New Statesman -- bathos -- April 18 deadline
 

No 4272
By Tricia Parrott
Essex Police commented after the Vicky Pryce conviction: “We hope this conviction serves as a timely reminder to motorists.” We want compers to send in similar examples of bathos, in regard to any dramatic or historical event, past or present.
Max 150 words by 18 April comp@newstatesman.co.uk

Gosh, this is a dreary one. Can anyone be bothered?

No, especially since it was only four weeks ago that they set a competition with Vicky Pryce in the subject. (I didn't enter that one either.)

I think I'll go back to hibernating now. Would someone please wake me up when a decent competition comes along?

On the other hand, the less attractive the comp, the fewer entries it draws, the better the odds for anyone who shrugs, grumbles, and submits something.

I just Googled Ms. Pryce, and it seems that she got a few months in the jug for taking the blame for her hubby's bad driving?

Is that all ... 3 hots and a cot for dissembling to a traffic cop?

Doesn't Merrie Olde England have any Ministers or MP's who have driven a car off a bridge, drowned a woman, and gotten a $75.00 fine for leaving a scene of an accident?

No it wasn't his bad driving. She took his speeding points. Or rather he said she was driving the car when she wasn't there.. It's a disgrace she went to prison at all. The story is quite complicated. Suffice to say he is a shit cubed and she was getting revenge on him because he left her for a youngish lesbian. I'm not making this up. The newspapers compared her to Medea, though I didn't notice she had cut up any of her children. Indeed they were in total agreement with her as to his total shittiness. Anyway, take it from me she is a good egg and he deserves to be impaled.

Pace John, I'd say they'd have spoiled another couple. (And maybe they have now.)

You could do this in limericks.

A Salutary Warning

Julius, first of the Caesars,
Was killed by some horrible geezers,
Which shows, I suppose,
That that's how it goes
When you share your initials with Jesus.

John, V.P. may have been or be a brilliant economist and possibly badly treated but she still behaved very foolishly though not enough to warrant an eight month sdentence and all that pompous stuff about 'perverting the course of justice, I agree.

I have no first hand information about Chrish Huhne's privatde or domestic life and don't wish to acquire any. He was, however, an effective environment minister and that's the main point for me. We elect MPs for their public performance, not their private. Nor, by the way, was he like your married John Major, preaching back to basics morality and his version of Victorian values in public yet at the same time pronging a Parliamentary paramour in private, or having a curry n' salmonella on the side.

Good one, John!

Said Lot to his wife “Do not do it!
If once you look back, you will rue it.”
But she wouldn’t listen -
How Sodom did glisten! -
So now her remains fill the cruet.

Invasion at Hastings and Rye!
King Harold said “Lads, do or die
To repel the intruder!”
The Normans were ruder,
And gave him a poke in the eye.

There once was a thane called Macbeth
Who foully put Duncan to death.
“I fear”, said his wife
“That it wasn’t the knife,
But a blast of your horrible breath.”

I was talking about them as human beings, Jerome. I've no interest i him as a politician or her as an economist. It was the way he traded in his wife for a younger model that stuck in my craw. As for John Major, that was just adultery pure and simple and I have to say that Edwina was a cracker! He did a Boris, you might say. She never did tell us about his underpants, did she?

Yes, John, we obviously come to this from very different perspectives, so back to the comp and your nimble Roman death precedent. (Though I must say I think Boris is a bit too mired and Maired at the moment to serve as a defence for John Major's risible if human hypocrisy.)

Roman Bathos

When soaring debts and bad reviews
Had sickened Scabro with the Muse,
He took a bath, to lyre and harp,
And then a stylus, razor-sharp . . .
O cream of Senecan conclusions!
The critics damned his last effusions.

Nice one, Jerome. I think this must be the way to go.

The odd thing that the Mair does not seem to have damaged Boris in the least. The spite was too evident. Mair seems to think Boris is anti-gay because he is right wing, which is not true at all.

Police investigated an incident last night on the A22, where they found a distressed Mr Albert Lott standing in the road next to the life-sized statue of a woman.

According to Mr Lott, he and his wife had been told to leave the city, notorious as a hotbed of sin and depravity, and warned never to look back. “But she wouldn’t listen, would she? Had to have one last glance at Eastbourne, and this is the result.”

Forensic scientists confirmed that the figure was composed of sodium chloride. When asked what he would do with his wife’s remains, Mr Lott broke down, and said: ”Don’t have much choice, do I? She’ll have to be ground up and kept in a cruet.”

A spokesman for the NHS said: “Let’s hope this tragic event will help to drive home the message that too much salt is bad for the human body.”

