[John Whitworth]

Interestingly, King Lear supplied a model for two of today's winners, one being the redoubtable Bill Greenwell. I won (with prose much to my surprise and delight) with A A Milne and there was The Wind in the Willows also represented - ah the reading matterof today's pensioners when they were children!

Wendy Cope wrote something that would do here - in her first book I think.

NO. 2722: occasional verse
You are invited to supply an all-purpose poem for state occasions (16 lines max). Please email entries, if possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 9 November.

[Roger Slater]

Congrats, John. I knew you could be prosaic if you tried.

Why are the words "BANNED POST" surrounding the email address (at least for me)? Likes so: toBANNED POSTlucy@spectator.co.ukBANNED POST

[John Whitworth]

I don't know. They were over the whole thing till I took them out. I'll take this one out too. Thanks for the congrats.

[Lance Levens]

Good work, John!

[John Whitworth]

Thank you, Lance. Now here's my Occasional.


Occasional

State occasions are truly enticing
To ordinary birds and their blokes.
We rejoice at a birth or a splicing,
We are sad when a VIP croaks.

We worship the sight and the sound
Of the nobs in their coaches and carriages
Who are most of the time to be found
At Fortnum & Mason or Claridges.

At the end of the day we 'll be pissed,
Which will make the occasion Right Royal,
And a Union Jack in each fist
Just shows we are frightfully loyal.

And frightfully loyal we are,
We were and we ever shall be.
The monarchy wins the cigar
'Cos a monarch is our cup of tea.

[Martin Parker]

Whatever the weather, at all State events
we wait in our thousands, excitement intense,
for the chance of a glimpse of a well-practised smile
affixed to its owner for mile after mile,
for the clatter of horses, the thrill of the band
and the minimal wave from a royal white-gloved hand.
No matter we’re stuck at the back of the crowd
and can see very little we’re all of us proud
of the stage-managed grandeur and bling by the ton --
Ruritanian pomp in its fast-setting sun,
a relic of times when our monarchs were head
of a globe mainly coloured a comforting red
where folk of all creeds and all colours would sing
God Save who we’d told them would now be their King.