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COMPETITION

Snappy number

Jaspistos

IN COMPETITION NO. 1950 you were invited to supply a 'Song of the Wicked Paparazzo' for a modern operetta.

I called for a song, which is not just a poem which could at a pinch be sung, and so the short list was shorter than usual. The followers of Gilbert won the day, which means long lines and space for only four winners. There are few rhymes for 'papa- razzo': nobody, not surprisingly, worked in 'matzo', a few went for 'fatso', but it was Eric Payne (see below) who brought off the best Browningesque solution. Stanley J. Sharpless summed it all up neatly:

if paparazzi Omitted to pry,

Sadly, Hello!

Would be saying 'Goodbye!'

The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each, and the bottle of Isle of Jura Single Malt whisky is A.C. Bowden's.

I'm a veritable devil, for I positively revel In making life a misery for those with fame and beauty; I get extremely pushy if I think their life's too cushy, And I puncture their pretensions with a sense of moral duty.

When a bishop danced the tango with the chairman of a quango, I snapped them in flagrante for a hefty tabloid fee, And a public school headmaster suffered personal disaster When I caught him at a newsstand drooling over H&E.

I feel no trace of loyalty to any branch of royalty; Each Windsor has his market price: Prince Edward's worth a shilling,

The Queen may fetch a grand or two, as will the Prince of Wales tout nu,

But tearful shots of You-Know-Who can really make a killing.

Inebriated coroners and sybaritic foreigners, Eccentric earls and weather girls — I'll stalk the whole damned bunch.

I'll use my apparatus on all folk of hollow status, To signal my profound contempt — and earn a decent lunch. (AC. Bowden)

I sidle through the shrubbery, the flora and the fauna, Or dangle for an angle in a sanctuary or sauna, I hang about in treetops, my finger on the shutter, And lie in wait for ministers who've fallen in my gutter.

I do not eat, I do not sleep, my regimen is spartan, But I can take a perfect peep beneath a royal tartan, I sneak up for a snap or three, by trade I am a predator, For I'm the man who earns the wage the owner pays the editor.

I chloroform the elderly and film them when they're snoozing, I follow rich teetotallers and shoot them when they're boozing,

I catch the lambkin ladies while they lie about like mutton,

And mine's the fickle trigger-finger waiting on the button.

A flock of swans were pestered by the Princess of Lesotho - I caught the sordid saga in a wicked little photo! They say I am a scavenger, a parasite, a jackal But they'd pay cash if I should flash an Oscar- winner's tackle. (Bill Greenwell)

I'm a dapper little snapper with a telephoto lens And the instincts of a top-notch truffle-hound.

I'm so loyal to the royals that wherever they may go You can bet your life yours truly will be found.

Yes, my Nikon is the icon of a patriotic Brit, With a heart that's fabric-dyed red, white and blue.

Are the punters avid hunters for a naked royal tit Or a fully-frontal prince? Well, wouldn't you?

In the circus of the lurkers I'm pre-eminent, a star.

I deserve some paparazzi of my own.

And my moral's never quarrel with the nobs, just point and shoot: They lap it up, however much they moan.

So it's barely playing fairly that some legal bod's been hired To injunct me by the order of the court.

It's a stricture on the pictures that the public want to see.

Don't they give my wife and kids a single thought? (Basil Ransome-Davies) I pander to the public's eye, I'm called a paparazzo; But, sad to say, Her Majesty regards us all as rats; so, A dishonourable member of the kingdom's fourth estate, I'm not allowed to tarry or take pictures near her gate. How I love my jolly Leica with its telescopic lens, And a target who is anything but homo sapiens. If a princess can be captured exercising in the

Um,

I can get a thousand nicker for a naughty glimpse of limb.

The MP who is not quite straight, the film star in her undies,

I serve them up as fodder for the intellectual Sundays.

Oh, I love to catch 'em at it, in flagrante delicto, And to hear them say 'Oh, drat it,' as they spit out Fergie's toe.

The darkroom sees my darkest deeds, my airbrush is my pride, For it can lift the longest skirt, or make a cleavage wide.

The centre of the earth will cool before I think of stopping: I'll never lack a bob or two, as long as there's a Wapping. (Eric Payne)

No. 1953: Off course

You are invited to incorporate the follow- ing 12 words (which are all golfing terms but may not be used in that context) in any order into an entertaining piece of prose (maximum 150 words): bisque, albatross, driver, shank, threesome, flag, handicap, stymied, wedge, bunker, pro, links. Entries to 'Competition No. 1953' by 3 October.