Another limerick:

I consider those nightly spectaculars
Indulged in by all of the Draculas,
Proof that high protein diets
Plus resting in quiet's
Results can be truly miraculous!

And another. Students of my complete oeuvre - and I am sure there are hundreds of you out there - will see this is a retread of a much longer, and quite brilliant poem.

King Lear Limerick

Consider the case of King Lear.
The blight on his royal career
Was caused by carousing,
Unsuitable housing,
And terrible weather that year.

And you can put these together - in 87 words.

Bathos in Three Acts

Julius, the first of the Caesars,
Was killed by a bunch of bad geezers,
Which shows, I suppose,
That that's how it goes
When you share your initials with Jesus.

Then consider those nightly spectaculars
Indulged in by all of the Draculas,
Proof that high protein diets
Plus resting in quiet's
Results can be truly miraculous!

And lastly, the case of King Lear.
The blight on his royal career
Was caused by carousing,
Unsuitable housing,
And terrible weather that year.

There's also the case of Othello,
A vain and self-flattering fellow,
And like all such fellas
So easily jealous.
He should have been laid-back and mellow.

Remember the evil Macbeth,
Whose middle name might have been 'Death',
A murderous Thane
With a paranoid brain?
Perhaps he was on crystal meth.

We ought to go into partnership, Bazza.

'Wordsmiths to the Gentry'?

Titus served in a pie, they allege,
Her children, and cut her a wedge,
Saying “Here is a treat,
Meaty, juicy and sweet -
But remember your five fruit and veg.”

Cripes, it's going to be a Limited Company. I thiought of her but I couldn't get it right. Well done, Brian.

Zeus's Lad

Brave Perseus insisted the Graeae assisted
His quest to bring Medusa falling;
So, he stole the crones' eye to thereby comply
With what was misogyny's calling.

(This seems to be the way to go: first write a limerick, then turn it into a piece.)

It was a pie to remember. The crust was baked to perfection; crisp, golden, and subtly impregnated with the juices within. The meat itself had been prepared in true halal fashion: the throats were cut and the blood drained into a basin, then the flesh was chopped up into bite-sized morsels from which every speck of fat had been removed.

The guests were delighted. Saturninus asked for a second helping, and then a third. Tamora declared it the most delicious meal she had eaten in a long time, and asked their host exactly what the ingredients were.

“Your children”, said Titus Andronicus.

Unfortunately, from that point onward, the evening degenerated, and the survivors were few. Among them was Lucius, who, on being proclaimed Emperor, addressed his people: “Friends, Romans, countrymen - meat pies are all very well, but do not forget your five portions of fruit and vegetables each day.”

Confessions of a Plagiarist
 

My children, listen; you shall hear my praises
Of poets who have coined my fav’rite phrases.
When just a tyke, I sang of childish things;
Of sealing wax, and cabbages, and kings.

My mom, a common walker of the night
Would take me to saloons where she’d get tight;
While ancient mariners, exceeding wise,
Into my ear would whisper “Plagiarize!”.

At one and twenty, eagerly I paid
My homage to the chicks who got me laid
With lines, which I with wanton license, took
From Mr. Bartlett’s fat quotation book.

Now, I’m a college don who lines his purse
With gems from Oxford’s Book of English Verse;
And I’ll purloin my rhymes and stanzas clever,
Forever and forever and forever.

Reports are just coming in from Egypt of a mass drowning. According to eye-witnesses, it began when a group of Israelite holidaymakers decided to return home by the shortest route. Their tour guide (“He was, like, ancient - had this long white beard, and he was waving some kind of walking-stick”) somehow caused the sea to part, which allowed the members of his group to walk home over dry land. The Egyptian army was on manouevres nearby, and decided to follow them in order to give their horses a canter over unfamiliar terrain, in this case the sea-bed. However, they were only halfway across when the sea returned to its usual place, and the army was swept away.

A representative of the Red Sea Travel Agency insisted that his company disclaimed all responsibility. “We’ve warned people time and again”, he said, “not to go swimming when the danger flag is up.”

The Gentleman From Massachusetts (a eulogy)
 

The Gentleman From Massachusetts (a eulogy)

Partying heartily, Edward Moore Kennedy
Felt an incipient sexual urge;
Casting his eyes on the young Miss Kopechne,
Whispered, “The beach is a place we can merge.”

Teddy was driving an Eighty-Eight Oldsmobile;
Mary was riding along by his side.
Teddy, while groping to help himself cop a feel,
Drove off a bridge and poor Mary Jo died.

Earnestly claiming it was a mere accident,
He buried her body in Quaker state ground.
Senator Kennedy’s chance to be President
Died on the same night that Mary Jo drowned.

Drowning his sorrows with oceans of alcohol,
Edward Moore Kennedy deadened his pain.
Blessed with a liver that seemed indestructible,
He finally died of a cancerous brain.

