No. 523: The winners Trevor Grove reports: Competitors were in-
vited to compose an octet, using the given rhyme words, on one of the following subjects: a letter to the Postmaster-General, an Olympic affair, a communication from Apollo ... W. H. Auden, living in a happier time and writing to Lord Byron, chose to malign the postal service not for its wanton tardiness but for its modern, hideously efficient, methods of delivering to the inundated writer
. . . manuscripts—by every post.
Indeed, this would have been a novel form of complaint on this occasion, when the over- whelming majority of entries, sanctioned no doubt by The Times's recent spate of uncom- promisingly vicious letters, not only chose to accept our invitation to write to Mr Stone- house, but elected to do so in unanimously vituperative terms . . . Denis Constable's final stanza, for instance:
Oh, but Mr Stonehouse, you really ought to know The double standard dangers in the GPO. The 'fast train' goes no faster, despite your propagation : It's the so-much-slower stopping one that stirs our indignation.
But while most competitors shared this mood of saeva indignatio, few were up to prize- winning standards; however, three guineas to J. M. Crooks: Before man thought of marmalade or spread it on his toast. The noble English postman brought the noble English pot. A speedy post, a certain post, with nothing mean or crude. No circulars, advertisements, or ladies nearly nude, An honoured post, an honest post, that did not take our cash Then lose important messages amid a wealth of trash. There may be good news yet to hear, but now we surely know, To wait for it in Paradise, not through the GPO.
R. L. Sadler displayed more wit, and despite a rather clumsy finale, wins four guineas:
Your full-page adverts in The Times I scan with indignation, As slower postal service claims more cash. Dare I compute the cost to me of your new propagation Of greater productivity? What trash!
Post-mortem' and 'post-graduate' contain the prefix 'post,' Implying 'coming later,' as you know.
Why not mutate, to make more apt, the words
of GPO?
Upstanding! And the Post-co we'll toast.
A smaller number of competitors divided themselves between Mexico and outer space and, bar a few notable exceptions such as R. Roches- ter's passionate ode to 'Divine Discobola from Omsk' and J. Wardley's racy crudities, were on the whole not very successful. Honourable mentions also to Millicent Smith and 0. M. Martin, and a guinea to A. Bartlett for identi- fying Auden's poem.
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