It was a long and twisting sentence...

A Californian has won the annual Bulwer-Lytton literary parody prize which is awarded annually to the contestant who submits the very worst opening sentence of an imaginary novel. The prize is named after the author who began his novel "Paul Clifford" with what were to become the immortal words, "It was a dark and stormy night."

Here's the winning entry:

"Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you've had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean."

A Scotsman came second by playing with Clint Eastwood's most famous lines. Here's the runner-up:

"I know what you're thinking, punk," hissed Wordy Harry to his new editor, "you're thinking, 'Did he use six superfluous adjectives or only five?' -- and to tell the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement; but being as this is English, the most powerful language in the world, whose subtle nuances will blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel loquacious?' -- well do you, punk?"

I think I may enter myself next year and encourage other bloggers to do the same. At least once a day I look over the tortured sentences I write for this blog and think "Is there a Geneva Convention on Language?" There are other bloggers who daily hit "publish" on stuff that may be covered by treaties on WMD.

Hells, maybe we need an annual competition of our own for the very worst and most tortured sentence in a blog post. Nominations, anyone?