Speccie Ladies Day by 13th June
 

A bumper crop for Spherians, with Bazza leading the pack, and Chris O'Carroll and Frank Osen proving that BEING a furriner is no bar to taking the silverware. Brian Allgar continues his impressive run, bill is tucked in there as always and even Whitworth finds a fiver with his name on it, his first win this year. Adrian Fry, are you of our number? Congratulations i you are. Congratulations anyway.

The new competition contains a line of great beauty. We will have to strain every sinew to match it..

No. 2751: FALLEN ANGELS?
Ladies’ Day at Royal Ascot traces its roots back to 1823 when an anonymous poet described the Thursday of the Royal meeting as ‘Ladies’ Day ...when the women, like angels, look sweetly divine’. You are invited to submit a portrait in verse of Ladies’ Day 2012 (16 lines maximum). Please email entries, where possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 13 June.

Bazzaading
 

Is this a new verb?! If so we need a definition.

Sorry about that. But I love bazzading. It's obviously the sound of him winning - again!

The coinage seems to take me into Sopranos territory. 'Just when I thought I got out...'

I'd bazzaad a guess that John had already corrected it before I saw it.

Congratulations to all.

I think, if I may say so, that the thought behind this might be a tad snobbish. So I have gone (well slightly) another way. You may be astonished to learn that I have never been to Ascot, or indeed any other racecourse. And I've only once attended what Americans quaintly call a soccer match. Never again. I have been to Wimbledon, however, as devotees of my verse will know. Strawberries were a bit pricey.

Fallen Angels

When the women like angels look sweetly divine
In their frocks and their hats of exciting design,
When the Widow's on ice and the weather is fine,
It's a wonderful day at the races!

The hampers from Fortnums are bursting with pheasant,
The sun on your face is remarkably pleasant,
And nobody here is a pleb or a peasant,
A marvellous day at the races!

There's nothing to smack of deceit or skulduggery,
No foul-ups, no punch-ups, no theft and no thuggery,
Just gee-gees all shifting their arses like buggery,
A fabulous day at the races!

Lovely ladies, sweet ladies, how graceful your gait,
As you teeter and totter in rather a state,
And my nags all come in at a-hundred-to-eight,
An astonishing day at the races!

Simply topping, John!

P.S. Maybe "Bazzaad" is a familiar contraction used by close friends and family of the President of Syria, Bashar Hafez al-Assad?

Thank you, Brian. I do think it is one of my better efforts. But not entirely to the paper, perhaps.

Of course snobbery. It's at the heart of English social & cultural life. And I infer from the putative title that we are being asked for knee-jerk sneers at the vulgar concubines of flash, wealthy counter-jumpers. But you can usually straighten the kink in the rubric, or twist it the other way, as John proves here. Personally, I'm an inverted snob. I look down on the posh.

Good for you, Basil.

But I'm more of a perverted snob. I go down on the posh.

I don't know anybody posh except maybe you guys.

Wasn't there a Posh Spice? I always get a kick around Halloween, when "Pumpkin Spice" starts to appear in the stores - I imagine her as the large one they had to kick out.

Frank

She was supposed to be posh but she married David Beckham so she clearly wasn't. Common as muck. But rich.

I think it fair to say that most serious racegoers hate Ladies Day. It is a sideshow that has outgrown its circus. Depict bolt together limo-loads of call centre girls from Slough disgorging drunkenly on the Ascot sward and you'll be in with a chance.

Adrian, I expect you are right. But I've never been to the races in my life though I think I once went to the dogs in Edinburgh. I think I did. So my poem is an essay in pure fiction. Incidentally, do they still quote odds like 100 to 8?

I wish we scruffians from the colonies could use The Kentucky Derby with its mint juliped ads and Daddy Warbucks chomping his stogy as Secretariat leaves the glue brigade in the dust, but this sounds as if the specific locus in quo must be employed.

But, Lance, even scruffy Colonials can access the Internet. We can check out Ascot's own website. And we can look up any number of Ladies Day articles that feature mind-boggling arrays of hat photos. Really, these gals make Princess Beatrice at William and Kate's wedding look like a bashful schoolgirl in a sedate beret. If sweetly divine angels look like this, my guess is that St. Peter is handing out tabs of acid at the Pearly Gates.

In my youth there was a man who designed a new hat for his mother every year. And every year the hat was on the front page. Ah, the gays were giants in those days. Therewas also a bookie on the course called Prince Bagration or some such, who carolled forth 'I gotta horse!'

No, Prince Bagration is from somewhere else, Georgia (the real original one) actually. And you, Lance, can know as much about all this as I do.

John, I think the hat designer you are thinking of was Mrs Shilling. And the exotic racing tipster was Prince Monolulu. Racing was an exotic and raffish game then. I recall games of 'find the lady' being played for money in the racecourse car park. That wouldn't happen at Ascot, though.

No, John - that was Prince Monolulu (His name was actually Pete McKay) and his first really good tip came in at 100 to 6. He was more of feature of Epsom than Ascot, being a much-loved Londoner.

He is supposed to have been murdered by Jeffrey Bernard.

The horse was called Spion Kop. Anyfink else I can do you for, Guv'nor?

Aha - cross-posted with Adrian (Hello, Adrian!).

Jeffrey Bernard was at Ascot, of course. Lots. It was there in 1971 that he threw up on the Queen Mum's shoes. Not sure if that was Ladies Day, though...

Yes you can, Ann or Adrian. When did the Queen Mother's nag win either the Derby or the National sometime in the fifties at a good price. My mum had ten bob each way on it (her first and only bet) and made a killing. I once went into a Betting Shop in Shepherd's Bush which led me to believe that all punters were either Irish or West Indians wearing hats. I think I won fifteen shillings in the School Prefects sweepstake (yes I WAS a school prefect, could you ever have doubted it?) and also ran a book on the School Captain Stakes - made plenty since it was won by a rank outsider (a genial four-eyed Professor of Politics as he is now) and the favourite (Robin Cook, our erstwhile Foreign Secretary) was nowhere. Nobody bet on me. Not even me.

synchronicity or what?
 

And Robin Cook earned some extra cash as a racing tipster (however, rumours that his catch-phrase was 'I got an ethical horse!' are baseless).

I believe Robin was a very good tipster and also that he had a fine seat on a horse. I've never sat on a horse myself. They bite, don't you know.

Ann's mention of Jeffrey Bernard pleases me; I started reading The Speccie because it carried his brilliant Low Life column. My proudest boast as a competitiion entrant in The Speccie is that I once won a comp with an entry in which Jeffrey Bernard took on the role of agony uncle.

I've never been to the races either. But I've spent the last 30 years going to the dogs in Paris.