My niece's boyfriend, an excellent man, brought round a bottle of vintage port. We hit the port and I wrote the verse. He was going to play football for Newcastle, but then he went to uni instead. More port. We discuss cricket in depth. He envies me because I saw the great Viv in the flesh scoring a pile of runs at Folkestone. More port.

Lance, I don't think Lucy cares about substitutions. I don't know if she knows the expression 'batshit' though.

Will Lucy take two entries or do I have to choose?

Crosby, Rosetti, to Poe (triple play)

Happy chimes mean happy times!
After Bleak Midwinter--bells,
pealing out recession Hells.
Profits sprout like lousy rhymes.
You will hear no winds make moan.
Now the coffers and the banks
effortlessly show you thanks,
while they scribble you a loan.
You'll hear coppers clinking loud
every time you check your stocks
and you'll shout: Obama rocks!
roistering with his cozy crowd.

Lance, Lucy will take two entries. What I do (and others too perhaps) is to put one of them in under a pseudonym, but of course make it clear who the chap REALLY is, so that when the time comes to collect your winnings, then the cheque is made out to the right guy and sent to the right address. Then you have the fun of choosing a new name for yourself. Fer-de-Lance. Lancelot Pratt. Everybody should have a ghostly poet, as it were. I have tow. What are they? Ah, that would be telling. I once won a crossword prize under the name of Emmeline de Courcy.

Bazza won £5000 under a pseudonym.

John,

Thanks for the supernatural counsel. I like Fer-de-Lance but I worry somebody might mistake me for some critter's skin. I'll ponder.

Pity you can't put Cameron in your penultimate line, Lance, but it doesn't scan.
On pseudonyms: Sir Lance-a-bit? OK, pehaps not :rolleyes:

So, is the idea to be acerbic? Is humour the thing?
What is the request? if there is one, implicit or not. (For those who haven't grasped it quite yet, like the I in yeti)



Yeti… that’s enough of that shit:
Elephants are going batshit,
Alligators, off their trolleys,
Raving at the New Year jollies.


mm. (as in nodding yes.) I think this is pretty much top drawer. Plus or minus the gloves.

I think humour is pretty well always the thing in these competitions. I think it ought to be the thing more often in any poetry than it is. SOME PEOPLE don't think that Larkin's 'They fuck you up, your mum and dad ' is a funny poem. But it is, you know. It is.

Sorry, Cally.
 

How times have changed! The past is dead!
Almighty Oz still lacks the urn!
Poor baggy greens, your faces red,
Prepare to listen, look and learn!

YouTube will ceaselessly replay
No-balls, like one which saved our Matt,
Enjoyed by Poms that palmy day
When Ponting had his little spat.

Your Siddle’s not yet Warne or Lee –
England deserved their sprinkler dance
All pundits everywhere agree.
Regain the Ashes soon? No chance!

Query
 

John, or anybody, what is the number (and title if not New Year Letter) of the acrostic competition? Seems to have been omitted in John's original post.

The number is 2680 and the title New Year Letters. And if Lucy doesn't give you a prize she will show herself up as a Rooney-loving LOSER!