COMPETITION

Bouts limes

Jaspistos

In Competition No. 1614 you were in- vited to write a poem using given rhyme- words in a given order.

The rhyme-words were from the con- cluding lines, bar two (which were, peri- lously, bum and come), of Nevill Coghill's version of Chaucer's The Miller's Tale. I had imagined I was pretty safe when I offered a tenner to anybody who spotted the source, but two people did — one diabolically clever and the other, by his own account, damnably lucky, since he'd been reading The Miller's Tale to his students only a few days before. Well done.

Although the rhyme-words were ordin- ary enough, they seemed to present greater

difficulties than usual in bouts rimes, which made judging easier. Stanley Shaw, 0. Smith, Mortimer Spreader, Sid Field, Frank McDonald and Michael Swan all did well, but the winners printed below, who get £12 each, needed no camera to estab- lish their places. The bonus bottle of Mercier Brut champagne, kindly presented by Champagne Mercier, goes to Peter Norman for his wicked little number.

Working for Andrew Neil and company Approached the very heights of lunacy. It simply wasn't done to have a poke

At Sky TV: 'I fail to see the joke,'

The balding Scotsman boomingly asserted. 'Look to the future — get yourself converted!'

Another time I had a dressing-down For wishing we could move back into town: 'What's wrong with Wapping, laddie?' On another, I said what everybody and his brother Was thinking — yes, I finally succumbed To mentioning Pamella. 'Now you've plumbed The depths!' cried Neil. 'You're fired! You d better try

To fix yourself a job at Private Eye.'

(Peter Norman) The cliché runs that two is company And three's a crowd. Well, four is lunacy.

I'm game to fly to Paris for a poke With one rich, randy hunk. But three's no joke. 'It's how the hip world swings,' this stud asserted.

I said 'OK', though only half-converted. We caught the plane. The second it touched down, He and his brothers took me on the town, And then they took me: one after another, Each had his turn, then passed me to a brother. I wonder to this day why I succumbed. There's something in my mind I've never plumbed, Some mad, perverse and wanton urge to try The lot, and spit in Mother's frowning eye.

(Beverley Strauss) Piggy he called me — not in company — Because, he quipped, it was sweet lunacy To marry me, his cute pig-in-a-poke After one week. For me it was no joke To fall for him, for once he had asserted That we were soul-mates, Mummy was con- verted And without pause he moved to pin me down To where and when, then hurried off to town To wrap up some small detail or another And get a ring and a best man — his brother. Missing his charm, I pretty soon succumbed To sense — though what despair my spirits plumbed!

I can't live life as Piggy, and won't try. If he'd said 'Sphinx', we might see eye to eye.

(Ginger Jelinek) In Harry Graham's verse there's company To fill the world of larger lunacy, Like poor charred Billy, him we cannot poke, And other victims turned into a joke.

In each some callous attitude's asserted — There's Father by a tram to jam converted, Or Auntie from the willow falliag down, Or Canon Gloy who missed his train to town. Each horrid tale's succeeded by another, Sometimes an uncle falls, sometimes a brother; Poor Aunt Eliza in the well succumbed ('Twas after that they had the system plumbed). These Ruthless Rhymes seem simple. When you

try You find what genius lurked in Harry's eye.

(Hazel Stanley) I'd hardly said, 'The interests of the Company When merry hell erupted! (Shouts of 'Lunacy!', 'The purchase of a porker in a poke', 'Is "futures in Albania" a joke?')

The Chairman, purple-featured, then asserted That leks and roubles couldn't be converted, Our reputation stood to plummet clOwti (He spoke along these lines, he went to town). The Managing Director, for another, His eyes a-pop, addressed me as '0 brother': You'd think he'd 'keep his cool, but he suc- cumbed —

My word, the depths of obloquy he plumbed! I could have answered him. I didn't try.

I fixed him with my clear and quelling eye!

(P. I. Fell) My Uncle Egbert, when in company, Shows whimsy to the point of lunacy.

He never can resist a little poke At anyone he knows won't see the joke.

Thus to a Mormon caller he asserted That, thank you no, he'd recently converted To Sufism. An alderman, met down In Birmingham, he'd ask, 'What is this town?'

One time he wolf-called feminists; another, Greeted a bishop as his black-sheep 'brother.

Now to one last temptation he's succumbed.

He can't quite rest content until he's plumbed The joker's holy grail: he's going to try

To be the first man sued by Private Eye.

(Noel Petty)