[Chris O'Carroll]

No 4267
Set by Leonora Casement
We asked for limericks on the subject of food adulteration.

This week’s winners
The biggest postbag for months and months. You do love your limericks! Or, rather, some of you love what you think is a limerick but doesn’t in any way display the correct metre or scansion. Oh, well, you all had immense fun. The winners with two entries get £15 each; the rest can have £5 book tokens. The overall winner, Brian Allgar, also gets the Tesco vouchers.

Our restaurants are now international
And baulking at horse meat’s irrational,
Though I stifled a tear
As I thought how, last year,
My “prime Angus” had won the Grand National.

I’d ordered a well-done filet
Advertised as the dish of the day
But I felt rather silly
When I found it was filly;
One bite and I had to say, “Nay!”
Brian Allgar (2)

The import of horse meat is proof
That prices have gone through the roof.
If it’s cheap food you wish,
Maybe horse meat’s your dish
And it tastes rather nice on the hoof.

Though complex the food chain’s become,
Complexity’s lucky for some.
Dud food makes them profit,
While people who scoff it
End up with a pain in the tum.
David Sissons (2)

“My kingdom,” he cried for a horse!
I care not a jot for its source.”
The horse came on toast
Still tied to a post
And the rest is history, of course.
Una McMorran

There once was a cynical shopper
Perusing the latest cheap offer.
She said with a sigh
As she saw the meat pie,
“Is it dobbin, or Rover, or otter?”

There once were an owl and a pussycat
In search of a reasonable dinner.
The quince was OK
But the mince ran away
And came in a ten-to-one winner.
Alison Keys (2)

Right after a wearying session,
A worker might make this confession:
“I could just eat a horse!”
You should know that, of course,
It’s only a tired expression.
Edmund Conti

No Briton I know of endorses
Using gee-gees as human food sources
But in France scoffing fillies
Gives no one the willies –
It really is horses for courses.

Some are shocked that Romanian stables
Might have put certain meals on our tables.
Though a horse doesn’t moo,
If it makes a good stew,
Who’s concerned? What are species but labels?
Rob Stuart (2)

Could somebody kindly explain
Why we have all these links in the chain?
Are they needed? Come off it,
It’s all about profit,
A gain and a gain and a gain.

Adultery sounds rather lewd,
So how do you apply it to food?
The answer, of course,
Is, if you get horse
When asking for beef, then you’re screwed.
Nicholas Hodgson (2)

A diner said, “Damn it! I’m suing!
What on earth was this beast I’ve been chewing?
Did it spend its life neighing
Or – God forbid! – braying
Instead of in lowing or mooing?”
Jerome Betts

They say that you are what you eat;
Thus, consumers of lamb tend to bleat.
So something was fake
When two lovers of steak
Finished Cheltenham in a dead heat.
Nicholas Holbrook

You know the old ditty, of course,
Of the woman who swallowed a horse
After fly, dog and cat,
Plus a spider – all that
Meant the nag was her ultimate course.
Alanna Blake

My burger is made out of horse,
A shame and a scandal, of course.
It tastes like minced shit
But I don’t mind a bit
So long as they tell me the source.
John Whitworth

When dining with friends in Bordeaux
A Briton asked, “Is it de trop
To reveal to the group
The cheveux in my soup
When I fear that it may be chevaux?”
Sylvia Fairley

[John Whitworth]

If they gave only book tokens that would solve the problem of the bloody banks, wouldn't it? By the way, Brian won three times at least.

[Jayne Osborn]

Brilliant!

Well done Brian, Edmund, Jerome and John. It's even better to win when you know there were masses of entries!

Jayne

[Brian Allgar]

Congratulations all round.

And (to sound a disapproving note) I'm glad to see that none of our lot thought that "shopper/offer/otter" are rhymes, still less "pussycat/dinner".

[John Whitworth]

For a lady called Alison Keys
A limerick is just what you please.
You rhyme and you scan
Whenever you can.
If you can't, then you just shoot the breeze

[Jayne Osborn]

And (to sound a disapproving note) I'm glad to see that none of our lot thought that "shopper/offer/otter" are rhymes, still less "pussycat/dinner".

Hmm,... both from the same entrant. How did they slip into the winners' enclosure?

There once was a lady who won
a limerick contest, although
some words that she used
didn't rhyme very well
and others did not rhyme at all.

[Brian Allgar]

"Or, rather, some of you love what you think is a limerick but doesn’t in any way display the correct metre or scansion."

I love what I think is a limerick;
Though I have but the faintest of glimmerings
What rhyme is, my metre
And scansion are neater,
And that meets the judge’s own thingummies.

[Jerome Betts]

It's great when a new member heads straight for D & A (Jayne O)

And even better when he wins £15! Well done Rob Stuart!

Yes, the otter-offer-shopper business is a bit off.

However, Brian presumably approves of Leonora's acceptance of identities.

[Edmund Conti]

What, that won? What, I sent it in? Hey, you never know. My first here.

[Roger Slater]

Congratulations, winners. (And I say this with all the bitterness in the world).