New Statesman -- use these words -- May 16 deadline
 

No 4275
By Leonora Casement
We want a cogent piece of writing that includes the words: sparrow, destiny, diva, pizza, gecko, blog, don, gestation, Luger, and judge.
Max 150 words by 16 May comp@newstatesman.co.uk

So that could be a poem...
Best kept to 16 lines, do you think?

Absolutely. Lucy sometimes allows poems even when not explicitly called for, but I think they would have to obey the usual rules.

Damn! Wrong competition!

To the best of my knowledge, Vicky at the New Statesman never accepts verse unless specified, which these days is hardly ever. (When you think that once upon a time, the Competition editor was James Fenton ... O tempora! O mores!)

I'm confused. This competition is set by neither Vicky nor Lucy but Leonora! Is that a green flag for verse or not, do we think?

This job was a cinch. I handled it during my lunch-time. Still chewing on my pepperoni pizza, I aimed my Luger. Pow! Whacking this dame was easy as popping a sparrow.

I went to the big house to report my success.

The Godfather was feeding his pet gecko bits of what looked suspiciously like human flesh. He was not happy at my news. “I told ya to take out this stool-pigeon, Frankie Deever, not the diva at the opera! How am I gonna explain to my family that they won’t be going to ‘Don Giovanni’ and ‘The Force of Destiny’?” He went on to suggest that before being born, I had the gestation period of an amoeba.

Well, I’m no judge of music, but I’d once hit on this dame’s blog and listened to her screeching. I considered I’d done the world a service.

The gecko was eyeing me hungrily.

Rob, "Leonora Casement" is, I believe, actually Vicky Hutchings. The fact is, the New Statesman doesn't like verse unless requested. John will tell you it's because they're all lefties.

I’ve never considered it appropriate to judge restaurants in terms of international rankings, but put a Luger to my head and I’d have to say that Pretenzioso is, for my money, the best in the world. Many a food blog has dismissed head chef Al Dente as a talentless diva who is routinely abusive to customers and staff alike and incapable of making a round of toast let alone a five-course meal, but for clever people like me he is nothing less than the don of the New Cooking, brilliant, visionary and absolutely dedicated to the pursuit of perfection; the sparrow and Murray mint pizza was, famously, a full five years in gestation, and it remains uncertain what destiny ultimately awaits the gecko and dog-sneeze smoothie, eight years in development and counting. This is genius, pure and simple, and I assure you that you are not worthy.

With you, Brian. Thanks for the clarification.

Even still, I'm hoping John will favor us with a verse incorporating the words.

During my career in Criminal Autopsy, it was my job to estimate as precisely as possible the time of death from the known gestation period of insects such as Calliphoridae and Sarcophagidae.

Throughout my trial and conviction for malpractice, that damned judge had addressed the jury with all the reticence of an operatic diva. His destiny with death was richly deserved.

Having shot him with my Luger, I then had to disguise the crime scene to give myself an alibi.

Before my release, I’d found a dead sparrow and a crushed gecko in the prison yard. Now, pausing only to don surgical gloves, I carefully transferred the insects and maggots to the corpse. I did the same with some well-rotted pizza I’d found in a dustbin. His death would appear to have occurred while I was still in prison.

For further information, see my blog: Memoirs of a forensic entomologist.

It IS because they are all lefties. Also because they are uncultured and ignorant. Not YOU of course, Vicky. The best English poets since 1950 are self-evidently, Larkin, Betjeman, Wendy, Ann Drysdale and me. Are you with me so far? All of us rhymers and Daily Telegraph rustlers. Except perhaps for Ann. I imagine she rustles the South Wales Argus or whatever it is. However she can speak (probably gnomically) for herself. There is also the case of the divine Sophie Hannah who glories in her Comprehensive schooling and is now incredibly rich through the writing of psychological detective stories which are much harder to read than her poems. I am, however, a fan. I wonder where she sends her children to school?

