Speccie: Alma Mater
 

The dialogue competition brought near misses for Bob Schechter, Chris O'Carroll and Martin Parker. Bill Greenwell was in winning form and Basil Ransone-Davies, on a bit of a roll at the moment, deservedly pocketed the top fiver. Full results under 'Competition: Dialogue.

This week's competition has possibilities.

No. 2642: Alma Mater
You are invited to pay homage in verse to an educational institution (16 lines maximum). Please email entries, where possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 7 April.

for what it's worth
 

I admit, I'm stymied.

Reminds me of this old one though:

Far above Cayuga's waters
there's an awful smell.
Some say its Cayuga's waters,
but it is Cornell.

two minds
 

I'm torn between hailing the crap school that liberated me by expelling me & the superb university that, years later, gave me an unequalled chance to educate myself.

Bazza,
I vote for the crap school.

Marion is right. To be expelled is a fine thing, Bazza. Were you expelled from Simon Langton School for Boys? Good for you. Meanwhile... I may not write the best poem. In fact lately I have rarely been in the frame, but I usually write the one of the FIRST. Here it is.

Alma Mater

To James Gillespie’s Boys I went
When I was a bambino.
My teacher, a sardonic gent,
Like Chalkie in The Beano,

Was Mr Wilfred Grubb. He knew
A plenitude of stuff.
And, so that we would know it too,
His classroom act was rough:

An eye to chill you to the bone,
A voice to shout like Hector,
A teaching method now unknown
Within the public sector.

All flesh is hay. Remember, pray,
The passions and the knowledge
Of Mr Wilfred Grubb B.A.
At James Gillespie’s College.

Thanks for the suggestion, Marion. It would give me a chance to be satirical, which is my long suit. For Sussex I have only respect and great affection.

bazza

PHILIPS ACADEMY

I didn't read that many books,
I didn't learn much math,
but those dear souls in Andover
propelled me on a path,

first to Yale, then Harvard Biz,
then money by the fistful.
Oh Philips, how the thought of you
can make my heart grow wistful!

You taught me my entitlement.
Today, as I look back,
I give you half the credit for
a peaceful, free Iraq.

Alma Mater Floreat

Gaudeamus igitur,
thy ivy-clinging walls endure,
not so the Latin, French and Greek,
you never did teach me to speak.
I miss the canings that I got
and fantasize on them a lot.
Had it not been for the gays,
vivant omnes virgines!
All the girls in thy gym classes--
vivat nostra societasses.
Post jacundam juventutem,
our minds are marked ad senectutem
Alma mater floreat!
Thanks to thee the truth is that
in many things I have excelled
but not until I was expelled.

Hail to California,

Alma Mater Dear;
fees grow ever dearer,

funding's cut each year.
Berkeley's kids are not deprived,
though it sounds disquieting,
old tradition's are revived—
once again they're rioting.

Frank

Jim, I love it. Do you think Lucy has the Latin? I wouldn't be at all surprised - bright these Speccie ladies!

just noodling around with this one so far...
 

I spent six years at Simon Langton.
The masters had the brains of plankton.
I failed to smother my revulsion
And got rewarded with expulsion.

Fagin's School

At Fagin's school
I learned to pick pockets,
steal wallets and bracelets
and keychains and lockets
and solid gold watches,
and yet, most of all,
when I reminisce
it's my friends I recall,
those days we spent romping
down alleys to hide
when we were still young
and the world was still wide!
Oh days of my youth,
so fleeting and brief!
Time, it is you,
not I who's the thief!

Cripes, Bazza, at my school the only thing you got expelled for was driving up with a bloody great van and nicking the lead off the school roof. NO I DIDN'T DO IT!

Nice work, Roger.

Humph! They didn't teach much grammar there, then?

Of course, if there's an error, David, it is the Oliver Twist persona who is guilty and it is just my way of enriching his characterization. But since your comment I have heard from people with more impressive alma maters telling me that Oliver got it right, so go figure. My approach will be to talk out of both sides of my mouth until a consensus emerges, and then I will promptly join it.

I'm on a roll here. We have lots of schools like this. It's a winner!

Alma Mater

Come to my school! All the goodies you remembered you shall find.
Not a whiff of tarts or hoodies clustering round to rob you blind.
Come to my school! It’s the High School where you never fall behind.

Though you’re neither apt nor clever, though your head is solid wood,
You will never, never, never, get a grade that’s less than good.
Cheer our new school, just for you school, flower of the neighbourhood!

All have won and all share prizes. We need no remedial class.
Glory comes in different sizes. None shall flunk, for all shall pass.
At our fair school, light as air school, no-one tumbles on his arse.

‘Excellence for all!’ our motto! Perish the elitist louse!
Education? It’s a Lotto game where everyone cries ‘House!’
Dull or bright school, let the right school light a torch that none shall douse.

This is too crummy to send in, but it was true at one time. Hail to the EPA!

