometimes, at the end of it all, you go back to your first draft and see what you edited out to get the freshness of the first thing. So yes, every word counts.” Speaking of words, she says when it comes to Scrabble: “My problem is I always go for the nice word over the points.” As if to illustrate the point, she places the prettiest word so far on the board.
Anne Enright:Shirr (10 points)
Fiona McCann:Beef (27 points)
NATASHA WALTER
Natasha Walter’s initial concern is for her Scrabble teammates. “I don’t want to let the writers down. What’s the lowest so far? What do I have to go above in order to save face?” That would be Ian McEwan’s eight-point contribution. “Okay, I’ll definitely relax now.”
Walter plays the opposite game to Hannon’s Cliff Thorburn approach.
“It’s meant to be a pleasurable, sociable thing,” she points out. “So I’ve got it in my head always to open up the board.” On drawing her letters, she almost has a chance, she says, to make a feminist statement with the C, N and T that arrive, but the board fails to provide her with the missing vowel.
Either way, it's my turn to go first, and here I make a grave error that will have letters into The Irish Timesfor weeks. I see a chance to employ Hannon's Z, and giddy with delight, I form the word Zionknowing that, because it's a proper noun, it may not be allowed. Walter, however, aware that she's about to profit from my play, allows it, and a quick dictionary consultation reveals it does reside therein, though I await the response of seasoned Scrabble players David Mitchell and Antony Beevor with some trepidation.
Natasha Walter:Waned (28 points)
Fiona McCann:Zion (13 points)
YANN MARTEL
Yann Martel arrives for the penultimate turn for the writers just moments before his Sunday afternoon event. "I guess McEwan did bogus," he hazards as he examines the board. He learns that McEwan's word was actually beep.
“Beep? What a feeble word. He broke under the pressure. Those English, they don’t last long.” I suggest that perhaps this quick turn of Scrabble before he is rushed on stage might help sharpen his mind for the event. “Do I have to have a sharp mind to speak in public?” he asks with a smile.
His word, though not contained in our Concise Oxford English Dictionary, is one we decide to allow given the limitations of our chosen dictionary and the desire to appear to move with the times.
Yann Martel:Mojo (21 points)
Fiona McCann:Hang (12 points)
JOHN BOYNE
John Boyne takes over, and unless he gets writer's block, there is no way I can claw back a victory. No such luck with Boyne, however. A confessed Scrabble fan, he's also a speedy player who ends the contest on a wonderfully apt word: write. I counter with maw, something which it can be argued has landed me in all this trouble in the first place. It's game over for the journalist. The writers take the Scrabble crown.
John Boyne:Write (10 points)
Fiona McCann:Maw (16 points)
FINAL SCORE
The writers:243 points
Fiona McCann:214 points
