Eratosphere - Speccie Competition Hocus Pocus

We did very well this week, courtesy of Bill, who got the extra fiver, Bazza and Gail White

In Competition No. 2771 you were invited to provide a rhymed witch’s spell to bring someone or something either good or ill.

Most of you were in cursing mood (though Katie Mallett provided a welcome ray of sunshine: ‘I would cast a spell for happiness…’). Targets included nuisance callers, Bill Gates, leylandii, Downton Abbey and Alex Salmond.

I was tickled by G. Chadwick’s curse, in monorhyme, on Boris Johnson’s barnet — ‘It’s why he polled the lion’s share/ May he start moulting everywhere…’ — and by Dorothy Pope’s ‘Spell to Make a Horrid Teacher Disappear’. Adrian Fry cast a potent cantrip on the creator of Harry Potter: ‘I am but a jealous muggle, J.K. Rowling my bête noire,/ This, a spell concocted for her, out of Voldemort’s grimoire…’

Frank Upton, W.J. Webster and Carolyn Thomas-Coxhead also shone; Alanna Blake was not alone in directing a dose of ill will the judge’s way. The prizewinners, printed below, are rewarded with £25 apiece. Bill Greenwell scoops the extra fiver.

Let our cauldron froth with broth,
That coalitions meet perdition,
And therefore with a giant moth
Let’s bring the mixture to fruition,
Adding to it oil of clove,
A dollop of some week-old scallop,
The split hair of a Michael Gove,
A bookworm gorged on minor Trollope,
A knot of foul, confused intestine,
Wrapped around some plasticine,
With badly matching pants and vest in,
Stirring in a jumping bean.
Confused? Now add some mismatched spices,
The sweat of souls who’ve lost morale;
Let our concoction meet its crisis,
And hand to Heston Blumenthal.
Bill Greenwell

Let the fumes of this oblation
Blow on those of every nation
Who would plot my termination
Out of primitive fixation
With the myth of man’s creation.
Let them feel a transformation
From this gentle inhalation;
Let them breathe a new sensation
Based on love and jubilation
And enjoy the celebration
Of a wise and peaceful station;
Let them understand salvation
Comes from kindly inclination
Not from man’s annihilation.
May this fervent incantation
End God’s savage domination.
Frank McDonald

For him who called me three times three
And phished for my identity,
I mark this pentagram with chalk
And widdershins around it walk.
I call down spiders on his bread
And baby otters in his bed.
For seven years shall he not fail
To find cat faeces in his mail.
When he shall lack the means to live
No man to him shall credit give,
Nor any bank accept his cheques
Nor any woman offer sex,
Go phish he may, but every call
Is routed to the Albert Hall.
So blighted shall the being be
Who phished for my identity.
Gail White

Semolina, tapioca!
In the cauldron, mix with these:
Yellow press — a filthy 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
That weave our spell on Rupert Murdoch:

‘Let the Sky fall, dim the Sun,
May his grubby days be done!
Make the Dirty Digger cleaner —
Tapioca, semolina!’
Nicholas Holbrook

A curse upon the one who sets
The weekly comps, and thus abets
Our pointless, devilish addiction.
Let her pay heed to my prediction
That she’ll fall prey to setter’s curse
And in her rules for prose or verse
Find fudged instructions, typo blips
And other irritating slips
Lead on to ambiguities,
Misleading incongruities
Which soon arouse the compers’ ire.
May she be weekly under fire
From pedants with their pompous moans
And losers with accusing groans
Until she grows a bit more wise
And lets this witch win every prize.
Alanna Blake

I learned to weave a magic spell
On work experience in Hell,
The ideal thing for those who pine
To specialise in the malign.
I take my clothes off, rave and curse,
Play ‘Helter Skelter’ in reverse,
Chant Satan’s name and point my hand
At somebody I cannot stand.
Because I’ve joined the Devil’s cult,
I get a guaranteed result —
The person cursed is then maudit,
A target for catastrophe,
As power, money and success
Give way to failure, friendlessness
Humiliation and disgrace.
So Simon Cowell, watch this space.
Basil Ransome-Davies