No. 1222: The winners

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for a poem without the letter e.

Magnificent though your lipogrammatic efforts were, they must pale beside the novel Gadsby by Ernest Vincent Wright (1939), which also does not contain an e and which I do not propose to read. Your e is a whoreson letter, it will slip past the closest guard, and several of you let it through, none more unluckily than Jean Hayes whose two talented entries both har- boured an infiltrating and forbidden vowel. The standard of competitors was so high this week that I felt justified in being at my strictest: no antique elisions — `th'action' etc — and no recourse to lists. I express my admiration for you all by finding space for no less than six winners, who get £8 each, and I award the bottle of Cutty 12 Blended Scots Whisky to Basil Ransome-Davies, who will be over the moon, not sick as a parrot.

A World Cup languor sinks us in our chairs And Spain transforms our humdrum living- room As millions manfully dig in downstairs To watch our lads walk out to instant doom Rigid with hooch, spasmodically looking (Through pupils bloodshot, hollow, moribund) At Shilton, Robson, Francis, Mills and Brooking, On whom our wishful fancy pours a fund Of pity, warmth, nostalgia and good luck. No trophy is forthcoming, all must know, But Ron is not a man to pass a buck: 'What counts is putting on a sporting show.' So what's it all about? Our pundits say That common signs support a diagnosis Victors in lunar orbits chant 'Hurray!' And losing squads catch chronic psittacosis. (Basil Ransome-Davies) I sprawl in lazy fashion And absorb warm soothing rays,

My couch a bank of smooth-cut turf, My book Macaulay's Lays.

A misty glass is nigh at hand And, if my throat is dry, I gulp a draught of icy drink. `Ali! That was good!' I sigh.

I drop my book. It's much too hot On such a day as tills Simply to bask is bliss.

But by my watch it's four o'clock.

Just right for BBC!

I flick a switch. Soft bass; now horns — Brahms' No. 2 in D. (Andrew Hodgson) Look on this Roman arch half sunk in sand, Last outpost of Augustan writ and law, Facing a vast and unknown Asian land, This hollow symbol of a lion's paw.

No caravans pass by in clouds of dust, No guardians stand to arms, for in this post Sharp Roman swords long rotting into rust And skulls mark havoc by a Mongol host.

Now, in this sun-struck tomb, all things stand still.

Only an aircraft spills its vapour trail

On crystal sky and distant, hazy hill, Its wings in flight a swiftly moving sail: A dragon-fly ignoring Roman glory, Adding its comma to our human story.

(Desmond) As I was rising thirty A pundit said, 'Throw out Your loot, but lock your loving Within a strongbox stout: `Tis gold you should abandon That cannot last for long.' But I was rising thirty, And thought my pundit wrong.

As I was rising thirty This pundit said again, 'My lad, your gift of loving Will nothing prompt but pain.

Stand fast: your hour is coming As day must follow night.'

And I am now past thirty And oh, my pundit's right. (Tony Brode) O fifth, most common symbol typographic, Which lots and lots of words can't do without, Your aid's a must for all linguistic traffic, But, writing this, I'm told to count you out. It's tough — I find I'm short of ammunition, Lacking such shoals of ordinary words; Who wants to build a martial composition For brass bands, using only minor thirds? But on! My caution I must not diminish. No stumbling, now my half-way point is past: Up back straight, round top arc, and sprint to finish: A fair conclusion springs in sight at last!

This distich shall wind up my task laborious And good old A, I, 0, U stand victorious!

(Robert Kingston Davies) Tarnish clouds military braid, And patriotic rantings jar, As out again that timid maid, Truth, slips — first casualty of war - Bidding us ask for foolish word, As Kipling did, thy pardon, Lord!

Our war was just, and boldly fought, Victory at last was ours. But still, War's morrow sinks us in sad thought, Chill calculus of good and ill: May not cool critics by and by

Scan our account, and ask us why?

(Peter Peterson)