Speccie Hocus Pocus by 31st October
 

This looks a goodie. I shall certanly give this one a whirl.

No. 2771: hocus pocus
You are invited to provide a rhymed witch’s spell to bring someone or something either good or ill (16 lines maximum). Please email entries, wherever possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 31 October.

I'll kick us off. This one's published - but on message...

Last night I lay with him I love,
We did the thing not spoken of;
It ended well but, as he came,
He called out someone else's name.
I love my love. I always will.
I do not seek to do him ill,
Nor do I wish the woman harm
Beyond the limits of this charm.
O Eros, if this once I may
Prefer you over Agape,
Be there when he is next with her
And in extremis, as it were;
Then when he sighs in ecstasy
Contrive to make him mention me.

That's a gem, Ann.

I'm definitely going to enter this one. For inspiration, I shall dance widdershins around a kettle of boiling newts' eyes.

Dewitched
 

Bewitched!

Mon dieu! I cannot live with you,
a girl whose dark charms grew
for seven long unholy years
after we said, I do.

Oh no, I must be rid of you,
whose spells would turn me blue,
moving me to violent tears
with magic that you knew.

True, it’s true, I’m leaving you,
who’d melt my mind to glue,
and daily dig my heart out
to boil it in your brew.

Now, I’m going, cursing you:
your tongue a torture screw
racking me to finally shout,
adieu, you witch, we’re through!

Semolina, tapioca!
In the cauldron, mix with these:
Yellow press that’s more like ochre,
Sex and scandal, sport and sleaze;
Eyes of viewers, brains of birds
(Tits, of course), and stir them well;
Juice of journalistic turds
To give that vile, putrescent smell;
Half-baked television nerds,
Spleen of hacker, foul as burdock.
Stirring still, we chant the words
To cast the spell on Rupert Murdoch:

“Let the Sky fall, dim the Sun,
May his grubby days be done!
Make the Dirty Digger cleaner -
Tapioca, semolina!”

Ann - Just wonderful - I particularly loved the "Contrive" in the last line.

Yes, a winner if ever I saw one, Ann!

Nice ome, Brian. By the way, did you know that Rupert has an Oxford degree - presumably a Rhodes Scholar? The Digger M.A. (Oxon).

Oh, and I second what Jerome said, Ann.

Another good one, Ann. Lovely punchline.

Here's a reworking of something I cooked up earlier:

A postman's artificial thumb, a peat-fired whistling kettledrum,
A tissue-paper butterdish, an artificial jellyfish,
A ball of electronic string, a postcard (franked) from Mafeking,
A stuffed sea-elephant, a corn scarf (slightly foxed), a vamping horn,
A bar of Martian saddle-soap, an armour-plated, clockwork pope,
A Long-John-Silver folding crutch, an automated cockroach hutch,
A set of silver bat detectors, three crocheted genital protectors,
A sausage magnet (batteries included), a prosthetic sneeze,
A chocolate nose, a midget pig, a ceremonial pubic wig
(As used by royalty), a cork divan, a cardboard tomahawk
Complete with self-adjusting trunnions, a string of alcoholic onions,
A box of sugared quinquiremes, a cornucopia of dreams,
A witches' dance about the pyre, a cleansing dose of holy fire,
An exorcism, couth and canny, taught me by my sainted granny.

Nice one too, John.

No, I didn't know he had a degree. Was it a real one, or was it an honorary one in some suitable subject like Disinformation?

It was in the 1950s so I take it it was real.

Here we go:

Murdoch graduated from Geelong Grammar, a prestigious Australian boarding school, in 1949 before crossing the ocean to attend Worcester College at Oxford University in England. According to one of his early biographers, Murdoch was a "a normal, red-blooded college student who had many friends, chased girls, went on the usual drinking binges, engaged in slapdash horseplay, tried at sports, and never had enough money, no doubt due to his gambling."

Pretty much like us, then. So how did he go so badly wrong?

He didn't. The Digger rules OK. And the Sun also rises.

