No. 1204: The winners

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for a narrative poem in the form of three limericks.

Said Tebbit, 'I don't understand 'em.

If they really want jobs they can land 'em.

If a work-seeking type Has no luck on a bike He could double his chance on a tandem.'

A marvellous start by Gerry Hamill, but his three stanzas couldn't truly be called 'narrative', so he joins this week's crowded hard-luck compartment. So does Ralph Sadler, despite his coup of ending a limerick with the single word 'Disestablish- mentarianistic'. So does Basil Ransome- Davies, whose unlucky young fellow from Kent fell victim to my editorial blue pencil as well as a female surgeon's knife.

Eight pounds apiece to the winners printed below:

A plain little orphan, Jane Eyre, Was loveless and full of despair Till she landed a job With a paedophile nob, Who longed this poor girl to ensnare.

The wedding proved rather dramatic: A stranger, in manner emphatic,

From his pew rose and said,

'They cannot be wed;

He keeps a mad wife in his attic.'

To save her good name then Jane fled him, Refusing to daily, or bed him.

When they met, by and by, He'd lost wife, hand and eye, But the rest was intact, so she wed him.

(0. Banfield) They were men with a glorious goal, To be first in the race to the Pole — They could not have thought The prize that they sought Would exact such a terrible toll.

With the temperature 40 below They struggled for weeks through the snow, But Scott had not reckoned That he would come second: The Norwegian had stolen the show.

As they trudged slowly back, every stride

Was a story of dangers defied,

Till at last, having spent Five days in their tent Snowed up by a blizzard, they died.

(Peter Hadley) A dishonest boatman called Koch

From a barge stole two bottles of hock;

But the owner cried, 'Mine Are those bottles of wine!'

And knocked him right into the lock.

Mr Valentine Sparrow (or 'Val') In the pub playing darts with a pal So powerfully threw A dart that it flew Through the window and in the canal.

Cried Koch in the water, 'This pain That I feel in my jugular vein Persuades me that Sparrow With his little arrow

Is killing Koch robbing again!'

( Paul Griffin) Odysseus, out scouting for milk With his crew of lotophagous ilk, Found a troglodyte giant

Was far from compliant

And kept an eye on them. To bilk This Cyclops, who pigged them in twos, He slipped Mickey Finns in some booze. 'Nobody,' Odysseus Said, hacking through tissues Of eye, 'is my name.' From his snooze Half-awake, screamed the Cyclops, 'I'm blinded By Nobody!' Nobody minded.

'Neath the fleece of his flock

They escaped, and the rock That he tossed at their boat fell behind it.

(Ellen Brigwell) An actor named Gilbert Defoe Was a hit in a big TV show, So he said to his wife, 'I will start a new life.

You stay with the triplets — I go!'

His walk-out was noised in the press, And his fans adulated him less.

His agent said, 'Gil, The bookings are nil - Your career is one helluva mess.'

He went down the drain, bit by bit - I put this construction on it: That God, justice-wise, is Not handing out prizes

To an actor who acts like a sh---.

(Stanley Shaw)

There once was a fakir of Delhi With little to put in his belly, Till his life sprang to fame When a journalist came And his hardships appeared on the telly.

When the news of his whereabouts spread His celebrity went to his head, He put on fine raiment

As spiritual claimant

And wonders performed, it was said.

He now runs a flourishing school And sits in the shade by a pool. His old eyes will glow

At the sight of your dough,