COMPETITION I n Competition No. 1425 you were asked for a

satirical description of a prominent figure in Britain, written in heroic couplets in the manner of the 18th century.

The archetype is surely Pope's attack on Lord Hervey in 'Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot': Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings, This painted child of dirt that stinks and stings;

Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys, Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys; So well-bred spaniels civilly delight In mumbling of the game they dare not bite . . .

Pope's unrelenting neatness and savag- ery are hard to sustain, but Gerry Hamill, Watson Weeks, D. E. Poole, Philip A. Nicholson and Katie Mallett all did excep- tionally well. So did Berni Wellgell with a merciless portrait of Sir Robin Day:

Looking inscrutable-,-yet sure to shift Should any person catch his general drift; Impertinent, dismissive, with an arm To wave away all vestiges of charm . . .

But the prizes (£8 per winner) escape into the hands of those printed below, and the bonus bottle of Comte de Robart Champagne (Rosé Brut), presented by the Ebury Wine Company, 139 Ebury St,

Unflattery

Jaspistos

London SW1, belongs to Basil Ransome-Davies.

Behold the Lad who from Hibernia's shores Has come to reap the long green, and applause; Whose features, plump and twinkling, always please And put the average viewer at his ease; Who, full of bonhomie and commonsense, Excels at hiding his intelligence. When 'guests' appear to puff their latest book, Watch Wogan signal with a sideways look That, though they be not worth a heap of dung, His withers (and his viewers') are unwrung. Thus fares the stereotype of Irish charm: All fangs are quietly drawn — and where's the harm?

When opportunity so rarely knocks, Why knock the opportunist on the box? (Basil Ransome-Davies) To Jeffrey's study let us then repair, But lo! of literature the shelves are bare. Our hero, in his Vicarage mighty grown, Brooks nothing bookish that is not his own. Ars longa is his creed, and so his tales Stretch long and lumpy, like the road to Wales. Like Kane, like Abel, by ambition spurred, The master-crafter of the processed word, Archer and still more arch in wit and style, Like Carroll's cat we know him by his smile; All fades, yet still the plastic grin remains: Into the lowest ditch the puddle drains. To serve the Tories is his published aim: Glory for self or party — it's the same. Up Fortune's wheel he climbs, whate'er his star is,

Poised, a brief moment, primus inter pares.

(D. A. Prince)

Behind yon privet, now in sad decay, A room there was oft lit by cathode ray; There in her dwelling spotless, pure and clean, Good Mary Whitehouse watched her little

screen.

A critic stern she was, severe to view; I knew her well, and each producer knew; Full oft she sat and watched with gaze intense; Where most saw humour, she could find offence; Artistic merit won but little heed;

Naught could excuse a sinful word or deed. Such was this lady's power to scold and scare, Her mere existence kept work off the air. On South Bank too directors owned her skill, For e'en though absent she could censor still.

At last she learned, as age succeeded youth, Not even she could ban the final truth.

(Keith Norman) Uplift ye! for Britannia's lyric muse

Has laid the laurel wreath on poet HUGHES.

Now shall we find that office has moved on Since the refulgent tme of good Sir John.

This poet has no wide-brimmed hat, no cane, But anorak zipped up against the rain.

Gaunt eyes, gaunt cheeks and hair of winter hay, What will he bring to strew the Royal way?

No graceful sonnet on the English rose Flows from his pen, but images of crows.

Soon all affairs of state he will immerse In sodden, grey, uncomfortable verse; A single stanza, Stygian and heavy, Will overcloud a rout or sink a levee.

What fate awaits a nation which has bred A Poet Laureate whose name is Ted?

(Noel Petty) (Sir Keith Joseph) Amid the venal, virtuous he stood, No man more anxious for his country's good; His aim, that Education's spacious field A prompt and profitable crop might yield. In this pursuit he ploughed through clay and rocks, And muzzled from the corn the hungry ox; He bade the lowly labourers aspire To annual assessment of their hire, And over flattened furrows stoop and glean Such meagre husks as fell from his machine The combine harvester, whose missing parts Confound the mad mechanic's amplest arts.

(Mary Holtby) (Sir Geoffrey Howe) As solemn as the Sphinx whose head from sand Broods in mysterious blindness on the land, See Tranquillus who has no need of sheep To pass before his eyes to bring on sleep, Nor slumb'rous fountains of soft silken sound Ere fans of Morpheus waft a dream profound. In awful majesty behold him wake.

Does Healey tremble and wild Skinner quake? Soft through the air crawls mild Jove's thunderbolt.

The fly upon the rafter feels no jolt, And ere the soporific murmurs cease Tranquillus has resumed his wonted peace. (George Moor) O thou, great Hailsham! held in so much awe, Lord Chancellor, upholder of the Law, Before that very Law by thee maintained Art thou — its master — now to be arraigned? Are we to see upon the penance stool

One once enthroned upon the Sack of Wool? How shall we greet thee then, thou great 'I am'? There are two ways of saying 'Hail-sham'.

(Joyce Johnson)