I'm working on that poem. The difficult word is Luger. Do they still have Lugers or is it a historical gun, belonging to the German Officers who crossed the Rhine. Did we not have Brownings in them days?

Did anyone else, reading half-aloud John's phrase referring to German officers crossing the line, add an involuntary "parlez-vous"? More to the point, did John?

Well of course I did, Ann. And inky-pinky to you too. Is it the South Wales Argus?

What rhymes with "Luger"? Well, there's "Beluga", but it would be unsporting to shoot sturgeon for their caviar. And conservationists would be unhappy if you knocked off a cougar.

I feel, when I hear a Bach fugue, a
Desire to reach for my Luger

... nah.

I'm working on that poem. The difficult word is Luger. Do they still have Lugers or is it a historical gun, belonging to the German Officers who crossed the Rhine. Did we not have Brownings in them days?

John,

I don't know if Lugars are still manufactured, but thousands of the originals are still around. They are mostly in the hands of collectors, since they have considerable historical value. They are still eminently shootable. There are numerous currently-made pistols based on the Lugar design. (When the patents on a gun design expire, the good ones are copied by other manufacturers.)

I have my grandfather's Browning shotgun (from the 1920's), which is still in good operating condition. Mr. Browning was a genius in firearm design, and guns of his design are still being made. He designed pistols, rifles, and shotguns. The Browning Automatic Rifle saw wide use in WW2 by the USA.

BTW, I live about 50 miles due south of where Hiram Maxim was born and raised. You probably know about his talents in gun design.

Properly cared for, firearms can last for generations. So, your protagonist could well be blazing away with his/her Lugar. Or, dodging bullets or shotgun pellets from a Browning.

The judge was a gecko, the first of his kind.
The lawyer, of course, was a sparrow.
A diva had gotten herself in a bind
By shooting a frog with an arrow.

"A Luger, of course, for killing a frog
Who is not undergoing gestation,
Would be legal according to Don Tadpole's blog,"
Said the judge, after much cogitation,

"But destiny picked out a weapon for you
With laws that are not as precise.
Bailiff, bring pizza! I'll know what to do
By the time I've consumed my third slice!"

Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim gun, and they have not.

And do not forget that the very superior Whitworth Gun failed to win the Civil War for the South. It was a matter of the shortage of the special hexagonal shells. American weapons are sometimes not very good but they are easy to make in large numbers.

John,
Are you any relation to the maker of the Whitworth gun? Or, to the company which made the Whitworth nuts and bolts of 1950 era British cars?

I could have taken a Luger to Lew Grade for not funding my film noir project in the sixties, stalling my destiny for decades. Business is tougher now. Nobody can predict box-office success: audiences are fickle; outsider risks put money in the bank (who the heck imagined Depp cast as some gecko?!!!) More recently I’d targeted Carey Mulligan for my lead. But since playing Sally Sparrow opposite Tennant’s Doctor Who, her career’s taken off; she’s unaffordable!- doesn’t even return my calls, the little diva!
So… what sells? Rom-Coms need big names; sci-fi schlock (some Alien gestation doomfest?)… or fantasy wizardry? But today’s viewer is too apt to don judge’s garb, panning our special effects on some nitpicking blog while loading up with pizza. Big bangs don’t come cheap; but any shot that’s not state-of-the-art execution won’t survive the attack.
Which brings me back to dark thoughts of that Luger.

We Whitworths are all one. Sir Joseph Whitworth is indeed a relative of mine, as is (was) Air Commodore Whitworth who had a part in the Dambusters raids. Alas I cannot claim kin with the distinguished counter-tenor. Though perhaps...

Nice one, Graham. Lew Grade's Muppet connection feels like something of a burthen here.

Cheers Carolyn! And respect for the clever bods who posted theirs, above.

