[Jayne Osborn]

Goody, back to poems after last month's prose comp. We don't want an udder one of those!
Plenty of scope with this one.

Jayne

COMPETITION NO 163
By Tessa Castro

The English Tourist Board (or VisitEngand, all one word, as it now calls itself), is promoting the country under the slogan
‘Look, Dad, a cow.’ Write a poem with that title, please, applying it in any way you wish. Maximum 16 lines.

Entries to ‘Competition 163’ by post (The Oldie, 65 Newman Street, London W1T 3EG), email comps@theoldie.co.uk or fax (020 7436 8804) by 3rd May 2013.

Don’t forget to include your postal address.

[Roger Slater]

I don't understand why anyone thinks that is a good slogan for English tourism. Am I missing something? Don't most people have the ability to view cows in their own countries?

[John Whitworth]

I think the idea is that city children are unlikely to have seen a cow or to connect it with milk. We country folk are in the minority, hayseeds that we are.

The sheep is forlorn but the cow is forlorner,
Standing in a field with a leg at each corner.

[Brian Allgar]

And I'm told that there are children in France who are convinced that fish are rectangular creatures covered in breadcrumbs.

[basil ransome-davies]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

I think the idea is that city children are unlikely to have seen a cow or to connect it with milk. We country folk are in the minority, hayseeds that we are.

The sheep is forlorn but the cow is forlorner,
Standing in a field with a leg at each corner.

Though John is very,
Very witty,
Canterbury
Is a city.

[John Whitworth]

Ah but I live in Rough Common close by the village of Blean. Cows and sheep and geese and even the odd fox. Hayseeds, as I said, Bazza.

[basil ransome-davies]

I know Blean Woods well, lovely spot, used to roam there as a kid, but I don't think 'hayseeds' lived there even then. (I first knew Canterbury when a good deal of its was bomb sites).

[Graham King]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

...
The sheep is forlorn but the cow is forlorner,
Standing in a field with a leg at each corner.

Is this cow a mythically-giant one, then, or is its 'field' a mere patch?

[Jerome Betts]

A cow! A cow! My kingdom for a cow!
Ah no, my boy, it was another beast,
But if the wretched Richard lived here now
He might well find them transposed at the feast . . .

[Brian Allgar]

In other words,

Cow course
Now horse.