• SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 208

tE ' Report by Allan M. Laing

Competitors were invited for the usual prizes to let themselves go in a rhymed cure of any object or person they felt merited commination.

Whether it be to the credit of human nature or not, this opportunity for corn- minatory exercises proved very popular. Darts were hurled at more than seventy

different targets, from Mrs. Grundy to the Candid Friend, and from recent compe- titions to competition setters and too- frequent prize winners. Edward Blishen shevved his expected originality by cursing himself (not too devastatingly). For the rest there were curses on toastmasters, tobacco-taxers, avenue explorers, the com- bustion engine, weather forecasters, den- PSIS, girl-stealers, pimples, bathroom warb- lers, radio audiences, masculine women, sciolists, Downs spoliators, alarm clocks and--chartered accountants !

.My invitation to competitors to let them-

!elves go was not accepted quite as whole- heartedly as I expected, nor was the ingen- uttY or appropriateness.of suggested punish- ments all that it might have been (though, in the matter of letting himself go, H. A. C. Evans proved an outstanding exception, with no holds barred). Technically, most entries were good, but 1 was shocked and horrified that a certain veteran contestant should have invited niY approval of an entry

contained the alleged rhymes— cause' and 'yours'; and ' bore' and 'jaw.'

nefore naming the winners, there is room for a few couplets which caught my fancy: On a child :

A curse upon you, screaming in your cot ; A Plastic nappy freeze your little bot.

(r. F. WALKER) Radio Studio Audience : And A may You hear eternally, hereafter,

‘IPPlause resounding merged in fiendish

laughter. (M. HALLAM) Sneeze Broadcaster :

MaY his missus take shape as Picasso's worst freak And his offspring have torsos of Moore-ish

Physique (F. D. MERRALL) Success u/ Competitor : .7,sPeciallY, Lord, use your position To mortify one Edward Blishen.

(GRANVILLE GARLEY)

Joyce Johnson heaped her ingeniously Punned curses on a purblind competition seter, and I have an uneasy feeling that she

mamother about-to-be-disappointed con-

s will cast me for the role when I 1)(.1r1113 lora M. E. Foss and Kenneth S. itellin as winners of £2 each. 1 was also much taken with Coral Taylor's cosy con- versation with God ; and though eternal hell lo' strikes me as an excessive punishment 'wr her victim, I realise that millinery appreci- fitlii" is serious matter to women, and I :1l< sit: ought to have the remaining £1. lost: runners-up were unusually numer- ous and hard to turn down, and 1 have only Gan • to mention Rhoda Tuck Pook, Carley, G. J. Blundell, Mrs. D. S. leo-„u'l' Goy Hadley, Ian Dunlop (on an Leslie and Joyce Johnson, nard D:n8wall, M. Wheeler and R. Ken- Ddvis, and to apologise to the rest.

PRIZES May all the householders be out ; For whist drives which she organises May nobody donate the prizes ; Grant her administrative zeal May nullify her sex appeal ; That when she fawns on Lord Tom Noddy He'll merely call her Busybody ' ; Brand her officious, smug and bossy, And gratify, Yours, M. E. Fossey.

(KENNETH S. KITCHIN)

Lines written on a Toffee-paper hurled from the Gallery on those who arrive late for front scats

Down from the Gods I aim this withering blast

On you who booked up first, but come in last! Perish the hinge of your reserved front scat I May chocolate-vendors pulverise your feet! May the conductor's baton poke your eye! May pips and peel bombard you from on high! May, you be deafened by your neighbour's

clap!

May the trombonist drool into your lap! May you be bitten by a savage louse, And fainting, find no doctor in the house

Damn all the thoughtlessness that you're so rich in!

Remember us behind you—K. S. K tchin.

(CORAL TAYLOR)

Dear Lord, Look, I want to send A heap of trouble to my friend. Do you know, the little cat ' Felt she ought to ' tell me that People didn't like my hat. Lord, you'don't know what it cost!

May she be for ever lost, Damned in hell, eternally.

Lord, I'm sure you will agree The hat is pretty, and suits me.

So, Lord, take my side in the quarrel.

Signed, your most obedient