[John Whitworth]

Hum! Can it rhyme?

No. 2830: talking shop

You are invited to choose, from different authors, two characters who have the same job or position (e.g. Shakespeare’s Quince and Lewis Carroll’s Carpenter, Mr Collins and Mr Slope, Holmes and Philip Marlowe) and give an excerpt of not more than 150 words from their conversation on meeting. Please email entries to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 8 January.

This article first appeared in the print edition of The Spectator magazine, dated 14 December 2013

[Jerome Betts]

John, any significance in that concluding sentence? Is Lucy moving Vickywards?

[Brian Allgar]

Jerome, I suspect that John simply cut and pasted a bit more than the human frame requires.

[John Whitworth]

No, Jerome. That bit is always there. For some reason I couldn't detach it today.

[Brian Allgar]

“You’re not Alice”, said the Queen of Hearts suspiciously.

“Thou speakest sooth, Lady, I am not. My name is Anne, Boleyn that was, now Queen of England.”

“Stuff and nonsense!” said the Queen of Hearts. “There is only room for one Queen here, and that is me.”

“I’faith, Lady, I know thee not, but this realm is mine, and my coronation shall be long remembered.”

“Coronation?” She snorted contemptuously. “Oh, I’ve had lots of those, sometimes as many as three before breakfast. But I gave them up, as I found they disagreed with my digestion.”

“Alas, Lady, thy meaning escapes me, and urgent affairs of state call me. Steward, ho! Show the lady from the Palace forthwith.”

She left the room, leaving the Queen of Hearts fuming with rage. “What sauce! What impudence! Off with her head!”

The steward eventually appeared, looking flustered, and told her: “‘Tis done, Your Majesty.”

[John Whitworth]

Sidney Carton and Horace Rumpole

I'm Sidney Carton, drunkard, but
In looks I've got it made.
A battered hat and boozer's gut
Are Rumpole's stock in trade.

My love for Lucy is so pure
For her I'd gladly die.
I married Hilda. I'm not sure
I'll ever fathom why.

My life has been a sad pretence
But death transfigures me.
Bloodstains and blunt instruments
Are what I like to see.

I do a better thing by far
That sets my soul on fire.
Pommeroy's and a small cigar
Are all that I desire.

[Brian Allgar]

Vey nice, John. I hope the sucking-up in lines 5 and 6 pays off.

[Rob Stuart]

The exhausted Arab staggered over to the bar and collapsed onto his knees.
‘What manner of land is this?’ he asked.
‘This here is Sweet Haven, swab,’ said a grotesque, muscly little man with a face like a clenched fist. ‘You bin shipwrexed or somethingsk?’
‘I have been carried here in the claws of a roc.’
‘Ak-ak-ak-ak-ak-ak.’
‘Do you mock me?’
‘Rocksk ain’t got no clawsk, dummy!’
The stranger angrily drew his scimitar. The fist-faced man took out a curious metal cylinder in reply and burst it in his hand, unleashing an arc of green slime directly into his mouth. His forearms suddenly enlarged like inflated sheep’s bladders and he delivered a swift uppercut to his would be assailant’s chin, lifting him clean out of his sandals.
‘You needs to eats your spinach,’ the man asserted, tooting a couple of notes on his curiously unlit pipe.

[Brian Allgar]

[Duffy, Pat Kavanagh (Julian Barnes)’s seedy bi-sexual detective, meets Lord Peter Wimsey]


Duffy woke up with a pounding headache. Nothing unusual there; after an unsuccessful night on the prowl, his head often felt like a prize vegetable marrow that had been squeezed into a dwarf-sized steel condom, if such a thing existed - and Duffy hoped to God that it didn’t.

Unusually, however, instead of crashing out in his own dingy flat, he was lying in a four-poster bed in what appeared to be a luxurious apartment.

The door opened, and an elegantly-dressed young man appeared.

“Good morning! How are you feeling today?”

“Where am I?” groaned Duffy, somewhat unoriginally. “And who are you?”

“Wimsey’s the name. Lord Peter Wimsey, to be precise. You were rather the worse for wear after yesterday’s Detective Conference, and I offered to put you up for the night.”

Duffy peered blearily at the svelte figure before him. Yes, there was definitely something fanciable about this toff.

[John Whitworth]

I felt since I had used only 88 words that I might try a longer line. Actually I think the short one is better but I am often wrong. I would be glad of Sphereans' opinions.

Sidney Carton and Horace Rumpole

I'm Sidney Carton, failure, drunkard, but
For frenchified good looks I've got it made.
A battered hat and bellying boozer's gut
Are part of Horace Rumpole's stock in trade.

The girl I love can never be my wife,
But just to touch her hand I'd gladly die.
I married Hilda who infests my life.
For forty years I've tried to fathom why.

My life has been evasion and pretence.
Heroic death can save it from disaster.
Butchery, bloodstains and blunt instruments!
This is the stuff that makes my heart beat faster.

At last I do a better thing by far,
A thing that sets my immortal soul on fire.
A pint of Pommeroys plonk, a small cigar
And a fresh brief are all that I desire.