[John Whitworth]

Bill and Frank were bright stars in what I thought (pace Lucy) was a very jolly entry apart from Elizabeth Teather's plangent little poem. Has anybody thought of a comedy set in a Care Home. Carry on Incontinent or some such?

The new competition will bring Spherians out to good effect I am sure.

No. 2695: PARTING SHOT
You are invited to submit the last will and testament of a fictional character (150 words maximum). Please email entries, where possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 4 May (the later-than-usual closing date is because of a double issue over Easter).

[FOsen]

I, Tristram Shandy, am apparently dead. What is more, having spent a goodly portion of my late autobiography not having been born, I hereby resolve to come to the point directly in this, my "Last Will and Testament and Assorted Musings on Various Interesting, Instructive and Important Subjects."

Therefore, I shall abjure all manner of chaffering and haggling digressions and will with directness and alacrity allude to, and thus foreshadow my main point—which is to be the dispensation of my worldly goods and effects—this duty I feel especially bound to fulfill, now that the point has, in a manner of speaking, come to me, rendering me, in effect, my own aposiopesis.

I shall not begin this account by writing the first section and trusting to God for the second—although I shall begin, indeed, have already begun— have already, come to think of it, come to an end.

Frank

[George Simmers]

Good one, Frank. I've been racking my brains for an approach to this one, but so far I've got nothing.

[Gail White]

My favorite will was the one left by some medieval Frenchman (I believe): "I have nothing, I owe much. I leave the rest to the poor."

[Roger Slater]

AHAB

Being of sound mind (don't laugh),
my finest ivory leg
I leave as a memento to
the cannibal, Queequeg,

with warning that this 'legacy'
that I to him bequeath
is one in which he should not bite
if he would keep his teeth.

To Ishmael go the story rights.
To Flask, my ambergris.
To Starbuck go my coffee beans.
To Moby Dick, my piss.

[John Whitworth]

Nice one, Roger.

Testament

I leave my castle to my bride
With all the furnishings inside,
My highest turret’s faery casement,
My earth-filled coffin in the basement,
My honest butler, spectre thin,
My canisters of warfarin,
My peasantry with bullock carts,
My library of magic arts,
My forty-three attendant dwarfs,
My grunting, grovelling endomorphs,
My blinded, singing ortolans,
My jackals and orang-utans,
My giant seven footed cats,
My longest cloaks and tallest hats,
My beetling crag and blasted heath,
And lastly, several sets of teeth.

Point of info which some Spherean is bound to now. Are ortolans SINGING birds?

[George Simmers]

You can see and hear ortolans singing here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVUQyA915LM

[John Whitworth]

Thank you, George. I knew somebody would know and I ought to have known that somebody would be you.

[George Simmers]

I, being an ancient mariner
Of slightly unsound mind
Do leave this deposition
Of the things I leave behind.

I leave my body to the sea,
For it needs no mausoleum,
And I leave my dear stuffed albatross
To Porlock Museum.

To the wedding guest: apologies
For giving him heebie-jeebies
That day when I somewhat overdid
The ‛alone on a wide wide sea’ biz.

It was the laudanum put my brain
A little out of balance.
I leave my supply to young Coleridge,
Who downs the stuff in gallons.

[Susan McLean]

George,
How about "I leave my stash to Samuel T."? The rhythm feels a bit rocky, and being more indirect could be funnier.

Susan