Specially for Noel

Jaspistos

In Competition No. 2322, drawing inspiration from Coward's 'Nina from Argentina', you were invited to supply a lyric about another eccentric and exotic lady.

Jeremy Lawrence, one of the closest runners-up, writes from South Africa to tell me that 'Nina', the girl who 'swore she'd never dance a step until she died', was written by Coward in 1944 on a train from Bloemfontein to Pretoria, where he first sang it to an audience of, one hopes, appreciative Afrikaners. I was offered two Marys from Castle Cary and even a Myfanwy from Deganwy, but, however eccentric they were, they didn't quite qualify as exotic. A delightful comp. Thank you, all. The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each, and the Cobra Premium beer goes to Paul Griffin.

Just look at Betty from Serengeti: She has a most tremendous appetite.

Just watch her eat a Full-grown cheetah And wake up feeling hungry in the night.

It's true that Betty can't stand spaghetti: She'd rather have the meat course straight away.

When you have seen her With a hyena, You'll know the meaning of the word 'gourmet'.

But lovely Betty is never petty; Her eating never plays with ifs and buts. So watch her tackle An adult jackal, And love her for her gusto, and her guts. Paul Griffin Lola from Angola — She's a waitress at the Club Savonarola, Where the table girls all dance Sporting spats and pin-striped pants, With nothing much above except a bowler.

She wears a bowler — a lilac bowler When she serves you with your gin or rum and cola.

It's the pucker of her lips And the shaking of her hips That get you going — what a jelly-roller!

Oh, to extol her, my lovely Lola, Would require the talents of an Emile Zola. When she shimmies to your table.

Friend, just look. You won't be able With your sweet talk to impress her or cajole her.

She's mine, old pal, my undulating Lola. Gerard Benson It was tattooed rather crudely on her chest. 'This is Marx,' she said, 'and Lenin' When she let her many men in

And a chorus of The Red Flag did the rest.

When they ordered open borders, sweet Svetlana from Tirana Cheered the jammy dodger Hoxha's last hurrahs, Then she joined the happy gala At the local needle parlour, And her symbols changed to stripes and stars.

Now Svetlana from Tirana, with her fresh Americana, Runs a democratic cat-house, even-handed.

She will feel a foreign collar If you pay her by the dollar, And for that you're bound to see a different standard.

Bill Green well Lola from Angola Has a chauffeur-driven Roller,

And a private jet to take her round the

world.

Though her smile is simply solar In her ads for clothes and cola, You should see her when the other side's unfurled —

Goodness knows how many toes that girl has

curled!

Then she's positively polar, She can grind you like a molar, She's as fickle as the desert's shifting sand.

Yet from Dallas to Ndola

Beastly beauties such as Lola

Are just the type to make a man unmanned — She can turn a man to putty in her hand!

Sarah Duncan-Jones Mademoiselle Adele, from La Rochelle, Seemed the epitome of worldly Gallic chic; But three-star haute cuisine was not her culinary scene; She could scarcely tell a truffle from a leek.

Adele, plus belle, for whom quenelles Would earn a quite contemptuous rebuff, Always yearned for something coarse, like baked beans in HP sauce, And a bit of low-down gastronomic rough.

Adele was swell, born to rebel, The Establishment's bete noire, ca vs sans dire, For she spurned ancestral voices, made her own declasse choices, Favouring Burger King and lukewarm English beer.

Divine Adele, she gave them hell; Then, when she judged the time was opportune. With a terse je ne regrette', near the Galeries Lafayette, She launched her own downmarket Greasy Spoon.

Watson Weeks

No. 2325: Questing love A Personal Column advertisement seeking a partner can take up as many as 100 words, 1 note. You are given a maximum of 120 to provide one with the sort of self-description and requirements of the partner that are unlikely to elicit replies. Entries to 'Competition No. 2325' by 22 January.