Yeah, tell that to the NoW hacking victims. And we know where the Digger thinks the Sun rises.

Reviewer, cruel critic of rhyme –
Eye of bat! Tongue of snake! Soul of slime! –
Make a magic confection
So my rival’s collection
Remains little read for all time!

Plunge your pen in a poisonous spring,
Tip your barbs with its vinegary sting,
Add some rotted bouquets
And a touch of faint praise,
Heads-I-win, tails-you-lose, sort of thing.

Sprinkle rancid aspersions and smears
Marinaded in bile stored for years,
Then serve piping hot
In one huge toxic shot
To ensure that it all ends in tears!

from Macflush, Act 4, Scene 1, by William Shakespeare
A suburban bathroom. On center stage, an overflowing Toilet. Gurgling sounds.
Enter the three Witches. (Played by the Three Stooges)

1 WITCH (CURLY). Thrice this bowl hath overflow'd.
2 WITCH (LARRY). Thrice and once, the housewife’s whin'd.
3 WITCH (MOE). Husband cries:—'tis time! 'tis time!

ALL. Bubble, bubble, toilet trouble?
Call the Stooges, on the double!

1 WITCH. When the ballcock ceases falling,
Guys like us, you should be calling …
2 WITCH. Eye of newt and oil of skank
Cure the sluggish septic tank.
3 WITCH (pulling a splinter from the seat) Splinters sticking from the seat
Make for comments indiscreet.
1 WITCH. Round about the toilet go;
In the john, the Drano throw.—
2 WITCH. I’ll insert a plumber’s snake;
Maybe it will drain this lake …
3 WITCH (interrupting) Watch that splash, for heaven’s sake!
(gives 2 Witch an eye-poke, and clobbers 1 Witch with a plunger)

Douglas, I can hear that, see that - and dammit, I can smell it! My judgement may be skewed, though, by the fact that have a special relationship with septic tanks and so am aware that, like the best of comedy, this has a wee nugget of truth in it.

Come to think, its probably a wee nugget of something else that blocking the bog - plunge on!

A drunken priapic lout, then. That's no surprise.

Basil, I think you're being excessively kind. I would have added "spendthrift" and "wastrel".

Dear Ann, Thank you for your comment. Your piece for this competition is a lot more poetic than mine is. Are the 3 Stooges well-known (or even known at all ?) in the UK? And, more importantly, would the judge at the Spectator likely know who they were?
One of the first 3 Stooges films, back in the mid 1930s was entirely in rhyme, and I had seen a tape of it recently. So, I got this idea of them being the witches in Macbeth. The substitution of a toilet for the cauldron is a natural.
I don't know how the Speccie judge will react to the stage directions, if he/she is not a Stooges fan.

I know the Three Stooges. It might depend on how old you are. Alas!

I did a septic tank comp entry once, in the persona of Robert Frost -

"I have been one acquainted with the shite..."

It got nowhere and I can't even remember which comp it was, now.

I know (of) the Three Stooges and perhaps Lucy would. Old US comedy stuff is a bit of a cult in some quarters over here.

I say risk it. And if it doesn't make the grade, there'll be a place for it elsewhere. It's well-made and true to both its sources. There's another layer of comedy in that.

The Three Stooges? Well, there's Cameron and Clegg, but I've forgotten who the third one is.

Well at least he never worked for the BBC. Sorry, I'm still wittering on about the Digger. I remember that line, Ann. Utter genius. It could be the last line (or the first) of your entry. But alas, I see it is too late.

Here we are, a witches’ coven
Baking cookies in the oven,
Little men of gingerbread
Shaped like him the whole world hates -
Name him! Blame him! William Gates!
Curse the thing we’ve come to dread -

“Windows” and its endless crashes!
We would send him forty lashes,
But we haven’t found the spell,
So we croak our incantation,
“Semper, semper, fenestration”,
Locking him in living hell.

Night and day the screen shall fail him,
Switching off will not avail him.
Microsoft could help him through -
Except, of course, they never do!

I should say that might have twenty-five quid attached.