“My obsessive-compulsive wordplay starts at breakfast, when cooking porridge leads (via brose, ambrosia and gruel) to ‘Luger’. Thence, I take a shot at eating… ‘I Shot’… the porridge IS hot! Oats tinge my thoughts: gestation of ideas. Stirring it, I ponder: consistency, density… destiny. Is this my fate? Perpetual thesaurus entanglements, associations, anagrams? Who can judge? Not I, Toni. I finish my bowlful; full, bow to don a pullover with a nod and shrug.
Suddenly I look through the window: wow! din of birds… Evidently those sparrows’ ethos allows rows: spar, they do! Noisily competing for a date, a mate, nest made, eggs laid, hatching to time. A gecko scampers, as if electrified by their shocking energy (‘AC's amperage socks it to me').
Likewise until suppertime: microwave zapping pizza with pizzazz, ping! Then zzzz…
I blog keenly about myself, avid but no diva, to encourage others sharing this OCD, Doc.”

Christ, Graham, my head hurts just reading that!

When she was threatened on her blog by a Luger-wielding judge from Baden-Baden, she simply laughed it off. When he sent her a slice of gecko pizza, the little foetuses frozen in gestation inside the Mozzarella bubbles, she dismissed him as a nut-job.
But when he compared her Madame Butterfly to the twittering of a sick sparrow, the diva knew she needed to regain control of her own destiny. Pausing only to don her Queen of the Night costume, she travelled south to the German spa town and slit his throat.

Not sure if cogent applies in this case -

There are six million Lugers in Berlin.
That’s a fact – it’s not up to us to judge.
We must don our shawls and bow beneath the sky.

There are two million geckos in Harbin.
That’s the truth – it’s a fact we cannot fudge
and I’ll blog about statistics till I die.

I’ve spent my whole life waiting in gestation,
struggling in this diva nation.
It’s my destiny to love you till I die.

There are five million sparrows in Cochin.
Yes it’s true – and they do not hold a grudge
even when they end up in a pizza pie.

The great experiment is complete: mutated reptile embryos’ tailored gestation, harvesting- and successful integration! Chameleon- and python-derived mouthparts equip me to snare, despatch with poison then swallow (whole) small passing prey (a sparrow or rat) in one slick flick and gulp. Gecko skin transplants facilitate climbing; scale armour insulates: no walls nor electrified barbs hinder me! My old Kommandant would exult, had his own Luger not concluded his premature despair. In exile I perfected our project. I chuckle: recalling panicked rumours, blogs by would-be investigative divas, even news reports that my nightly excursions triggered: ‘chupacabra’, indeed! What if I find my taste now for live stock, not sauerkraut; brats rather than bratwurst; peons more than pizza? Cold-blooded? Yes; the Komodo dragon brain implant enhances ruthlessness; I remain cool under pressure. Indeed, I maintain an unblinking chill as the judge dons his robe to rule on my destiny.

Gestation was the right word for it. The embryonic idea grew inside
him like another evil about to be born. Pascal knew the only way
to convince the crime desk was to show them the body of the sparrow.
Piaf was the murderers nom-de-plume, something they all knew
from the Don’s Blog entry. What they needed now was hard evidence:
the pizza delivery had been at one AM, but after that there was little
to go on. The gecko calling card could have been left by anyone,
though it matched the tattoo. The Luger had no trace of being fired.
If he was right, the next diva to die would be Claudette; that was
her destiny, and he must stop it at all costs. Monsieur Benoit, the
judge who lived on rue St. Martine was guilty, he’d always known it...

Maria's Sister

Pizza with hair in worn proudly on bonces
Hell on a high wire, a diva who fences
Dim, feckless fellows when bouncing on springs
Such are the thoughts that a troubled mind brings!

Blog-battered starlings as bold sparrow chortles
Bought judge and paid judge pan high-handed mortals
Kangaroos answer the phone when it rings
Such are the thoughts that a troubled mind brings!

Girls with a Luger don holsters on dresses
Gecko gestation that nature suppresses
Destiny outfits all mankind with wings
Such are the thoughts that a troubled mind brings!

When the pill bites, when the truth stings
When I'm feeling sad,
I simply remember illogical things
And then it's assured - I'm mad!

.