The Oldie Comp no 151 'Neighbours' by 1st June
 

Nice neighbours? Neighbours from hell? (Surely not that awful Aussie 'soap' though?)

I've just noticed a discrepancy over the comp numbers: 150 was 'Two Part Return' so this one is 151 and not 150 as it states below (and in the magazine.)

Jayne


COMPETITION NO 151
by Tessa Castro

Having spent a lot of money on soundproofing, I find that I can still hear my new neighbour snoring. A poem, please, on any aspect of Neighbours. Maximum 16 lines.

Entries to ‘Competition 150’ by post (The Oldie, 65 Newman Street, London W1T 3EG), fax (020 7436 8804),
or email (comps@theoldie.co.uk) by 1st June. Don’t forget to include your postal address.

I have a published one. Is that OK, do you think?

I'll find out, so that we know for future reference, as I'm not 100% sure of the answer to that question, Marion.

(I wouldn't have thought they're too 'precious' about it at The Oldie.)

Jayne

How would they knw it was published, Marion? Anyway, it doesn't expressly say you can't. Let's take the old fashioned BritishTory view that anything not expressly forbidden is allowed, rather than the Russian Socialist one that anything not expressly allowed is forbidden.

Or the Nazi regulation that anything that is not expressly forbidden is compulsory.

Touché, Brian. Add the accent at your leisure.

Accent added by me, John. Easy-peasy: Contol/alt/e does it, for me anyway.

Jayne

Neighbours

The people next door are such wonderful people,
Magnificent people, the best that could be,
Superlative people, impeccable people,
The loveliest people you ever could see,

But faraway people, non-neighbourhood people
Are horrible people and rather obscene,
Untalented people, unfortunate people,
Inadequate people, and not very clean,

Those people who people the places that people
Like our sort of people are fearful to go
Are hardly the people (detestable people)
That our sort of people could possibly know,

So here’s to our people, such scrumptious people,
Rambunctious people, the people who are
Respectable people, delectable people
Collectable people who win the cigar!


Cripes! How do you spell collectible?

The two spellings are usually listed as interchangeable, with "able" given first and "ible" as an acceptable variant.

I've made up a rule of my own, though. For what it's worth, I use "collectable" as an adjective - like your people, who are worthy of being collected by those of like mind, and "collectible" as a noun representing those items of particular and peculiar desire considered "collectable" and hunted down by "collectors".

So sue me.

Dear Ms Drysdale,

Thank you for the invitation. We are always happy to undertake litigation, especially of an entirely frivolous nature. Please let us have the contact details of your solicitor in order for us to agree on a suitable pretext to sue you.

Yours obsequiously,
Sue, Grabbit & Runne

Sir,

I would be obliged if you would cease your wicked soliciting or I shall be forced punish you, you naughty boy.

Yours Assertively
Madame Dominique Sterne
(available for private functions by prior arrangement)

If I remember correctly, "Sue Grabbit & Runne" comes from Private Eye.

But I once actually passed a solicitor's office named "Reason and Tickle". It seemed rather appropriate; if you can't argue your way into winning a court case, perhaps you can amuse the jury sufficiently for them to decide in your favour.

Of course, "Reason and tickle" might work equally well as a guide to seduction.

Can't compete with John's obvious winner but . . .

There's a library chap, and a woman, far worse,
Next door in our seaside hotel.
Pebble glasses, odd clothes, a liking for verse,
(Heard them at it as clear as a bell.)

They sing racy songs, well, you know what I mean,
So loudly they quite split my skull.
The bottles! The rows! And the language! Obscene!
I call them our neighbours from Hull.

Why thank you Jerome. And yours is fresh and neat. Let us hope we both win.

Life mirrors art in Wales's finest city. Newport has a firm of Estate Agents called Crook and Blight.

And Twickenham has undertakers called Wake & Paine.

