COMPETITION

No. 633: Broadcast

Most readers will see or hear the Queen delivering her annual mes- sage on Christmas Day. Many will have their own ideas of the sort of message they would like to hear —or deliver. Competitors are in- vited to submit their own messages —not too serious, please, nor yet too flippant—in not more than 150 words. Entries, marked 'Competi- tion No. 633,' by 17 December.

No. 630: The winners

Charles Seaton reports: The Post Office's 'Dial-a-poem' service has just reached London, and compet- itors were asked to celebrate by combining poetry with one or more of its other services—teletourist, recipes, cricket scores, weather forecasts. TIM and so on. The idea has its advantages certainly. How would you like your early morning call in this form (as devised by Rhoda Tuck Pook)?

This is your aubade, booked for five am.

It is a beauteous morning, calm and free, Though vesper clouds shall veil her radiancy Before a final weeping requiem ..

The information entries contain- ing 'two or more information in- gredients dominated, `but of -the singletons Joyce Johnson wins a guinea with her Dial-a-dish' :

Ingredients : a fireproof dish, • A pair of chops (more, if you wish), A coolish oven, and a tin Of mushroom soup. Now, to . begin, Into the dish put soup and chop, And then, a lid upon the top, Pop in the over at Mark 2; And that is all you have to do!

In lust tw,o hours it's at its best To serve before yourself and guest.

And C. L Bundela two guineas with his weather forecast: Would I might spare thee on this ' summer's day. 'Twill not be lovely, nor more temperate.

Force Nine winds shake the cowering buds of May, And long range forecasts seem .

quite desperate.

Too seldom hot the eye of . heaven shines; More often is his warmth all • clouded o'er: Tis so today. The mercury declines:. The glass is falling almost to the floor. The outlook for tomorrow's worse again: , Low pressure troughs are moving your way fast:. Cricket and racing both washed out by rain; Late frost and hail your flowers and fruit trees blast.

So our' infernal summer goes to worse from bad; Ah well; you'll never.rniss what you've not had.

The MCC were well in evidence.: I hope Colin Cowdrey's—and the team's—low scores are not pre- monitory. ' Indeed, the score in Miss B. M. Bartholomew's entry is too bad to be true but she wins three guineas in spite of it: Today's quick meal

is'

igeon pie; Just catch your pigeon, then stand by , .

For those who want theTest

match score,

England now stand at 5 for 4, Or 4 for 5, it's all the same game. Depends on where you play

th But rain set in at ten past three And players galloped in to tea. Yes, morning forecastes went

astray!

The sun we said would shine day Was soon eclipsed—well, God

knows best—.

By storm-clouds coming up om Brest.

That rain was creeping in we knew.

It came before we meant it to. To those with pigeons, don't

• let go—

With you again in half a mo W. F. N. Watson, who also wins three guineas, calls his verses 'ig- norance is usually Bliss' : At the third stroke it will be three-eleven And forty seconds. Cricket, latest score; The MCC are now one thirty-seven For one. Today's Dish- Homard Thermidor. For those whose taste in music runs to schmalz, Senors, Mesdames, le spielhaus Drury Lane Presents at seven-thirty The Great Waltz.

Roads are congested: go by tube or train.

At the third stroke it will be three-fifteen And twenty seconds. A3003* Is closed to traffic just north of East Sheen By Women's Libbers lynching • . MISS GB. Three-forty-one : it's later • than you think; The weather forecast's gale force winds and drought; All roads are jammed: the ,shows in London stink, And MCC are one four eight all out. • three-oh-Oh-three. And a final three guineas goes to Peter Peterson for his conversa- tion piece : 'At the first stroke it will be Precisely: time to tumble n-fifteen No. There's no time for that. I sleepy-head. of bed th

And get the kettle goinngut,

know- it's mean.

At the first stroke it will be

seven-fifteen • ten seconds. Go:ndventa-fikfteeeinn the You

bread; Switch on the toaster.

And twenty secondsl,se.ovebny-fifouteen ilL Your pestering command too me

falls

To be effective. Naggfreiggilent fa

voice, why keep Insisting at such regular

You're lust a bore.' intervals? Be eight pciselftraty."Gatroodk, el' it will re fell asleep? Commendations go to P.M., B. J. Kennedy and J. Burkitt.