Adrian, I loved Larkin on punk!

John, I couldn't resist.


John Whitworth: Unlikely Champion

“You take that back, you cad!”, I cursed.
"You’re being rude about free verse.
You joke, you knock; I’ll stand for neither.
Don’t ever disrespect vers libre."



Philip Larkin: This be the reverse

They love you loads, your mum and dad.
.....They may not say so, but they do.
And when you’re happy, they are glad.
.....They only want what’s best for you.

So have a kid, they’re so much fun.
.....They’ll fill your life and stretch your heart.
Have two or three, don’t stop at one!
.....But hurry up and make a start.

Go find a husband or a wife,
.....for death steals nearer every day.
And hand on life to other life,
.....or you’ll have pissed your own away.

Noel Coward on Council Flats

The Council Flats of England were built with the intent
of giving lower classes somewhere cheap to rent.
Though without a Moat and Banquet Hall
God only knows how they live at all
in such a tiny space.
But it keeps them in their place.

But soon the wicked Tax Man will force the rich to sell
all our family silver and our Stately Homes as well.
And after that we'll all reside
in whatever the Council can provide.
So, though their stairwells smell of fart
and are covered in highly offensive Art,
we'll stand by the Council Flats of England.

Martin - I've just sung that at the top of my voice. Oh, Hurrah!

Oh, Ann. I wish I had been there to hear the hills alive with the sound of your music.

Mam and Dad wouldn’t have approved of social networking. In their day, unless you owned a telephone, as no-one along our street did, only a visit in person or a formal letter could ascertain what someone had had for their tea. Balancing the fleeting desire to know against the trouble it took to find out, they seldom bothered. It’s different now; I can tell you what Nicholas Hytner had for his tea, often while he’s still having it. Not that it stops at tea, of course; the hundreds of ‘likes’ I receive when reporting a satisfactory stool testify to that. No, what social networking principally offers is the opportunity for full disclosure. Having written about being shy, gay, a victim of mugging and diagnosed with cancer, it seems only right that Facebook friends and twitter followers be privy to my entire life as it happens. Or, increasingly, doesn’t.

- Alan Bennett

Rob Stuart: I think pastiches #4 and #8 above are simply brilliant!

Why thank you, Graham.

Yes, and #15. Adrian's got Bennett to a T - or maybe a tea.

Thank you, Sylvia. I'm not hopeful of winning with it, though. I've tried to win with a Bennett spoof many times and failed.

G.K. Chesterton Celebrates Gay Marriage

Hark! A hundred church bells ringing
Celebrate with cheerful noise.
Chapel choirs are sweetly singing.
Boys are wedding boys.
.
Now is not the time to tarry.
See them up and down the land,
Girls with girls they want to marry,
Walking hand in hand.

They are good and kind and gentle.
Who are we if we abuse them?
Marriages are sacramental.
How can we refuse them?

Love unwedded, spawned by Satan,
Does at last grow stale and shoddy.
Marriage is the blessed state and
Meant for everybody.