[John Whitworth]

Competition: Distilling DickensBANNED POST

LUCY VICKERY
SATURDAY, 11TH FEBRUARY 2012

In Competition No. 2733 you were invited to condense the plot of a Dickens novel into a triple limerick.
In case you hadn’t noticed, it would have been Dickens’s 200th birthday this week, and this assignment is a modest contribution to the avalanche of Dickens-related events unleashed across the globe by the bicentenary. (Even estate agents have jumped on the bandwagon: ‘Dickens Mania Brings sales boost to Victorian Homes in the Capital’.)
The challenge attracted an enormous and impressive postbag. Well done, one and all. It is a tall order to boil down the great man’s works to 15 lines, and you didn’t shy away from the especially densely plotted doorstops such as Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend.
Honourable mentions go to unlucky losers Nicholas Holbrook, G.W. Tapper, Carolyn Beckingham, Imke Thormählen and Janet Kenny. I am not awarding the bonus fiver this week, but the winners, printed below, pocket a well-deserved £25 each.

An heir fakes his death: Noddy Boffin
Inherits the dung. He’s a toff in
A world that’s uncheering
(Think Podsnap, Veneering)
And as wooden as dolls or a coffin.

Fledgeby, a vicious young dreg,
And a peg-leg peculiar called Wegg,
And others scrounge gems
In the yellow-phlegm Thames,
Although paupers like Betty won’t beg.

The heir reappears, comes to life,
And with Noddy, he cuts through the strife.
There are villains who quarrel,
Drown in ooze (that’s the moral).
But the good guys, hurrah, find a wife.
Bill Greenwell

A scruffy young yokel called Pip
Gives food to a con who’s jumped ship
And whose secret intent
Is to make Pip a gent
While in Oz on a long penal trip.

The barmy old bird at The Hall,
Still dressed for her wedding-day ball,
Tempts Pip with a bint
Who is colder than flint,
Plus the hint of real wealth, I recall.

Then just as Pip’s counting his chickens
The con reveals all and Pip sickens
That his great expectations
Upset his relations.
But the girl’s thawed, Joe’s loyal. What the Dickens?
Martin Parker

In Coketown the chimneys pour smoke,
And the life of the Hands is no joke,
And the millowners get
Untold wealth from the sweat
Of downtrodden working-class folk.

While the Utilitarians measure
All the facts it’s their notion to treasure,
The circus and Sleary,
Expressive and cheery,
Are emblems of Fancy and pleasure.

As in many a novel by Dickens
The plot complicatedly thickens
Till the loose ends are tied
And a moral supplied
By the roosting return of the chickens.
G.M. Davis

In a highly ambivalent age,
See the Jacques and the aristos wage
A mortiferous fight.
Who is wrong? Who is right?
You’ll just need to keep turning the page.

Sidney Carton’s a brief and a drunk
Think your-Byronic-hero-meets-punk)
And the love of his life
Is another man’s wife,
So his hopes of contentment are sunk.

Though the Jacques are aggressive and mean,
They cannot tell the difference between
The two rosbifs and thus,
Without flinching or fuss,
Carton marries Madame Guillotine.
Basil Ransome-Davies

A secret’s beginning to fester
Around the sad heroine, Esther,
Conceived out of wedlock
By proud Lady Dedlock
(Before she had married Sir Leicester.)

Mr Tulkinghorn hounds Lady D
To her death, and then in his turn he
Will die too. But Jarndyce
Grips the plot like a vice,
(A case pending in Chancery.)

And there lies the scandal to slate:
Though the fortune in issue was great,
Those with claims to a share
Are all doomed to despair,
For the costs will exhaust the estate.
Colin Sydenham

Mr Pickwick – three friends – tally ho! –
Hire a coach – see what life has to show –
Stop at inns – journey on –
Somehow stumble upon
Odd adventures wherever they go.

Enter Jingle – they fall for his ruses –
A cricket match – everyone boozes –
Winkle courts Arabella –
Pickwick hires Sam Weller –
Bardell – breach of promise – he loses.

As for me – name of Jingle – bit bent –
Strolling player – behind with the rent –
Done for debt – thrown in Fleet –
Very little to eat –
Mr P. gets me out – what a gent!
Brian Allgar