Well, the Spectator did, after all, call it the President Erdogan Offensive Poetry Contest. And everyone seems to agree that favoring a celebrity's mediocre entry--after disingenuously inviting entries from the entire English-speaking world, as if all the rest of us lowly scribblers actually had a shot--was an offensive way to run a poetry contest. Indeed, it evokes the cronyism and abuse of public trust associated with President Erdogan. So I'd have to say it was truth in advertising.

(Announcing that rhymes on "Ankara" were deprecated, and then choosing a winner containing exactly that, was a particularly offensive touch, I thought. Inspired!)

Know only this my secret lover:
that I will be with you, whatever.
Though none can know of our affair,
I promise to stay true.
................................– T. Blair.

Julie, it was Douglas Murray's money, not the Speccie's. He is surely entitled to do what he likes with it. Or are you a Socialist?

John,

The money was donated by a reader. Who knows whether that reader was consulted on the Boris stitch-up, but if not, the money was donated by someone under the impression that Murray had been telling the truth about trying to find the most offensive limerick, rather than trying to get the most publicity for his competition.

I'd say Murray misled everyone who invested time and energy into entering the competition in order to give Boris (former editor of the magazine Murray writes for) £1000 of someone else's money. (Boris probably wasn't even aware that he'd entered the competition). Is Murray entitled to do that? Obviously he's legally allowed to. But if he's entitled to do it, then people are entitled to call him an arse for doing so, no? It works both ways.

Matt

I entirely agree with Matt. To accept £1000 that someone had offered as a prize for the competition as described, and then to give that money, well before the closing date, to a mediocre piece of drivel that respects none of the rules, but that just happens to be by the wretched Boris Johnson, seems to me to be verging on the fraudulent, and is an insult both to the generous donor and to eveyone who took the trouble to enter the competition.

I don't think one needs to be a socialist to find Mr Murray's behaviour extremely shabby.

Whoever the money came from was, as John says, entitled to do with it whatever he wanted to do. And what he chose to do was announce a contest which was publicly represented to be legitimate, inducing a large number of people to take time out of their day to compose limericks under the expectation that they would be fairly considered for the prize. It was that announcement which turned out to be fraudulent. (I suspect that there are probably laws in Britain against that kind of fraud, by the way, though I'm sure that no one will lift a finger to enforce them, nor am I saying it's serious enough that this is a bad thing).

John, I never entertained any delusion that I might actually win, so the prize money was always irrelevant to me.

I feel ripped off because I was led to expect that the winning entry would be a limerick of legendary proportions--a breathtakingly elegant confection of filth, invective, and clever wordplay.

That, and not £1000, is what I was hoping for, and indeed felt promised.

The poem that would have won (had the contest not been rigged to favor friends in high places) may be just such a work of genius. But it unjustly remains in the shadows, where we cannot appreciate it as it deserves. Why? Because the judge couldn't resist the temptation to plant a very public kiss on an inferior contestant's famous arse.

Yea, verily, this was a crime against literature itself.

Granted, it's only a misdemeanor. But a crime nonetheless.

Matt, I didn't know that. Who was the reader? I thought it came from Mr Murray. If it wasn't his why did he control it? Did the reader give him that control? I would like to know.

Lighten up, people. Writing a limerick can't take (at the outside) twenty minutes. And there was only one prize so your chances were pretty small.

Boris took thirty seconds. I'm sure if he had taken 19 and a half minutes more, he could have made it rhyme and scan.

I don't like it when someone wastes 20 minutes of my time by lying to me. Heck, I don't like it when the car in front of me wastes 2 seconds of my time by not moving as soon as the light turns green.

LOL, John, this is me lightened up!

My daughter's transplant buddy, a darling 12-year-old girl, came home on hospice last week, after immediately rejecting the second of two heart transplants she's received in the past six months. Her doctors have said that there's no point in listing her for a third--her antibodies are just too haywire, so she'll just reject that one, too. She's had her milrinone PICC line removed because she really wanted to go swimming with her siblings. She'll probably die in the next few days, if she hasn't already--we're still waiting for news.

So yeah, I'm distracting myself by focusing on trivial kerfuffles like this one.

I'm so sorry to hear that, Julie. Words fail me even more than usual.

This is why light verse is so important. Fluff and snark forever!

I've redacted this poem. I had forgotten this part of the Sphere was visible to the web.

Matt,

"and roll upon the floor and then [redacted]"

This has to be one of the best lines written this year.

The whole thing is splendid, Matt. Look out for an opportunity to use it.

That's a classic, Matt.

Bravo Matt. I concur, a classic.

Thanks Douglas, John, Ann and Eric. I'm glad you liked it.

John, I sent it to New Verse News last night, so maybe they'll take, although there's so much else going in the world at the moment, it already seems a little bit like old news. I'm also wondering if I might get away with retitling it "On first looking into the Chilcot Report" (or something cleverer than that) for the Spectator competition.

best,

-Matt

Matt,
Touch of real class! Respect.
And, to quote George W. , "Yo. Quinlan!"