Oh bravo. What a horrible man that was, and horribe in so many ways.

When the dust had settled and the Norman army had disappeared over the horizon, Ælfric and Æthelbert rose gingerly from the pile of corpses where they had been playing dead, and surveyed the carnage around them.

“Well, that’s the end of England as we know it”, said Ælfric glumly. “We’ll become second-class citizens, and these Frog bastards will be lording it over us - not to mention our wives and daughters.”

“I dunno, Alf, it may not be as bad as you think”, said Æthelbert. “I mean, they’re human beings like us, ain’t they? Being ruled by Normans must be better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.”

Ælfric gazed sadly at the body of King Harold, lying in the mud with the shaft of an arrow protruding from his left eye. “You know what, Bert?”, he said. “I reckon you could’ve phrased that a bit more tactfully.”

[quote=Douglas G. Brown;280981]...
While ancient mariners, exceeding wise
Into my ear, would whisper “Plagiarize!”.
...
(Douglas, shouldn't that comma go after 'wise' and not after 'ear'?)

Your poem and all the others impress me. I've departed from my usual habit here to read before composing, as I must admit I've not quite grasped what 'Bathos' is. I think I'm starting to get it now. Thanks, all!

Graham,

Thanks for your crit. Yes, that comma is awry, so I've moved it as per your suggestion. Probably my "Confessions of a Plagiarist" piece is not specific enough to meet the "historic" criteria of the comp., but maybe they will consider my Ted Kennedy eulogy.

This is a good chance to have a bit of fun with one's least loved historical figure(s). I'm hoping that many of the Spherieans roundly lampoon their favorite poltroons.

From an online dictionary, Bathos is defined thusly;

ba·thos/ˈbeɪθɒs, -θɔs, -θoʊs/ Show Spelled [bey-thos, -thaws, -thohs] noun
1. a ludicrous descent from the exalted or lofty to the commonplace; anticlimax.
2. insincere pathos; sentimentality; mawkishness.
3. triteness or triviality in style.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Origin:
1630–40; < Greek: depth


Can be confused: bathos, pathos.


Synonyms
2. maudlinness, tearfulness; mush, gush, schmaltz. 3. insipidity, inanity.

So, nothing to do with exploring the ocean depths in a little metal ball then?

Back to the drawing board.

This one's a pig. For me, the main problem is that I see nothing especially bathetic here, just a routine piece of copspeak after two trials that weren't exactly grand tragedy, rather the squalid outcome of petty dishonesty & marital spite.

He wasn't one of the three musketeers was he?

Agreed, Bazza. But that means that it's up to us to invent both the tragedy and the bathos, innit?

Anthony Weiner, NYC mayor?
 

Just when things are getting dull, this comes over the 'net ...

Ex-US Rep. Weiner weighing run for NYC mayor

Wednesday, April 10, 2013 12:40:57 PM

Former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (WEE'-nur), who resigned over a sexting scandal in 2011, says he's weighing a run for New York City mayor this year.

The Democrat tells New York Times Magazine ( http://nyti.ms/10Jnf1d) "it's now or maybe never for me." But he acknowledges that it's a long shot because some people "just don't have room for a second narrative about me."

He says he doesn't know when he'll decide on entering the race, and concedes he'd be an underdog.

Weiner represented Queens and Brooklyn for more than a decade before resigning amid the scandal over his lewd online behavior.

The interview was posted online Wednesday and is scheduled to be published on Sunday.

His wife is Huma Abedin (HOO'-muh AB'-uh-deen), a longtime aide to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

This begs for a bathetic treatment, of the "first narrative " about Mr. Wiener:

How Creepy to Know Mister Weiner
(a text message from a 17 year old girl, to her schoolmates)

How creepy to text Mister Weiner!
When I’d barely turned seventeen
He posted a pic of his wiener,
And claimed it was fit for a queen.

He bragged he was hung like a horse
To all of my Twittering friends.
While his wife’s overseas, he’s the boss;
(When she’s home, he’ll be making amends).

He boasted his “package” was awesome,
As if of gargantuan size.
In high school, I recently saw some
Much bigger, on some of the guys.

As soon as his pictures went viral
He was taken to task by Obama.
His life in D.C. took a spiral;
He’s returned to New York, and his momma.

Now, back at home in Forest Hills,
(Where I doubt that his lifestyle is cleaner);
Just what is he doing for thrills?
That creepy ex-Congressman Weiner.

(I'll have to drop a stanza to make it fit - probably the second one)

Douglas, your pieces are good fun, but I think I should warn you that when the NS specify 150 words, they are expecting prose, and rarely - if ever - accept verse.