No: 1309: The winners Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for

a poem by a candid pet in fact or fiction to its master or mistress.

You rained cats and dogs on me, and many other beasts too. Often I was at a loss to know whether you were in possession of confidential information or just pulling my leg. Does Ken Livingstone keep newts? Did Ralph Richardson have a pet gerbil? Was Evelyn Waugh (a likely tale!) intimate with a cockroach? The only opportunity, real or fantastic, which I was surprised you missed was Lesbia's sparrow, which might have been wittily and heartily tired of hopping up and down and piping to the whim of that famous bitch. On the other hand, George Moor seized his chance to produce a good 'Remonstrance from Tulip', another famous bitch, owned and marvellously written about by the late J. R. Ackerley.

There could have well been eight winners this week. If there had been, the second quartet would have consisted of Paul Grif- fin, Mary Holtby, Monica G. Ribon and Stanley Shaw. As it is, the £10 apiece go to the four printed below. And Geoffrey Meadon claims the bonus Brewer's Dic- tionary of Phrase and Fable, which can tell him the name of two of Matthew Arnold's dachshunds, of Landseer's greyhound, 'jocularly called "The Invader of the Larder",' and of Richard II's dog 'which left him in favour of Bolingbroke'.

Hodge on Dr Johnson Bolt Court's cold on a windswept night; I lie at the fireside and watch you write, And you write hard, in the flickering flame, Hungry yet for an honoured name.

For what have you done, at the end of the day? A reference book; an appalling play; A few magazines, and a verse or two That won't make men remember you.

And your friends won't help — an abysmal lot, Actors, hacks, and a bumptious Scot, Drinking till sunrise and dodging duns, Making polyglottal puns.

Yet I muse, with half-closed eyes: If a man who oysters buys, Buys to give them to his cat, They'll remember you for that.

(Geoffrey Meadon)

(O, Bonfield) The Son of Macavity on T. S.Eio

.

Tom Eliot's a Mystery Man: in dress and manner plain

And wholly inconspicuous, the real Tom's arcane:

A cryptic, lirooding ambience — charged and atmospheric, Allusive and elusive, abstracted, esoteric. Tom Eliot's a Conundrum: a very curious bimbo,

Who doesn't seem to live on earth, but in some sort of limbo

That's full of floppy, soppy dolls who wander to and fro And rabbit on about some guy called Michelangelo.

Tom Eliot's an Enigma: and what the neighbours mutter Is nutter;

And talk of Bloomsbury — that Mrs g's a And yet without the torment of his poor, distracted Viv,

His life would lack the tensions that will make his poems live. Tom Eliot, Tom Eliot — there's no one like my Tom For vanishing so swiftly, with such sinister For often when I've fixed him with a potent feline stare,

I otnhleyrehlave to blink to find — Tom Eliot's not

(Martin Fagg) His Lobster on Gerard de Nerve! Look, Monsieur Nerval, I'm aware you're damned.

Like all those poetes maudits you're in hell. A But I'm a bloke who just likes to stay clammed Up in his own snug homestead of a shell. It's true I neither bark nor miaow; you're

right.

But I don't know no secrets of the deep. Us lobsters aren't profound; we're short of sight. What's more, you walk too-fast.1 only creep' Less shythan me, you're pleased to run the risk Of stares. I redden much as I might boil. My destiny, I thought, would be a bisque. I hardly reckoned on the Palais Royal. Next there's the matter of this pale blue sash, The ribbon that you choose to drag me by. Whether I blush or don't the colours clash. Couldn't you countenance a change of dye?

The Ravens on Elijah Throughout the time of famine, Elijah, you were fed By us, your well-trained ravens, With gifts of meat and bread.

The trouble was, the desert So swelled your appetite, We had to scour the country All day and half the night.

And then you'd say, 'Not kosher' To many things we brought Nice bacon rinds or dead men's eyes Not 'Thank you for the thought.'

Our friendship was one-sided; In short, it was a bore.

Henceforth we'll shun all bards and seers, And just cry 'Nevermore!'

(Charles Mosley)