No. 1341: The winners

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for blank verse 'about food or drink, none of the lines end-rhyming with another but each containing at least three mutually rhyming words.

Even is come; and from the dark Park, hark The signal of the setting sun — one gun! And six is sounding from the chime, prime time To go and see the Dury Lane Dane slain, Or hear Othello's jealous doubt spout out, Or Macbeth raving at that shade-made blade...

and so on for another 28 lines till the tortured clincher: 'That upward goes, shows Rose knows those bows' woes'. The master hand is Thomas Hood's, and the masterpiece — every inch a competition- winner — can be found in J. M. Cohen's A Choice of Comic and Curious Verse.

Even this week's money-grubbers only just managed to cling precariously to sense and/or scansion. By 'blank verse' I meant stuff like the Bard wrote, but since 'IV dictionary gives under 'blank' the simple meaning 'unrhymed', Mary Ann Moore has been, to coin a Goidwynism, excluded in. The winners below get £8 each, and Jason Strugnell, Mary Holtby and Basil Ransome-Davies are unlucky.

Since eating in canteens means soggy greens, Mint-sauce-soaked lamb, limp ham, or (horrors!) spam,

Bland custard and encrusted mustard pots, We braved the hubbub of the pub. The 'grub' Sold there, bothhot and cold, was old and tired: Whilst Dick and Jane had chicken (fingerlickin' Awful!) I munched a 'ploughman's lunch' and crunched A pack of 'porky scratchings'. Jack sent back His 'fisherman's pie'; a fly swam in Jane's dry White wine, another drowned in mine. We dine At work today; crude canteen food (eschewed Till now) seems — Wow! What chow! Chef!

Take a bow! (Peter Norman)

Our package hotel was pure hell. I could tell by the smell.

For the price, all the food should be good but I soon understood That the skate, far from being first-rate, nearly walked off the plate

(Which was not, I had seen, quite as clean as it ought to have been).

In my anger and grief I then turned to the beef, with relief And a prayer and a wish — but this dish was as bad as the fish - Warm, and slimy as paste, with a horrible taste. What a waste Of a meal! An appeal brought the Manager cringing to heel With a plea for his life. I was waving a knife. Then my wife Who, from habit, could gauge and presage the extent of my rage And my Fawlty-like spleen, swept us out with the mien of a queen, Making plain, with disdain, she would never again reign in Spain.

(Mary Ann Moore)

When I were young 'ung bacon or 'appen tongue,

Thick sliced wi' taters roast not 'diced', sufficed U5 in our teens along o' beans, greens; or if tha'd t'means, Ketchup followed wi' ome baked cake'd make Igh tea enough for thee. Come Sundays, we As like as not got summat 'ot from t'pot To much for dinner (nay, not lunch nor brunch) An' right good Yorkshire pud as ivver could Be tasted, nowt wasted, 't were that well basted. Then we'd jam tart or rolypoly. Coley?

nivver tried it Fridays, fried — it's nowt beside

T' bait we ate, skate wi' chips — two bob for eight.

(D. L. L. Clarke) On size of pies, one's wise not to advise, But must, I trust, be fussed just how the crust May crumble, humble though the cook. To tumble

The hick's tricks of the trade, one quickly clicks An addled tongue among the throng. Then's Our ur trap. The chap, some sap who turns on like a tap

The glib stuff, guff about his chef (who's duff), Is told 'Enough!' We fold our napkins, hold A hand up, stand, and grand as mandarins, Murmur with pride 'The Good Food Guide', and

glide

Past tills, head for the hills, the bills unpaid. We're frauds, of course. No cause to force remorse.

(Llewellin Berg)

Today I happened on an old clay-grey ,rtegnant mum's ration book, and took a look Both'y lost youth. With it I could buy meat and cheese. It was a treat to eat For two; I drew strength from him as he grew. As I got large he paid a charge in marge. Though I could beg an extra egg, one leg Swelled in the queue — phew! Still I got my due And we were fed. In time I spread the bread More thickly than before — we'd won the war. I10 lack now. When Eve put back a small snack, IN nt Popping out to do some whopping shopping!

(Jermyn Thynne) First comes a raging thirst; we're fit to burst Before across the floor the waiter, sore At our cold faces, races up and places, In his fey way, sloshed glasses on a tray, Filled to the brink with drink we wryly sink. Now we must dine on wine like turpentine And food that's old and cold. If I were bold I'd leave this dish of rotten fish. I wish Success in business could come dinnerless. To entertain is pain. Time and again • To please some Japanese I have to freeze And eat bad meat in this accursed seat.

(Paul Griffin)