Mixed Greetings

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 302 Report by Angela Kent A prize of £5 was offered for a message of good will (not more than one hundred words of prose or twelve lines of verse) suitable for use by a heavyweight boxer, an - inspector of taxes, a football-pool promoter, a radio or television announcer, a pedant or a family doctor.

A GREAT many doctors and boxers closely followed by the tax inspectors! Announcers were unpopular and rather weak, but the pedants and pool-promoters reached a high standard. The difficulty was to produce lines which were probable as well as clever, and few competitors achieved this. Most of the obvious puns fell to the boxer's lot and I am still reeling under the punches, clinches and Christmas boxes (not to mention the various devastat- ing rhymes for solar-plexus!).

Where the boxers were sincere the doctors had their tongues in their cheeks; some even made downright threats;

. . . if the cause is over-eating, A stomach pump will be my greeting.

(A. W. DICKER.) The general feeling was summed up by B. M. Collins: Happy Yuletide to you.

May our meetings be few.

and Dr. J. H. Ritchie's

And if you have to send for me,

Please send at nine; don't wait till three.

sounded heartfelt.

The tax inspectors seemed either con- science-stricken or horribly hypocritical. I liked L. E. Honnor's You have a solace I can ne'er achieve— More blest are they that give than that receive.

and P. W. deVoil's lusty carol-singers, baying as they earn.

Valerie Ranzetta's pool-promoter's 'a more than prosperous Permpool Season in the New Year' sounded genuine, and the Rev. E. J. A. Easten's pedant was refresh- ingly original :

My soul, prevent the star-led wizards toc From coming with untimely gifts to you Until at the Epiphany, they're due.

Finally, a long short-list : Ursula John. G. J. Blundell, G. R. Smith, Mrs. V. R. Ormerod, Allan M. Laing, Eileen Tulloch, A. Macdonald and F. G. Hall. The winners were not obvious and Iolo Davies and J. R. Greenwood were very close. In the end, after much heart-searching, I gave £2 to R. Kennard Davis for the smoothest and most likely verses and £1 each to Vera Telfer, Geoffrey W. S. Childs and D. R. Peddy.

PRIZES

(R. KENNARD DAVIS) FAMILY DOCTOR

I wish you, friend, the season's bliss.

May Health, not I, attend you! And take not ill, I beg you, this Prescription that 1 send you.

Of Christmas turkey—quantum suff.

Mince pies—as may be handy. A modicum of good plum duff.

A dram of sound old brandy.

And afterwards, of salts—a grain,

And do not blame the giver, For healthy living, it is plain, Demands a healthy liver.

(VERA TELFER) FOOTBALL-POOL PROMOTER

I wish you incomparable fortune, Though matchless I will not say; May you draw what is best for the future

To bless you at home and away.

May luck be in league with you ever; May the world with you gladly play ball; In life may your chances be trebled, And your good points discerned by us all.

(GEOFFREY W. S. CHILDS) FAMILY DOCTOR

To all my panel patients this conveys

My heartfelt wish for health and length of

days.

I trust that all my private patients know That if on Boxing Day they're feeling low Or out of sorts, or possibly dyspeptic, Or pale and wan, or even apopleptic, I'm at their service morning, noon and night With nostrums, ipecac., or aconite.

But if the malady is merely chronic Just ring me up and I'll prescribe a tonic. A happy Christmas and a New Year's Greeting!

But do, dear friends, beware of over-eating.

(D. R. PEDDY) PEDANT To wish (i.e., to express the hope for) you a merry (this adjective to convey the sense of sober rejoicing) Christmas—the latter term to comprehend the duration of the festive period, that is to say, from 25th December, 1955, to 6th January, 1956, inclusive—and a happy* New Year, which in the present context sig- nifies the 366 days from 1st January, 1956, to 31st December, 1956, inclusive.

* In the sense that the sender's desire is for happiness on the part of the addressee rather than that the abstract conception known as the 'New Year' shall actually experience felicity.