COMPETITION

Hymn 666

Jaspistos

IN Competition No. 1506 you were asked for a hymn from the Stockbroker's Book of Hymns, Revised & Augmented. Rupert Brooke, whose idea this hymnal was, did pretty well with his No. 666, which gets off to a good start:

Lord, on this calm and holy day, We fall before thy shrine to pray, Because we hope to make it pay, Giver of all.

No mystics we, plain businessmen; We kneel, and rise, and kneel again; It rather bores us, Lord - but then Thou givest all . . .

Arthur Hugh Clough would have revel- led in this competition which demanded the combination of the singable with the sanctimonious or the cynical. The more musical of you kindly indicated the tune to which your words should be sung; others left me rhythmically groping. Prizes of f18 apiece go to the worthies printed below, and the last bonus bottle of Champagne Palmer 1979, presented by Marie-Pierre Palmer-Becret, is Katie Mallett's. Our special thanks go to Mme Palmer-Becret for having generously supported twelve of our competitions.

0 God our help in markets past, Please hear our fervent prayer; Preserve us from deflation's blast And save us from the Bear.

We put our unit trust in Thee. Although we trade in gilt We try to reach in equity The standard Thou has built.

Save us from inside trading, Lord, May all our deals be fair, Till we receive our just reward A piece of every share.

May profits blossom like a tree Deep grafted in good stock, And may our corporate futures be As solid as Thy rock. (Katie Mallett) Now thank we all our God With loud and braying voices, Who cuts like Sweeney Todd And offers us two choices: We either end up skint, Concerned for human need, Or we can make a mint By celebrating greed.

All praise, then, to this God, Who gives us milk and honey, And doesn't give a sod For anything but money; A God we have to thank For what We are today, Proceeding to the bank And laughing all the way. (Roger Woddis) The City's firm foundation is Mammon, our great Lord, Our guide in speculation, our help in daily fraud; He with one aim inspires us, to move without a hitch From simple bourgeois comfort to being stinking rich.

Great Mammon, we implore you to send inside advice That we may time our bargains to get the better price, And if our clients suffer and lose their little all, They've earned a useful lesson, our greed precedes their fall.

Save us from dago debtors who will not pay their dues, From British manufacturers whose enterprises lose.

0 lead us well and guide us with your almighty hand To gain from speculation in property and land.

(John Sweetman) He who would always eat Beef or smoked salmon, Let him on well-shod feet Follow Lord Mammon. Let others draw the dole, He'll still pursue his goal: He'd even sell his soul To be a broker.

Whoso assails his ears With bearish rumours, Wastes breath; he never hears Those gloom-and-doomers.

Let stocks and shares decline, Let unit trusts repine, He'll still be first in line To be a broker.

(Gerard Benson)