Utopia at Your Door

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 234 Report by Allan 0. Waith SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 234 Report by Allan 0. Waith An American ballad, 'The Big Rock Candy Mountains,' gives a picture of life in a tramp's utopia: 'In the Big Rock Candy Mountains And the railroad bulls are blind; -- You never change your socks, There's a lake of stew and of whisky too— And the little streams of alcohol You can paddle all around them in a blg Come tricklin' down•the rocks. canoe There the brakemen have to tip their hats In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.'

The usual prize was offered for two verses of a similar ballad describing the utopia of any of the following: a poet, a politician, a policeman, a gourmand, a housewife, a civil servant.

Out of a large entry, this invitation seemed to appeal specially to poets and housewives but few achieved the imaginative level of the original. Many competitors, including some of those quoted, were foxed by the metre, and a few preferred a different verse-form, though this was not held against them.

Housewives' dreams of heaven included . . caviare and a cocktail bar, you ride all day in a streamlined car' (Granville Garley); and You need not shop or cook For there's perfect food, and plenty When you open the cookery book' (P.M.).

Civil Servants mainly wanted time and tea: 'Give the tap one turn and it flows from the urn While the papers in your pending tray steadily burn.' (John Vallins); 'There's no need to learn any Ins and Outs (Though you need one trait called " Pending") The letters just wait till it's all too late And there's oceans of time to procrastinate' (C.F.E.).

The sole gourmand, Muriel Stammers, takes the first prize of £3 for her delectable 'Baucrn Platte Mountains,' and the re- maining £2 is divided between H. G. Balfour Paul (in spite of his grotesque choice of costume for a game like chess) and P. Likeman, whose entries are given below. Honourable mention to R. Kennard Davis's 'Policeman's Utopia' and the Rev. H. G. Hillman's Non-Magnetic Mountains' which only missed a prize through some defective scansion.

PRIZES

(MURIEL STAMMERS)

In the Bauern Platte Mountains The waistline disappears; And the streams of Champagne Cocktail Arc music to one's cars.

There the Crepes de Volaille Gratinees Have their nests in every tree;

The rivers are filled with Chambery (Chilled)—

You don't have to worry if a bottle is spilled In the Baucrn Platte Mountains.

In the Bauern Platte Mountains

The Yung Chung Chow Sub Yuks

Are grown in mat plantations By a number of Chinese cooks.

The Aranci Bambolinas bloom With vanilla ice-cream flowers; The Coq au Vin crows and the Volauvent blows;

You don't need a compass—you just follow

your nose In the Bauern Platte Mountains. And every room has a nice log fire And a hundred-pound TV.

Each ministry's set in a seaside spa With a cocktail bar on the roof; The great game's chess in a bathing dress, And we get no interference from the big bad Press, In the Cloudland Civil Service.

(P. LIKEMAN)

On the Cheap, Non-steep Parnassus The Muses never mike, And the Epics flow like the melting snow As major as you like.

The critics there are as nice as pie

And the nasty ones drop dead. They sell verse jarred or by the yard And everyone's an Immortal Bard On the Cheap, Non-steep Parnassus.

On the Cheap, Non-steep Parnassus There's an everlasting Third:

Through our endless kip the drip, drip, drip

Of our peerless verse is heard.

There's a prize for every poet, And a laureate's crown for all; Every house is plagued, every purse is packed, And the Muse herself is not abstract, On the Cheap, Non-steep Parnassus.