New Statesman: Clerihews

John Whitworth · #1 08-13-2010, 03:30 AM

The present competition (Number 4140) is for clerihews featuring any active politician, home grown or foreign. Maximum ten per compeitor to comp@newstatesman.co.uk by 19thb August.

Well, I thought of one in the car. Needs a bit of polishing perhaps?

If Boris
Had been christened Maurice
Would he still bestride London like a Colossus,
Or be just one of those ordinary Old Etonian tossus?

Question - which American politicians have the Brits at the Staggers heard of. Obama and the divine Sarah, I should say. And which Aussies - Rudd, the Welsh lady and the Liberal in the speedos, Tony Adams is it?

basil ransome-davies · #2 08-13-2010, 07:14 AM

I can't get enthused about clerihews. They're too much like verse for people who can't scan. So the deviant form is the basic joke, & the content often not v. witty, reliant on bathos or whimsy. Better Ogden Nash if that's the name of the game.

John Whitworth · #3 08-13-2010, 07:48 AM

Better Ogden in any case. Nevertheless...

George Osborne
Was born
Filthy rich. Wallpaper is
What done the biz.

Orwn Acra · #4 08-13-2010, 09:07 AM

I agree with Bazza. I do like Auden's take on Blake from Academic Graffiti although it's one of the few good clerihews in the collection:

William Blake
Found Newton hard to take
And was not enormously taken
With Francis Bacon.

That's from memory so maybe the punctuation is wrong. Anyway, the "active" politician part really limits it, I think.

basil ransome-davies · #5 08-13-2010, 03:27 PM

Michael Gove
Is an odd-looking cove,
Curiously thin
With an underdeveloped chin

Jerome Betts · #6 08-13-2010, 04:11 PM

Teresa May
Is quite glam in her way.
Her shoes
Are news.

Terese Coe · #7 08-21-2010, 10:06 AM

Sarah H. Palin
felt she could not fail in
her political run
as a scattergun.

Sarah H. Palin
found the oil shale in
her state, and rejoices
now in Rolls Royces.

Sarah H. Palin
shot herself in the tail in
her infamous Twitter
saying she was no quitter.

John Whitworth · #8 08-21-2010, 11:17 AM

And you are allowed seven more. Though they don't ALL have to be about Ms Palin.

Terese Coe · #9 08-21-2010, 04:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

And you are allowed seven more. Though they don't ALL have to be about Ms Palin.

Since the deadline, dear John,
was the sine qua non
I'll write no more stanzas
for this set of bonanzas.

Your friend, T. Coe
(And p.s. below:
the verses were naught
but an afterthought)

John Whitworth · #10 08-22-2010, 01:18 AM

Terese Coe
said, 'I'll have a go.
It's long past the deadline
But what the hell, I'm not on the breadline.'