COMPETITION

Duet

Jaspistos

SCOTCH YEAR OLD SCOTCH WHISKY In Competition No. 1644 you were in- vited to supply a duet from a musical to be sung by a famous literary couple.

Sadly, no one took up Auberon Waugh's suggestion, ripe in potential, of `Bertie and Frieda', but there was no lack of amusing vocal pairs — W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, themselves joint opera scriptwri- ters, Malcolm and Margerie Lowry, Dante and Beatrice, John Middleton Murry and Katherine Mansfield, Sam and Sal Col- eridge, Beaumont and Fletcher, and M. R. Woodhead's Socrates and Xanthippe: Soc: When I hear thunder, I sense rain ahead Xan: And I empty the chamber-pot over his head.

And in Sam Bhutto's scene Dickens warbled well: I'd a bleak house to dwell in until I met Ellen (Yes, Ternan's a turn-on for me!).

Just a ghost like old Marley, but now proper Charlie — As proper as Charlie can be!

The prizewinners, printed below, take £12 apiece, and the bonus bottle of Chivas Regal 12-year-old de luxe blended whisky goes to Robert Roberts.

Together: Worshipping Nature and getting a thrill From rain-splashed lake or precipitous ghyll, Walking the fells and catching a chill — That's the life for Dotty and Bill.

Brother and sister, doves in a cot, Communing with tramp and forget-me-not, All in a cottagy garden plot — Home at Grasmere for Billy and Dot.

Please don't imagine we're both going potty, Soaked to the skin with the weather so grotty: We climbed High Knott, but it's never so knotty As most of the scribblings of Billy and Dotty.

You may think our poems and journals plain silly, catVAR REG

12 YEAR OLD SCOTCH WHISKY

But as long as Helvellyn is ever so hilly And Ullswater ever so — yes, daffodilly, We'll always be known here as Dotty and Billy. (Robert Roberts)

Vita: This love they label Sapphic —

It's celestial, it's seraphic, Erratic and ecstatic and Elysian!

Though Vi's a sly neurotic, She's excitingly erotic — In her arms I capture raptures Dionysian!

Harold: Though incorrigible cruisers,

We buggers can be choosers

As we trawl for youths with features photogenic.

As I can't abide the yobby

(For I'm really fearfully snobby),

I never bed a boy who's unhygienic.

Both: Although 1 know we vex you all by being thus bisexual, There's just one thing we think you'd better know: We're not just sister/brother, but reserve for one another That little bit of each that's hetero.

(Martin Fagg)

Anne: Won't you come home, Will, won't you

come home?

Won't you come back to me?

In our little haven By the dear old Avon We'd be happy as happy can be.

Will: I'd love to come home, Anne, I'd love to

come home, I'd love to come back to you.

But up in London, honey, I can make a stack of money: So what's a poor hack to do?

Anne: Oh please tell me, Will, That you love me still,

That you mean all those things that you said.

Will: I do, love, I do,

And to prove that it's true I've left you the second best bed. (Robert Baird)

Jane: He's a fractious, froward creature,

This tawdry tartan Nietzsche — A prig, a prude, a crank, a lank barbarian. With his health he is obsessed, he Is obdurate and testy — An egocentric valetudinarian.

Tom: The woman's unco bitter — There are times when I could hit her,

But such exertion's banned by my physician.

Jane: As a Hero he's a zero, And as lover — well, it's over

Before he's cranked his weapon in position.

Both: Why do we persevere, when it must be all too clear

That our every hour's one long exasperation? It may sound rather frightful, but there's nothing more delightful Than a bout of shouted mutual detestation!

(Andrew McEvoy)

Both: We're well-known Romantics, whose radical antics

Have gained a good deal of attention.

We're ideally suited to a life that's not rooted In bourgeois, outdated convention!

Percy: Though I may be erratic, my Muse is ecstatic,

And my title to fame is well-merited.

My views are anarchical and anti-hierarchical — Which explains why I've been disinherited.

Mary: I'm a fervent bluestocking, outrageously shocking: I'm Frankenstein's author, of course.

By the shores of Geneva I caught Gothic fever, And produced a bizarre tour de force.

Both: Scientific, poetic and peripatetic, We've both won our literary laurels. The life-style that we love is founded on free love, A menage a cinq with high morals!

(Geoffrey Riley)

Rob: Prithee, pretty maiden, prithee tell me true (Hey, but I'm Browning — remember Pippa

Passes?), Have you not a father, watching over you?

Hey, in a frenzy 0!

Have I got to flay him?

Or will you disobey him And head for Firenze 0?

Liz: Gentle sir, you move me; I think you're

rather sweet (Hey, have you read my Aeschylus transla- tions?).

Yes, you'd better take me from under Father's feet.

Hey, let's not tarry 0!

If we get a visa We can go to Pisa — Hey, we must marry 0! (Paul Griffin)