The Oldie ''The Wrong Kind of Apple'' comp by 24th July
 

Here you go - some info that might help...7000 varieties and the 18 you actually need to know about

Jayne

The Oldie Competition
by Tessa Castro

Competition no 192
For pies, bobbing, giving to the teacher or anything else, you need the right kind. A poem please called “The Wrong Kind of Apple’’. Maximum 16 lines.
Send your entries in by post (The Oldie, 65 Newman Street, London W1T
3EG), fax (020 7436 8804), or email comps@theoldie.co.uk to ‘Competition No 192’ by 24th July.
Don’t forget to include your postal address.

The Wrong Kind of Apple

Prince Paris was given an apple
Which he gave to a goddess, and then
The impetuous boy
Caused the burning of Troy
And the ruin of millions of men.

Fot it wasn’t the right kind of apple,
Being probably more of a fig,
And everyone knows
If you eat one of those
Then the scope for disaster is big.

Mother Eve ate the wrong kind of apple
Because of a snake in the grass,
And the terrible cost
Was Paradise Lost
And Humanity out on its arse.

In the fresco in the Sistine Chapel it's fig. I bet you didn't know that.

I really thought I could beat you to this one, John, having written just such a poem which I'd entered for a competition somewhere else a while ago. I found it, copied it, checked before post-pasting it - and discovered that it's a winner in the aforesaid comp. Bugger. Now I'll have to write another one.

I'm going to Ledbury soon, though, staying on a cider-farm where all the cottages are called after apples. I'll sup the golden nectar and think between hiccups.

And between reading your post, John, and posting mine, I discover that your peach/plum has become a fig, and a reference to the Sistine Chapel has appeared where I swear no such thing was before.

This business of moderators editing stuff without trace is seriously disturbing to those of us who are inclined to question their sanity when things go weird.

It may be an Eratosphere perk, but to my mind it is a custom more honoured in the breach than the observance. And why is there no emoticon for a tut-driven sniff?

Youareright, Ann. I had thought the apple was a peach or something, but found it was a fig. I should have owned up but I didn't think anyone had seen it. I am very contrite.

Do send me your winning poem.

I shall email it forthwith. You are forgiven.

Aaaah! How nice! Better than mine perhaps so I'm glad it's out of contention. A worthy winner.

If you eat the wrong kind of apple
Like some tragic fairytale miss,
I hope that some dashing young chap’ll
Arrive to supply you a kiss.

Had Tell shot the wrong kind of apple
From off his son Walter’s fair head,
Perhaps he’d have then had to grapple
With killing his offspring stone dead.

For Newton the wrong kind of apple
Meant one that rremained on the tree.
He’d sigh ‘Just one gourd in my lap’ll
Make gravity lucid to me.’

In Eden the wrong kind of apple
Was any that grew there at all.
They teach you about it in chapel
(It led to our First Parents’ Fall.)

Jazz hands, laurel wreath, worshipful respect & much else to Ann Drysdale for knowing (as few seem to) that 'more honoured in the breach than the observance' does not mean 'more commonly breached than observed'.

Indeed, Bazza, but Ann knows all, as we all know.