[John Whitworth]

I don't know anybody posh except maybe you guys.

[FOsen]

Wasn't there a Posh Spice? I always get a kick around Halloween, when "Pumpkin Spice" starts to appear in the stores - I imagine her as the large one they had to kick out.

Frank

[John Whitworth]

She was supposed to be posh but she married David Beckham so she clearly wasn't. Common as muck. But rich.

[Adrian Fry]

I think it fair to say that most serious racegoers hate Ladies Day. It is a sideshow that has outgrown its circus. Depict bolt together limo-loads of call centre girls from Slough disgorging drunkenly on the Ascot sward and you'll be in with a chance.

[John Whitworth]

Adrian, I expect you are right. But I've never been to the races in my life though I think I once went to the dogs in Edinburgh. I think I did. So my poem is an essay in pure fiction. Incidentally, do they still quote odds like 100 to 8?

[Lance Levens]

I wish we scruffians from the colonies could use The Kentucky Derby with its mint juliped ads and Daddy Warbucks chomping his stogy as Secretariat leaves the glue brigade in the dust, but this sounds as if the specific locus in quo must be employed.

[Chris O'Carroll]

But, Lance, even scruffy Colonials can access the Internet. We can check out Ascot's own website. And we can look up any number of Ladies Day articles that feature mind-boggling arrays of hat photos. Really, these gals make Princess Beatrice at William and Kate's wedding look like a bashful schoolgirl in a sedate beret. If sweetly divine angels look like this, my guess is that St. Peter is handing out tabs of acid at the Pearly Gates.

[John Whitworth]

In my youth there was a man who designed a new hat for his mother every year. And every year the hat was on the front page. Ah, the gays were giants in those days. Therewas also a bookie on the course called Prince Bagration or some such, who carolled forth 'I gotta horse!'

No, Prince Bagration is from somewhere else, Georgia (the real original one) actually. And you, Lance, can know as much about all this as I do.

[Adrian Fry]

John, I think the hat designer you are thinking of was Mrs Shilling. And the exotic racing tipster was Prince Monolulu. Racing was an exotic and raffish game then. I recall games of 'find the lady' being played for money in the racecourse car park. That wouldn't happen at Ascot, though.

[Ann Drysdale]

No, John - that was Prince Monolulu (His name was actually Pete McKay) and his first really good tip came in at 100 to 6. He was more of feature of Epsom than Ascot, being a much-loved Londoner.

He is supposed to have been murdered by Jeffrey Bernard.

The horse was called Spion Kop. Anyfink else I can do you for, Guv'nor?

Aha - cross-posted with Adrian (Hello, Adrian!).