COMPETITION

I love to hate

Jaspistos

In Coinpetition No. 1440, you were invited to supply verses airing a prejudice or celebrating a pet aversion.

Opera, spinach, half-rhymes, queues, Oneself, the television news, Frenchmen, Scots (but never Jews), Beginner's luck, 'Ye Olde Farme' pies, Balloons with slogans in the skies, Summer, an early-closing shop, Proles, the metric system, Pop, Polystyrene, politicians, Telephones, ill-phrased competitions, Lack of good manners in chess games, The easy use of Christian names, Dogs and cats (especially Persians), And, above all things, pet aversions. . .

There! I've made a poetic list of most of the aversions you confessed to, though what it shims about the average competi- tor I'd be hard put to deduce. I've often tried to imagine you all out there — why those sudden silences — death, boredom or sulks? and why those extraordinary changes of address — from The Manse in Northumberland to 157 Majuba Road, Hull? — but this competition was no help. I'm simply left with the general impress- ion that though I'm not an opera-mad, spinach-guzzling half-rhymester with a pas- sion for queuing, somehow or other you wouldn't approve of me. I hasten to ingratiate myself by praise and prizes. Best runners-up were Peter Norman, Peter Wingate and George Moor CA sensible and moderate man,/ I loathe the bloody Guardian'). The winners printed below get £9 each, except for the authors of the two short pieces, who will have to make do with a fiver. The bonus bottle of Pol Roger White Foil Champagne, presented by Colin Dix, Wolseys Wine Bar, 52 Wells St, London W1, is Berni Wellgell's.

I never trust a talking taxi-driver; I loathe his chummy chatter in the front; I grudge him every farthing (now a fiver); I despise his mirrored eyelids. To be blunt, I suspect him of a morbid fascination; I consider him a peeping Tom, but paid; I ascribe to him a quiet aggravation; I expect him to assault me. (I'm afraid.)

I dread the flicker of the sign FOR HIRE;

I curse the way he thanks me for his tip; I cringe to hear him hail me, 'Jump in, squire!'; I hate his little homilies, his lip; I abominate that cabbie who's endearing; I shudder when he gives a gearbox hell; I shrink to even think about his steering.

But then I hate the Underground as well.

(Berni Wellgell)

Phillips! thy fiendish, misbegotten screw Has utterly destroyed the world I knew. When honest single-groovers held the field To any sane screwdriver they would yield; A nail-file or a table knife might fit, Or, failing them, a silver thruppenny bit. But, now thy double groove has won the day, Through sixteen different tools I curse my way Till every lingering trace of groove is shredded And I am like thy damned device, cross-headed. Bescrew thee, Phillips! May thy shank be

sheared, Thy thread be severed, and thy pitch he queered! (Noel Petty) Preparing a young person for an evening at the ball Is far removed from the way it was when I was small.

For a start, it's not a ball with an orchestra in starched white shirts, But a Disco, meaning recorded 'pop' music played loud enough so that it hurts. The filmy gown is out. The proper gear Is blue jeans (patched) and a bottle-opener dangling from one ear, And a psychedelic T-shirt enshrining a motto of unabashed depravity, And a hairstyle resembling the brush used to clean out the lavity.

The footwear is not dainty and suitable for the potation of champagne; Rather something like an Army combat boot bought secondhand and left two weeks out in the rain.

The Disco is, I suppose, merely the Eighties' terpsichorean answer to the ball.. . I don't care for it at all.

(Guido Waldman) The thought of Aunt Camilla's wine Sends twenty shivers down my spine.

I live in dread of 'Try a glass Of birch-tree sap and marram grass!

Or something rather like a sherry, Laburnum root and loganberry?

No? This fine drop will wet your whistle - Rose-hip and rowan laced with thistle!'

1 beg a gift of godlike power

To call a curse on every flower, To blast all bushes, brakes and trees And save us from such brews as these.

Or should I rather sign the pledge

Than lap the lees of every hedge?

Then I remember Auntie's money And sip a hawthorn-bark and honey.

(D. E. Poole) I like to greet my fellow-men and shake them by the hand, And talk with them and walk with them, and try to understand Their point of view, but really! of all the bores by far The worst are those who tell you when you ask them how they are.

(David Heaton) I think that the intrusive 'r' Is my most hated bete noire, Even worse than diphthonged vowels — And God knows these can twist Scots bowels.

(J.A.S. MacDonald) The organ's wheezing, but — much worse - In parish churches near and far, The modern Church's dreaded curse, The jangling chords of a guitar!

Of A & M I'm fond, and psalms, But not the clergy who implore us With tapping feet and clapping palms To share the evangelical chorus.

With strangled chords they urge us on, With words banal, with rhythms dreary, As though guitar-led unison Should make the C of E more cheery.

I pray for broken fret or string, For woodworm, or a saint who's lyrical To strike with plague each strumming thing.

Grant us, 0 Lord, this blessed miracle.

(D. A. Prince)