FROM: A

Dear Nick,

I’m writing an advice column for my uni’s magazine but no one is sending in questions. What can I do to avoid making up questions under various unconvincing pseudonyms? Cheers!

Wow! What a familiar sounding predicament you pose,

Do you answer those questions in couplets or prose?

A, are you sure you’re not me,

Posing as some random somebody?

The first thing you should do, Nick-like phantom,

Is advertise for queries from your ‘fandom’.

Plead on Facebook or in person for qualms to be sent in,

Another’s misfortune’s for you a big win.

Ask and ask, beg and beg,

For the problems your friends hide in their heads.

Bribe and threat, promise and bait,

As without questions you’re in stalemate.

If you still cannot find a single taker,

Then you’ll have to be your own question-maker.

Make do with what you have, that’s key advice,

Reflect on when you’ve needed help: that will suffice.

It’s rare to get fortune served on a silver platter –

That’s why they say it takes ‘mind over matter’.

So take what you’ve got and run with it far,

Move on old chap: accept things as they are.

Indeed, of all the counsellors, you’re your best one,

Deep down you know what needs to be done.

So concoct a problem you’d want fixed

If you were a student down in the pits.

Take questions if they come but most of all get writing,

Even if it’s on a problem of your own devising,

Because your editor’s sick of you handing things in late!

P.S. Please submit questions for edition eight.

DEVELOPED A WOE THAT WON’T LET YOU GO?

SEND IT TO FARRAGOMEDIA2016@GMAIL.COM