Have a go at our next caption competition (right) and win a prize of Fairtrade chocolate! 

Send your entries by email only to
captioncompetition@churchtimes.co.uk 
by 9 a.m. on Monday 15 February.

Here is the winning entry from last week:   

PAPA

Matt Hancock decided that herding cats was easier than facing questions at a Downing Street press briefing (Chris Coupe)

LARRY the cat, like the rest of us, is having a difficult lockdown, especially when he lives so close to those who set the rules:

• Hold on, Larry — is your journey really necessary? (Chas Coleman)
• Oh, no — someone else asking me if my journey’s really necessary! (John Saxbee)
• No, Larry, you know the rules: just one outing for exercise per day (Sue Chick)
• Larry emerged to give the Cabinet decision that all foreign cats — such as Persian, Russian Blue, and Siamese — must quarantine (Brian Stevenson)
• (Cat) I’m always washing, I can be very socially distant, and I never use the NHS. Yet still they show me the door (Valerie Budd)
• Further evidence that Hancock has lost the plot as he challenges Larry over not wearing a face mask” (Andrew W.)
• Gotcha — where’s your mask? (Pauline Nichols)
• If I take you with me on holiday, there’s no chasing cats for ten days when we come back (James Behrens).

Or perhaps it’s the Health Secretary who is struggling to observe the guidance:

• Hissssss! You call that social distancing? (Fiona Forrest-James)
• No touching! Social distance, man, social distance (Cheryl Kuit)
• Social distancing, Minister. . . (Paul Brewster)
• You’re forgetting the ‘hands’ and ‘space’ part, says Larry (Emma Reynolds)
• ‘What’s new, pussycat? Whoa, whoa.’ Don’t touch me there! That’s where I have just had my jab (Clive Deverell).

Larry is all too familiar with the cut and thrust of politics:

• Careful, Matt, he could turn on you like some of your other colleagues (John Hutchinson)
• Another cat-astrophy at Downing Street? (Mark Parry)
• ‘Don’t blame any catastrophes on me,’ Larry muttered, making good his escape (Maree Foster)
• Matt felt an allegiance with Larry, who was on his eighth life, too (Vicky Deasley)
• More leaks from Downing Street. Who let the cat out of the bag? (Simon Cuff).

Some other entries for your amusement:

• Matt consoles cat over outsourcing of pest control to Deloitte (Ian Barge)
• Stop, Larry! I clearly heard that mouse cough (John Appleby)
• If only all of No. 10’s problems could be solved at a stroke (Chris Coleman)
• The Health Secretary fixed the pandemic at a stroke (Alison Parry)
• Larry slinking out of No. 10 to chase the pigeons and prove himself to be a ‘Mystery cat’, just like T. S. Eliot’s ‘Macavity — the Napoleon of Crime’ (Lesley Cope)
• I don’t think putting a tartan collar on Larry is really going to buy off the SNP (Ray Morris)
• Matt tried desperately to persuade his familiar to come to Cabinet with him (Bridget Swan)
• Larry was reluctant to be tested on his catechism (Michael Foster)
• The shortage of mice at No. 10 meant that Larry had to be furloughed for the duration (Richard Hough)
• Mice were not bound by lockdown restrictions (Patrick Irwin)
• It’s me or Boris, and that’s my final word (Avril Forrest)
• Following ‘The Science’ — the new name for the Downing Street cat? (Jonathan Haigh)
• Matt Hancock consults the only one in No. 10 who may know what’s going on (Michael Doe)
• Lockdown has been a CATastrophe for many but not for Larry, the roving mouser of No. 10 (Richard Strudwick)
• Recent data suggest that stroking a cat is the cure for Covid (Peter Walker)
• Next slide, please. . . The Matt sat on the cat (Chris Oxley)
• Don’t worry, I’m only the Door-Matt (Janet Stockton)
• It was a cat’s whisker: I was almost taken in (Robert Shooter).