Well thank you one and all. I am touched. A birthday thought to all of us from an old friend of mine who used to win occasional Speccie comps (prose ones). I don't know whether they get The Spectator in Heaven. he liked French food and drink which I am sure they DO get. Anyway, he aid, 'Who wants to be ninety?' (He was nearly that). The answer is, 'Everybody who is eighty-nine.' A GREAT TRUTH.

Yes, I know about the Canadian John Whitworth. He once got a cheque of mine. Of course he sportingly sent it back, little wotting the countless Canadian dollars... Now, wellwishers, don't forget there is a competition to do. I've done mine. I did it when I was still sixty-three, composing the bulk of it while swimming slowly up and down the beautiful, Swedish designed baths of Faversham. Yes, that's the place where the famous Elizabethan murder took place.

Aquatic John

Ideally, the parts in capital letters would be shouted out by a chorus of school children.

More Happy Birthday

Persnickety Doge of dotage and piety,
Enrico Dandolo, sacking sobriety,
blitzes Byzantium under the hope he'll
topple the populous Constantinople – AT NINETY!

Poetical Merwin, that octogenarian
Buddhist, irenical egalitarian,
chases Erato and always out wits her
by snagging his second, his second, Pulitzer – AT EIGHTY-TWO!

Clint Eastwood increases in cinema menace, since
Hollywood’s heroes grow darker in senescence;
Wraith of the Year and a notable spectre
as a man with no name now named Best Director – AT SEVENTY-FOUR!

Then there's John Whitworth. Well, what has he done?
No Laureateship, no Tanning prize won;
but, speaking equinely, I’d still place a bet
for he's just SIXTY-FOUR, so there's hope for him yet.

When You're Sixty-four

(mercifully shorter than the original)

When you get old and losing your hair—
though some say you’re not—
will you still be posting all the Speccie Comps,
leading us through many happy romps?
Will you keep bringing to D&A
a wit worth more and more?
will you still heed us,
will you still lead us,
when you’re sixty-four?

We’ll be older too
and if you say the word
we’ll slog on with you.

Send us a message, post us a post,
that you'll stay our Mod.
Tell us you'll still put up with our schlock,
Yours sincerely, your faithful flock,

praising our ditties, exchanging our pounds,
who could ask for more?
Will you still heed us,
will you still lead us,
when you’re sixty-four?

Well frankly sixty-four is nothing at all. My hero, the great and good J.L. Carr wrote two of his nine splendid novels when he was just under and just over eighty. My other hero, P.G. Wodehouse, died, pen in hand, at the age of ninety-three. The novels he wrote in his eighties and nineties are just as good, indeed they are indistinguishable from, the novels he wrote in his fifties or his thirties. The secret is to get into a groove, you see. I'm in one. A groove. Thanks one and all. The only one not welcome at the party is Death and I haven't spotted him - yet.

I write about him constantly. Buttering him up, don't you know.

Eminent John, you are worthy of wit,
and I am too busy for verse.
Here’s all of the praise I’ve had time to commit.
Take comfort—it could have been worse.

Best wishes,
Susan

You can't pretend that 64
is not significantly more
than nothing, John. You can't ignore
the candle-smoke, at least.

So let us celebrate your birth
and tell you what your wit's been worth
to connoisseurs of metered mirth.
We're glad you're not deceased.

John, our man at 64
might wake up then slightly bedsore
or strain more with a paramour,
but he’ll need less effort to score
the laughs as he deploys the goldened wit
worth more than prize from any Speccie skit.


Happy Birthday, John! :)

Why that's lovely Marion.

And the others too. Thank you one and all.

Why is 64 in particular a significant birthday?

Perhaps because it is the last birthday any of us is likely to have that has an integer cube root?

But surely another integer square root or two is within reach!

Anyway, if we want to get mathematical about it, I believe that when you turn 67 you will once again be in your prime.

Happy birthday!