I'll be a 1980s California girl and say "Totally awesome."

Thanks Martin & Julie,

And Julie, thanks for thinking of the "no follow" tags. I should have thought of that. I'd completely forgotten this was unprotected space. And yes, sadly, it is too late, as I've just discovered by googling it. Well, lets hope James at NVN is not a googler, or if he is, he doesn't consider this published. Is it worth redacting the whole thing do you think?

-Matt

Matt, I may have missed something while having a prolonged nap, but I find the last nine posts incomprehensible.

To David Cameron, Boris Johnson, et al.

Public schoolboys are having a ball;
They hold the whole country in thrall.
At school, after rugger,
Each other they’d bugger,
But now they have buggered us all.

Brian,

I posted this sonnet (but with the title "Memo"), then Julie reminded me that this thread is visible to search engines so I removed it.

-Matt

According to the Daily Telegraph, in June this year a restaurant for naked diners opened for a three month season in South London.

A trendy who dined in the buff
Said, "It's all rather pigs-at-a-trough
But hot soup down your front
Causes more than a grunt
So I think perhaps once is enough."


A patron who ate after shedding
Such restraints as prevented her spreading
Remarked, "Never fear,
It can all hang out here
Which I'm sure wouldn't do back in Reading."

People frequently complain that Boris Johnson is lazy, but that's unfair. He has just signed up for a gruelling series of evening classes on Political Geography. After only a few weeks, if all goes well, they expect him to be able to find Europe on a map.

Just think, if the judging had been fair, one of us might be Britain's new foreign secretary!

(I wrote out the comment in rhyme, but I called Boris the "foreign minister" and I see now that's wrong. (Then again, some are saying it's wrong to call him the foreign secretary.))

Changed my mind.

removed to submit

"Trump refuses to release tax returns."

And that's not all. As everyone knows, Donald Trump also boasts about the size of his penis. But he refuses to show it. He says it's still under audit.

"nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands."

ee

http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-36907541

Trump's love for Putin would ensure
He'd urge a Russian saboteur.
s

The Football and Biscuit
Lawrence O’Donnell, MSNBC 8/3/16

http://betterment.democraticunderground.com/1017395371


Trumpageddon

The biscuit’s code
launches football's
nuclear load.

Will we risk it--
Trump with football
and the biscuit?

http://betterment.democraticunderground.com/1017395371


The Trumpster Blues

Whenever Trumpster comes to town
bragging of his great renown
you might mistake him for a clown.

He proudly lusts for wife and daughter,
sneers at women who are stouter—
a Gold Star Mom? It doesn’t matter.

Those with disabilities
suffer his scurrilities
as well as brutal mockeries.

His hands and fingers are quite small,
without his hairpiece he’s not tall
but argues he’s above it all.

Will those hands with itchy fingers
be the eager means, the bringers,
of a holocaust that lingers?

Trash Creates Obstacles for Rio Olympic Sailors

Lastplace is not the worst this year, say yachters:
It's any place that bare skin touched the waters.

Workers Race to Finish Rio stadiums on Eve of Olympic opening ceremony. 'Even the LOGO is not finished!' August 5th.

AN ATHLETE'S INNER-PICKLE: To Run in or to Run from 2016's Olympic Games in Rio, Brazil

CON. Two voices vied, one feeds, one curbs the Ego.
CON. You're not in Kansas . . . The hailed Five-ringed LOGO—
CON. Unbuilt!—now signals linchpins turn up short;
CON. True emblem, oh, of games with ill support!

PRO. But I am track, capiche? Seems you forgot,
CON. I might get Gold here. Yea, I have a shot.

CON. You'd give a mighty one, nay, race to Zika.

PRO. Am I homesick? Nay, sick of home, Topeka;
CON. By flight thereto, none ever yelled eureka!

CON:: FIN

One has to admit that the Donald inspires the Muse. Has anyone ever written a poem about ole Hillary?

Hillary Clinton
Is a felonious bint on
A high horse
And is apparently devoid of remorse.

Hillaria

It's not that her hair is blond, which it's not.
It's not that her eyes are blue, which they ain't.
It's not her smile, Bill thinks it's very hot
and he likes it when she wears too much paint.
It's when she opens her mouth things get foul;
the Secret Service said so in a book.
Her bathroom server outed Colin Powell
while she spoke dialectic black to hook
the NAACP to vote for her,
wink wink, and went to Chase some corporate cash
because she said that they were broke, yessir,
and hid it all in Bill's library stash.
She married into his misogyny
and runs for President as if she's free.

I had to omit this; sorry folks.

A New Poll's Results: Will Texas Stick Around...?

If Clinton won the latest poll reflects it
That half the lone star state would call for Texit.
k