Lamar! Thou site of joy unbounded,
By oil refineries surrounded,
Where football teams from other schools
Must add pollutants to the rules
And thus supply their musclemen
With face masks spewing oxygen;
Where women wearing pantyhose
Their naked skins do oft expose
When wafting gases, like a gulf tide,
Expose their skin to H2S
And nylon melts upon their legs
With a perfume of rotten eggs;
Where once a year the Seaport Co.
Roasts coffee when north breezes blow
And sends the students, free and clear,
A fresh-brewed hint of morning cheer.

I don't think it's too crummy at all. It may be too American. The Speccie is a very parochial thing. Judging from the response here, this is a good deal more difficult than some of the competitions recently. Nobody, except me, has produced a hymn in praise of their real Alma Mater.

The first line of Alfred University's Alma Mater song is actually, really "Alfred, Alfred, mother of men."


Alfred, Alfred, mother of men!
We sang it and snickered and snickered again.
But the chemistry nerds made important components
For space ships and USA’s moon travel moments
While art students puttered with sculpture and pots
Some of it wonderful, some of it rot.
Many an artist received a good start
In Alfred’s ceramics department of art
At Alfred at Alfred, mother of men
Go right ahead, snicker, just like we did then.

Hail to thee, oh Alma Mater,
dear old Party U,
unto thy festive memory
we ever shall be true,

where we made merry every night,
missed every morning class.
Thy motto's blazoned in our hearts:
In Vino Veritas.

Then hail to thee, oh Party U,
when all is said and done,
we didn't pass a single class
but boy we sure had fun!

Hail Harvard, to thy proud tradition,
to thy unspeakable tuition,
which price I paid that it might yield
a future in my chosen field;

though now too late I've come to see
you cannot eat a PhD.
Still, I'll hold dear thy memories,
while working here at Mickey D's.

History
 

Alma Mater, Sønderskole,
Frederiksgade four 0 three.
Safe again to be a school
Fifty children, just like me,
Started classes A and B,
When the school again was free,
All the refugees were gone,
And of soldiers there were none.

Frøken Rønnow, small and wizened,
Like a cork on little feet,
Taught us cursive obsolete.
In class B we worked and listened,
And we also learned to read.
Five and twenty little kids
Full of fun and of excitement,
Though occasionally bored.

We had no idea the basement
Was where weapons had been stored.
For the first year in class B,
We cavorted happily,
Five and twenty little kids,
Right on top of high explosives,
Hoards of guns and hand grenades
That could blast us all to bits.


Frederiksgade in Danish has four syllables: Freth'riks gath eh.

Embroidered on my underwear,
my tea-shirts and my socks,
boldface on my bumper sticker:
"Proud Grad of Hard Knocks."

It left me wiser than an owl,
more clever than a fox.
I bagged a double doctorate
cum laude from Hard Knocks.

Some say that Cambridge is the best,
some say that Oxford rocks,
but they can't hold a candle to
the College of Hard Knocks.

Bring me all your Harvard men
and I will clean their clocks
so someday they can also claim
"I studied at Hard Knocks."

Here goes
 

Dunno about this, but it's a start:

No. 2642: Alma Mater


A friendly modern campus crowns
A hummock on the Sussex Downs,
Announcing to the elements
The genius of Basil Spence.

Here values, methods and ideas
Were not arranged in handy tiers
As on a supermarket shelf.
You had to educate yourself.

Debates continued out of class
In wine-flown sessions on the grass,
Contesting with amused intent
What Mao or Marcuse meant.

That was the sixties, age of hope
(And gesture politics and dope),
When Sussex struck the living spark
That lights my fire now times are dark.

Bazza, may I say that I think that is rather beautiful.

Thank you, John. I'm not ashamed of it. In fact, a couple of tweaks & I think I'll mail it off. I generally pride myself on being a satirist, but I had to be honest here & give Sussex its due.

Thanks John for the kind comments, I emended slightly, and don't think Lucy will have too much trouble with the Latin.

Alma Mater

Gaudeamus igitur,
thy ivy-clinging walls endure,
perhaps it’s well they do not speak
for we learnt more than ancient Greek.

We miss the canings that we got
and fantasize on them a lot,
and on the girls we met in class
ut sperno nostrum societas

Had it not been for thy gays
vivant omnes virgines.
Post jacundam juventutem
our minds are marked ad senectutem.

Alma Mater floreat!
Thanks to thee the truth is that
in many things we have excelled
but not until we were expelled.

Nice one, Jim.Good Luck! And here's another, just before the midday deadline.

Alma Mater

A clash of hockey sticks, a clash
Of temperaments, a torrid pash
For Emmeline the prefect who
Once definitely smiled at you,
A word of praise from Miss Divine,
A midnight feast with currant wine
(A ciggie takes the taste away)
A nasty tummy ache next day,
A bike-ride and a horrid prang,
An assignation with the gang,
Baba, Linda, Dorcas, Dolly,
All your friends, so very jolly,
All your friends,such utter bricks,
The Sisterhood of Study Six,
Sharing secrets with the breeze
Underneath the chestnut trees.