The Oldie ''Wheelie Bins'' comp results
Apologies for the lateness of this thread but I didn’t receive my copy of the magazine through the post… and, of course, it took a while before I realised I hadn’t!
Huge congratulations to Bazza and Rob for well-deserved wins.
I went to The Oldie lunch yesterday and some free copies were lying around so I grabbed a couple. By the way, please let me know if you win a prize and would like a magazine but aren’t a subscriber; I don’t think they include one with your prize – (it’s been so long since I won I can’t remember!)
John has already posted the new thread: See The Oldie Counties Competition 190 by 29 May
Jayne
The Oldie Competition
by Tessa Castro
In Competition no 188 you were invited to write a poem on wheelie bins. These strange creatures have clearly been attracting close observation, judging by your entries.
Gillian Southgate explored their natural history: ‘The rat patrols with trailing tail; the slug, the earwig and the snail/Climb up and under, every night.’ Sid Field was impressed by the ruggedness of these polypropylene containers: ‘Although you may hold tempting boxes / You keep them safe from urban foxes.’ Liz Summerson was grateful for the bins’ discretion: ‘They alone know all the sins that we taste,/ The Mars bars we munch and the fruit that we waste.’
Commiserations to these and congratulations to those printed below, each of whom wins £30, with the bonus prize of a Chambers Biographical Dictionary going to Basil Ransome-Davies.
We have two wheelies out the back
And one is green and one is black.
In summertime they stink like cack
Between collections.
Cats hold their noses going by.
These plastic wheeled sarcophagi,
Though high and rank, do not rank high
In their affections.
They might be aliens that died,
Now decomposing deep inside
Like dead crustacean at low tide,
Along our ginnel.
There’s time, thanks to the fortnight’s lag,
To turn the air foul. What a drag.
If anything’ll make you gag
A smelly bin’ll.
Basil Ransome-Davies
Now glory be to God for wheely things,
For Vortex, gyring galaxies that swirl,
For spinning satellites and Saturn’s rings,
Celestial orbs in orbit and awhirl.
Thank heaven for Nature’s circularity,
For round, not square, eyes, daisies, girasols,
Chrysanthemums and the rotundity
Of roses, spirochetes and cotton bolls.
Man’s life, like Nature, runs its course on wheels,
In trains and every vehicle that rolls,
In lathes and potter’s wheels and eightsome reels,
In helicopters, clocks and porridge bowls.
Now Man, inventor of the rolling pin,
Has, bolder yet, conceived the wheelie bin.
Nigel Phillips
There’s nothing more generic than a local council wheelie bin,
But wrap it up in tufted cloth and then it’s a chenille-ie bin.
Employ it playing hide-and-seek to make it a concealie bin,
Or paint it yellow, blue and red to get a more De Stijl-ie bin.
And bucketfuls of custard and, hey presto, a congealie bin,
Suspend a bell inside it and you’ll have a campanilie bin.
If ugly, you could wear it as an added sex-appealie bin,
Or take it down to Billingsgate for usage as an eelie bin.
Enormous glued-on eyebrows could produce a Dennis Healie bin,
Stick Batman in (and Robin too), and there’s a Batmobile-ie bin.
A candle on the lid and it’s a place-to-have-a-mealie bin,
Or put it in a tiny cage to render it a vealie bin.
Hang bees and eyes and clocks off it, you’ve fashioned a surrealie bin,
Or burn it down in mid-July, et voila, a Bastille-ie bin.
Attempt to guess the contents, it’s a ‘Dealie or No Dealie’ bin,
Or slam your scrotum in it for a make-a-high-pitched-squealie bin.
Rob Stuart
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