No. 1264: The winners

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for a poem giving a critical view of a na- tional daily, weekly or monthly newspaper.

The American humorist Gelett Burgess did it long ago in an excruciatingly punned verse on the New York Sun: The Sun is low, to say the least,

Although it is well red; But since it rises in the yeast It should be better bred.

Plenty of you had a go at its London namesake, including 12-year-old Anthony Stobart CI ask myself if this is news? I think I'd rather have a snooze'), and of course our very own rag was a popular love-hate target. More in sorrow than anger Carole Angier concluded:

You're growing so unkind that you're leaving me behind, Till now there's only one page I can see That upholds the old tradition, and that's the Competition - With Paul Griffin, Joyce Johnson, Roger Woddis, Mary Holtby, Nell Wregible, Adam Khan, old Basil Ransome-Davies and me.

None of the aforementioned stars gets a prize this week, though Mary Holtby, along with T. Griffiths, gets a commendation. The winners below receive £8 each, and the bonus bottle of Pedro Domecq's Carlos III Selected Brandy is T.W. Hugo's.

Mirror, Mirror, in the hall,

You are the fairest of them all.

No Mail or Telegraph or Sun

Can take your place as Number One.

Who wants to read of Tory twits Or see tanned girls with sunburnt tits?

Your Plain Man's view, humane and sage, In forty words or so a page Informs us what life's all about: Just Footy in and Maggie out.

Quite what to think and where to go, We scanners of your pages know.

We base our style on Andy Capp And put our faith in Newsboy's Nap.

Yes, you're the tops for racing tips And wrapping up our fish and chips.

(T.W. Hugo)

We're middle-income, middle-brow And middle-class (we live in Slough). We don't read twaddle, so we shun The Daily Mirror and the Sun. The trendy Guardian makes us quail — We'd rather read the Daily Mail.

The Daily Herald is no more, The Times is now a frightful bore, The Telegraph is too sedate, The dire Express we love to hate, The Morning Star's beyond the pale — Give us this day our Daily Mail!

(Ronald Rubin)

I read this morning morning's minion: Daily-dafter, boys-supporting Sun; Short-on-fact, long-on-dim-opinion Tabloid, devoid of wit or tact, `fun- Packed'. On page one pretty Princess Di Tours the burnt bush; a bright blush Flushes her fair face, she averts her eye As fat, forward-rushing newsmen gush.

I open up page three: Ahl golly! a dolly- Bird — 'Babs' — breast bared, brass-bold, Flaunts firm flesh. I rue the folly Of readers, three million (all three years old?). News-hungry, I leaf on through frock-schlock And diet-dross, horoscopes, bingo and jingo, Until I curse that man-Moloch, Murdoch, And wish him bitten by a rabid dingo.

(Peter Norman) Udders, cudders, Bowsers, dowsers, Wellies, bellies, Mattocks, fat ox, Tillage, spillage, Drenching, trenching, Slating, mating, Acres, rakers, Factors, tractors, Crosses, hosses, Douches, ouches!

AI May I, Versely, tersely, Present, bleakly, Farmers' Weekly! (Pascoe Polglaze) I do not mean to bite those hands that feed; Merely to sort out roundabouts from swings. Although there's much I like in what I read, Spectators often make me ask three things: What's high about a life made up of play? Is `bickering' a choicer word than 'Waughing, ? And Ingrams — is he, as he seems to say, Really a man more bored against than boring?

(N. J . Warburton) 'Immaculate old Vauxhall, fifty quid,

Or would exchange for Flymo with spare parts'; `Professor of Occult Mystery and Arts Seeks out those truths from other people hid'; `Who has a home for twenty tons of squid?' Through umpteen years of old Exchange and

Marts

('A cure for baldness, pigeon toes and farts') Are listed goods of which we would be rid. In smudgy type that you can hardly see, Ten thousand adverts offer up their wares, Vocabulary (like Bradshaw) somewhat terse, Where v.g.c. is next to n.b.g.

But there is much to win for him who dares— Who wants to buy some slightly foxed used verse? (J. C. Causer)