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COMPETITION

Rhyme gone awry

Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1905 you were invited to begin with one or two lines of a nursery rhyme and then go off the rails and reach an unexpected or very modern con- clusion. I set a competition very like this almost exactly ten years ago, which elicited the memorable lines: 'Oranges and lemons,/Say the bells of St Clements,/Are scavenged by tramps with delirium tremens.' It was a spirited and populous entry. Two of you turned Miss Muffet into an arachnophage, but A. E. Housman had got there first with:

Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet Opening her mouth very wide.

There came a great spider; she opened it wider, And the spider ran down her inside.

The prizewinners, printed below, take £7 each, and the bonus bottle of Isle of Jura Single Malt Scotch whisky goes to Geoffrey Whiteman.

The king was in his counting-house, counting out his money,

And finding it in ecus his mood was far from sunny.

The maid was in the garden, in pain beside the line: You cannot squeeze a 40B into a 99.

(Geoffrey Whiteman) Jack and Jill Went up the hill With a nice new pail he'd bought her.

`But mind how you go

With the H20,'

Said the man from Yorkshire Water.

(Stanley J. Sharpless) Boys and girls, come out to play, Directorships will come your way And you'll enjoy the Midas touch When, privatised, you're paid too much, With bonuses that you can get Without a target being set,

Be given shares — and I should mention

A really copper-bottomed pension. (D. Shepherd) Little Bo-Peep Has lost her sheep, They've been shipped abroad to Bordeaux.

Without food and water, As lambs to the slaughter, They're turned into gigot d'agneau.

(V.M. Cornford) There was an old woman who lived in a shoe Something they told her she shouldn't do. She'd kept the place in top condition, But hadn't, they said, got planning permission. The poor dear lived in the depths of despair Under the stars in Trafalgar Square, Until another lot came to award her Shoe a preservation order. (LC. Snell) This is the house that Jack built, This is the maiden, worldly-wise, Who bought the house on the bank's advice, This is the place in the lawn where it sank, This is the man she sued at the bank. She won the case, as Jack hoped she might, So he married the maid and built flats on the site. (S. Sym) Doctor Foster Went to Gloucester By the morning train.

He met Fred West And was so distressed He never went there again.

(John Sweetman) Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. He wasn't afraid To seek legal aid.

The Council stood no chance at all.

(Jocelyn M. Grimmer) `Mary, Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow?'

`My garden's scrumptious, but you are presumptuous; And my name is actually Flo.' (Paul Griffin) Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are: Will you, when you reach your teens, Be one of life's best-known has-beens?

(W.J. Webster) The grand old Duke of York He had ten thousand man, So when he came out it was no surprise, Just the same old tale again.

But he gave a new twist to the news And a chance for the press to gawp When he showed every one of his ten thousand men Photographed by Mapplethorpe. (D.A. Prince) Half a pound of tuppenny rice, Half a pound of treacle; Change the packaging and the price: Both are illegal! (Martin Woodhead) Two blind mice, See how they run!

They each ran out of the lab with an oath, For a small gamma ray had been aimed at them both.

Did ever you see such a neat little growth On two blind mice? (Eric Dehn) Mary had a little lamb, Its fleece was white as snow, And everywhere that Mary went That lamb refused to go. `What! Follow you to school today? D'you take me for a fool?

What would my mates at pasture say? Why, man, such shit's not cool.'

(Mary Holtby) Hey diddle, diddle, The Cat and the Fiddle Has now made the Good Food Guide: We specialise

In traditional pies

With kiwi fruit on the side. (S. Barrance)

No. 1908: Lilliputian

You are invited to offer a piece of verse (maximum 16 lines) with the rhyme- scheme aabb etc., in which no line contains more than two words. Entries to 'Competi- tion No. 1908' by 16 November.