COMPETITION

Bucket and spade

Jaspistos

IN COMPETITION NO. 2049 you were invited to provide appropriate verses describing my holiday or giving my thoughts from abroad.

I have only twice set a competition about myself and the mere mention of Jaspistos in an entry is liable to bring a frown to my normally unclouded brow. It was therefore rather puckish of my learned friend Christopher Howse to set this one, with its provocative title suggesting that I was, after a 68-year gap, building sandcastles again in Bexhill, when, as you well know, I was in the Gulf of Corinth, reading The Adven- tures of Augie March, continually refusing glasses of that nauseous ouzo, eating like a hog, sleeping like a log and swimming like a grampus. My tip for a holiday is: go to a place where you don't understand the Ian- guage and you won't hear much English spoken — you don't get silence these days, but incomprehension of the human voice in nearby conversation and radio and tele- vision songs and babble, all at top volume, is the next best thing.

The comp was a success. Ungrumpily, I award £25 each to the winners printed below, and hand the bonus bottle of The Macallan The Malt Scotch whisky grateful- ly to Frank Dunnill, who has given me an idea for my next getaway hide-out.

I'm on an isle with an ignoble name where that romantic Byron never came or Sappho did the things that she did best. For me it has one compensation, though: persons who come here aren't supposed to know how life is lived in regions further west.

We don't do yoga here, and no one jogs or has a therapist, and everyone is perfectly content to read the Sun.

Nobody stays awake all night and tries to write some verse that might deserve a prize.

We drink till closing time, then sleep like logs, immune to culture, on the Isle of Dogs!

(Frank Dunnill) You'd think you might meet him carousing in 'Frisco, Or charming the girls in a Lebanese disco, Or testing the fractures in Jericho's walls, Or abseiling down the Niagara Falls, But his big shaggy beard and his visage so grim Have been spotted in Margate (I'm sure it was him!).

He is plastered with sun-cream but blistering fast, As he asks, 'How long must this holiday last?'

On the sand there are letters, all colours and sizes, From those who maintain that they should have won prizes: 'My beautiful poem you blindly neglected, The ones that you printed you should have rejected.'

He can't get away from us, try as he might, Unless he stays sleeping all day and all night. No, he shan't get away from us, try as he may, Unless he stays sleeping all night and all day.

(Denis Young) Sappho, Sappho, why does your country draw me? What inspires Jaspistos to meet Apollo?

Dreams perhaps of stumbling on Aphrodite? Happy Jaspistos!

Here beside the blue of the Gulf of Corinth Time means nothing, ships inch their way, majestic; Friendship, freedom, this the place to breathe in. Lucky Jaspistos!

Seven days, but food for the heart recalling Student years when Greece was another Eden; Drinking nectar, eating on heaven's beaches, Youthful Jaspistos!

Home next week to find the Spectator postbag, Home to judge the lost and the lame, the loonies; Back to Britain, back to the mobs of London.

Poor old Jaspistos! (Frank McDonald) I sit and muse in Reid's Hotel, My judge's role suspended; A lounging tourist for a spell, And plastered, as intended.

I planned to read a magazine.

I think I'll do that later, For now I'll give my specs a clean And signal to the waiter.

I'm told it's hot as hell outside, I've seen some guests perspiring. The guide advised a landau ride, But movement's very tiring.

The climate here must be the jinx. It seems the air is thinner. Another glass, then forty winks . . •

I wonder what's for dinner?

(Basil Ransome-Davies) Jaspistos fills his hamper With eclogue, epic, ode; His brightly painted camper Sounds iambic on the road.

Each night beneath his awning, He dines on sapphic feasts; The wheels go round each morning In lively anapaests.

A dactyl at 10.50, A rondel halt at noon His van is quick and nifty As he eats a macaroon.

By teatime, after ballads, Jaspistos has a spell Of crisp, trochaic salads With a toasted villanelle. (Bill Greenwell)