[Martin Parker]

Jerome, having read your Betjeman I have consigned my own to the bin.

I doubt if this one is a goer. But I hope my namesake would have recognised the manner of her exit from many a Round Table lunch --


"Dear Santa," from Dorothy

A limousine? You've still not brought one yet.
This broad now reckons it's her turn to get
a Cadillac, for preference, or an Oldsmobile,
a Studebaker, Pontiac or coupe de ville –
not one more perfect rose:

maybe a Packhard, Chrysler or a Cord
or at the very least a top-range Ford
(though not an Edsel, Santa, I implore).
This dame has pressing need to ask for more
than one more perfect rose

so folk at The Algonquin can applaud
each day when she's post-prandially poured
into a car that reeks, Oy vey! of money's stench.
Dear Santa, super-uber Merry Christmas Mensch,
please not another perfect bloody rose!