Speccie: In a Jam
 

Well blow me down. I submitted FOUR dashed poems this time and not even an Hon Mensh. However, the winners were exceptionally good, Bazza and Bill as usual up with the field. Hope springs eternal, does it not, Sphereans? The new competition is not only a beezer, but I actually have a poem already. I wrote it four years ago when I was taking my daughter to this godforsaken place every weekday for ten weeks (a hospital placement). Actually, there are now TWO bridges so the hold-ups don't happen. But they did. They did. The poem has been into many competitions and been runner-up a couple of times. Let's see if we can have a win. Oh, and you lot, let's see if you can have wins too.

No. 2662: In a jam
You are invited to submit a poem composed in the midst of a travel hold-up (16 lines maximum). Entries should be submitted by email, where possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 25 August.

Sheppey Bridge.

We’re crawling, nose-to-tail, to what must be
The bridge. This place is featureless and flat,
No trees, no houses, bugger all to see
Except the bridge and there’s a lot of that.
A siren wails enough to wake the dead,
A funnel slides along, the bridge goes up,
The traffic stops. We stop. All lights are red.
A solitary heron’s slow flip-flap
From west to east and then from east to west
Stops Time. Round here that happens quite a lot.
The siren wails again, the bridge goes down,
A dozen lorries trundle to the town,
Then Holland, Istanbul and Bucharest.
It ought to be romantic but it’s not.

jam today
 

Four, John? Suffering Jesus, I can barely write one by the deadline. I guess the most familiar association here is the traffic jam (bottleneck, gridlock, tailback, whatever), but note that 'travel hold-up' offers a lot of scope. I could tell you tales of delay & frustration at Barcelona airport when Iberia pilots were working to rule, four hours of hell waiting for an Easyjet flight at Liverpool long before it was John Lennon, a shed crammed with aggressive, drunken, chain-smoking scousers (& that was only the women)...

Well, to tell you the truth, Bazza, I didn't write three of them for the competition. I just changed their titles to the title of a book. Which, perhaps, is why they weren't quite what was wanted. And when I think of it I have a good 24 line poem about airports. I reckon I could doctor it. The thing about delays in airports is, if you are frightened of flying, as I am, then a part of you doesn't WANT the aircraft to arrive. And if you are flying by the Greek of the Irishman, that could very easily happen. Actually it's not the flying, is it? It's the taking off and landing.

fear & loathing
 

Not to mention the general atmosphere of paranoia involved in air travel.

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So, Don, going up you would be burned to death, but going down you would simply be smashed to smithereens. Shelley Berman, years ago, said it al. Which won't prevent me saying it again.

I take it, Don, you have never flown by Ryanair. No, I thought not. Ryan (the living proof that not all Irishmen are charming) is thinking of ripping out the seats and making us stand for short haul flights.

Rep’s Rondeaubout

Traffic jams are so much fun—
better far than boring meetings.
Get the week’s expense claim done!
Phone a friend with cheery greetings!
Never worry when you’re late—
fast lane life won’t take you far.
Some things are in league with fate—
traffic jams are.

John,
You're not confusing Michael Ryan, the Hungerford massacre monster, with Michael O'Leary, Ryanair boss, are you?

It was O'Leary who once summed up the 'no frills' airline (which, incidentally, in terms of profit and passenger air miles, is now the biggest in the world) in his own broad Irish, inimitable way: "It's just a fucking taxi!"
Even so, I've never had to stand up in a taxi.

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