Thanks, John. There is or was a local deep-sea fisherman called Scales, a demolition contractor called Down, a forester called Hewitt and a plumber called Main. (Actually met him.) And in the Oxford of your day I remember a faded sign , F. Sheen, French Polisher.

And in the Oxford of my day, there was (yes, really) a graffitus:

"The Vice-Chancellor of this University is nasty, brutish and short".

On the subject of graffiti, I also saw in a public loo (though it may already have been a plagiarism):

"Mine's twelve inches long, but I don't use it as a rule."

Yeeks, John! Are you suggesting my oeuvre is not well known throughout the world?!:D

Thanks to all of you for your reasoning on the already-published issue. You guys should have been medieval theologians. (Maybe you were).

Here's my entry:

NEW NEIGHBOUR

Greetings, neighbour. We’re pleased to welcome you.
We hope you like our fine community.
It’s quite exclusive. What about that view!
The grounds are always tended carefully:
the well-kept lawns, the shrubbery and flowers,
the shaded paths and lanes. Just look around—
We're sure you'll like this neighbourhood of ours.
It's quiet too. You'll barely hear a sound,
situated on this cul-de-sac.
Not many children. Most of us are old.
Your guests are leaving? Don't worry, they'll be back
before you know it. Are those handles gold?
And is that lovely casket cherrywood?
Welcome, welcome, to the neighbourhood!

I love it, John.

Thank you, David. I wrote it about a year ago and I had no idea what it was about. With a few changes it is now - what it's about. Odd.

Mrs Harris thinks Miss Paris is no better than she should be,
To Miss Paris, Mrs Harris seems a snob.
But they both think Mr Whiteside shouldn’t drink so much – well, should he
When, so far as they can tell, he has no job?
Mr Whiteside, on the bright side, likes to flirt with young Miss Paris
While that Harris woman tuts behind her nets.
But Miss Paris thinks him harmless and so blithely on she carries;
Mrs Harris says ‘I’d take him down the vets.’
Mr Whiteside has a right side and Miss Paris cultivates it,
Mrs Harris, being a joke, cements the pair,
They hold hands out in broad daylight (knowing she will see and hate it)
While in private neither one would ever dare.
In a few months Mrs Harris and old Whiteside are both married
To each other, yes; Miss Paris quits the scene.
And though neighbours claim their ménage is emotionally arid,
It goes to show how little curtain-twitchers glean.

Nice one. Adrian. Marion, I must learn to read more slowly. Yours has just clicked. Ingenious angle and impeccably done. This comp is clearly hotting up.

My neighbour’s always fancied he’s a poet.
Perhaps he is, he’s got a book or two,
and Lord, is he at pains to let you know it.
He prattles like no one you ever knew.

But I can tell you that the next-door bard
can’t do a simple chore or run a farm;
once, when he set a buzz-saw in his yard,
I thought for certain that he’d come to harm.

Today we re-set boundary stones, and all
He did was fumble—clumsiness unending.
“Someone there is that doesn’t love a wall,”
I said, to needle him. “You’ll soon need mending.”

He gets a look. At first I think he’s ill,
but no, he tells me that he's “got to work,”
then takes off through the orchard, down the hill.
Boy, was I glad to see him go, the jerk.

Frank

Thank you all for these poems! They made me laugh--a wonderful end to the working day. I'm so happy to have discovered this forum.

On the subject of (all too?) appropriate names, radio fans in the US will probably be familiar with the show "Car Talk," hosted by "Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers." In real life, Click and Clack are Tom and Ray Maggliozzi (hope I spelled that right), owners of the Good News Garage in Cambridge, MA. At the end of the radio show, during the credits, they would acknowledge the assistance of their lawyers, "Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe." One day I was walking through Harvard Square, in Cambridge, and looked up to see those names written on a second-floor window in gold script. Alas, I didn't have time to climb the stairs to find out whether there was a genuine law firm up there!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey,_Cheatham_and_Howe

Barbara, be enlightened.