Speccie Against the Grain
 

Perhaps surprisingly, none of us managed a win this week. Congratulations to Walter Ancarrow for an hon mensh. Looking at the winners, he said I hope not sourly, I can't help it being borne in on me how difficult this is, and what genius Carroll had.

Onward and upward. This competition looks good. I'm thinking of stuff already. Brad Pitt? The Grand Canyon?

NO. 2717: against the grain

You are invited to supply a poem expressing distaste for something or someone widely considered to be beautiful (16 lines maximum). Please email entries, if possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 5 October.

Florence? Marianne Faithfull?

The Sydney Opera House, Joan Collins (always looked vaguely like a rodent).

The Mona Lisa. Hugely overrated.

SUNRISE, SUNSET

Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset.
The same old sun, the same old sky.
My God! How tacky can you get?
They're beautiful, you say? But why?

Honestly, they take your breath?
I simply can't believe that's true.
You must know they've been done to death?
You're in a rut. Find something new.

If there had been one sunrise, tops,
and just one sunset, maybe then . . . .
But sunrise/sunset never stops.
They've been the same since God knows when.

So stop your gazing at the sky
to watch the journey of the sun.
Find something else to make you sigh.
This sunrise/sunset crap's been done.

George Clooney


George Clooney, George Clooney
an arriviste and looney,
as ugly as an ugly spud,
a kind of scrunched up cabbage-patch, a dud.

George Clooney, George Clooney,
so smiley and so puny,
a walking, talking nincompoop,
he says he’s on the left (he’s not..) the dupe.

George Clooney, George Clooney,
not a patch on Wayne Rooney,
now theres’ a hunk of primetime drek.
The one I really fancy though, is Shrek.

joanie
 

She always reminds me of a partially deflated sex doll (she is, I believe, about 90% prosthetic these days).

A hunk of primetime drek! I'd often wondered what Wayne Rooney was.

Dom Perignon,
You poison my flute,
Your bubbles cause gas
And you're bitter to boot.

May your swill never journey
Between my two lips.
You're not even worthy
Of christening ships.

By far the worst beverage
That I've ever known,
Liquefied garbage,
Dom Perignon.

I actually like Dom Perignon well enough (see above), just as I rather enjoyed Downton Abbey, notwithstanding what follows:

At the risk it could make me sound crabby,
I confess I can't stand Downton Abbey.
The upstairs? Too grand,
Yet it's dreary and bland,
While the downstairs is crowded and shabby.

Monet's water lilies likewise.

SANTA CLAUS

I do not like you, Santa Claus,
The way you make the reindeer work
And all the elves, and just because
You're such a narcissistic jerk.

Ho ho ho! Yeah, right. That's great.
You're quite the paragon of cheer.
By Christmas, though, it's just too late.
Santa, where've you been all year?

You do not seem to give a hoot
About the world in, let's say, May.
On Christmas Eve you don your suit,
But then you're gone by Christmas Day.

So Santa, I see through your shtick.
You're just a show-off egotist.
The truth is that you make me sick.
It's almost like you don't exist!

Oh, I like the water lilies. What about almost anything by Gaugin.

It doesn't matter if you like them, John. They can survive your poetic attack upon them just fine. I like them too and wouldn't mind reading your poem lampooning them.

Would anyone dare to suggest... Princess Diana?
(Notice the non-committal phrasing ;))

I feel a song coming on. But not, as it turns out, about Princess Di. I realise Americans will be all at sea here, but there is enough internal evidence, I hope, to make the ditty work even for them. Pictures of S. Broad may be found on the internet. The man who would not kick him out of bed is the dishevelled Speccie journalist, Rod Liddle.


Against the Grain

We Ladies all with one accord
Combine in praise of Stuart Broad.
And there are men, it must be said,
Who would not kick him out of bed.
So tall, so blonde, with skin so fair
A baby’s bottom shows more hair,
And eyes of such cerulean
You’d drown yourself in either one.
And yet. And yet I do confess
There’s scarce a man I fancy less.
Such lack of music in the squeals
Of those re-iterant appeals,
So petulant the red-lipped mouth
When the appeals are going south.
Matt Prior’s the man I long to date.
God bless his beard and balding pate.

But not, as it turns out, about Princess Di. I realise Americans will be all at sea here, but there is enough internal evidence, I hope, to make the ditty work even for them. Pictures of S. Broad may be found on the internet. The man who would not kick him out of bed is the dishevelled Speccie journalist, Rod Liddle.


Against the Grain

We Ladies all with one accord
Combine in praise of Stuart Broad.
And there are men, it must be said,
Who would not kick him out of bed.
So tall, so blonde, with skin so fair
A baby’s bottom shows more hair,
And eyes of such cerulean
You’d drown yourself in either one.
And yet. And yet I do confess
There’s scarce a man I fancy less.
Such lack of music in the squeals
Of those re-iterant appeals,
So petulant the red-lipped mouth
When the appeals are going south.
Matt Prior’s the man I long to date.
God bless his beard and balding pate.

And yet. And yet I do confess
 

Sounds like a winner to me, John. I especially like this couplet and the rest:

And yet. And yet I do confess
There’s scarce a man I fancy less.
Such lack of music in the squeals
Of those re-iterant appeals,
So petulant the red-lipped mouth
When the appeals are going south.
Matt Prior’s the man I long to date.
God bless his beard and balding pate.

My list of the absurdly overrated
Began quite modestly with Posh and Becks,
But then the roster steadily inflated,
Incorporating Wii and tantric sex,
Psychology, Manhattan, haut-cuisine,
The Oscars, botox, biking, chardonnay,
Tchaikovsky, pandas, planking, Wittgenstein,
Blogging, vlogging, salad, anime,
Flashmobs, Gaga, iphones, spray-on-tans,
Sat-nav, roses, hot tubs, shopping, spring,
Religion, Sartre, picnics, comic sans,
Cold fusion, Bauhaus, meta-anything.
Then as the list grew so alarmingly,
I scrambled hard to find a stopping-place
And if I hadn’t happened, next, on me
I might have finished off the human race.

Frank

Way to go, Frank. You've got to kill them all.

If I was Lucy, I would give the money to Frank.

Great subject, and another huge entry, I imagine, on the cards. Actually, I reckon this is a pretty good painting -- but why let strict accuracy spoil a quick first draft !

Les Grandes Baigneuses

No swell of joy within me stirs
When I behold Les Grandes Baigneuses,
Those well-fleshed ladies who expose
Nude vistas of their quelques choses.
Fulsome dolmens, horizontal,
Kneeling, crouching, slably frontal,
Rear views, side views in a group
Painted in a pallid gloop --
An object lesson to all those
Large ladies who dispense with clothes
And hope to catch a roving eye
Before their painted youth sets dry.

Yours dried a hundred years ago.
So, find your clothes, get dressed and go.
You may in youth have been real ravers;
Cézanne, though, did your looks no favours.

just the title...

Kill The Pandas

should win imo. no poem required.