[Adrian Fry]

Brian, I love your poem but respectfully suggest it does not fit the rubric, time not being a product. I'm sure it will be, when the wretched Tories win the next election, but not yet.

[John Whitworth]

Well, you never can tell with rubrics, can you? Do you really think the Tories will win the next election, Adrian? Surely it's Labour's turn to cock it up.

[Brian Allgar]

You may be right, Adrian, although Lucy (unlike the NS) is usually good at evaluating the results with a view more to the spirit than the letter. And it could be said that the concept of time is a 'product' of our own consciousness.

Time will tell, if there's any of it left by then.

[Douglas G. Brown]

(Since 1923, the American “dollar bill” has borne the portrait of George Washington. Originally these were "Silver Certificates"; redeemable on demand in silver dollar coins, and later in silver bullion. In 1963, these Silver Certificates were replaced by "Federal Reserve Notes". All redemption of remaining Silver Certificates in silver ceased on June 24, 1968.)

The President on the dollar
(George Washington, by name);
If he could speak, would holler,
“My dollar ain’t the same!”

The gentlemen and scholars
Who Washington extolled
Believed in silver dollars
Convertible to gold.

But now our dollar’s paper
Propped up by public trust.
Who knows what Wall Street caper
Might turn ’em all to dust?

And when the big-time bankers
Get into fiscal messes;
How quick those feckless wankers
Crank up the printing presses.

[Martin Parker]

I am confident this one fits the rubric though it will mean nothing to those whose memory of the product and whose love of cricket's most famous poem are less intense than mine.
But will Lucy accept the idea of parody? Or is it pastiche? And can someone explain the difference to me in really simple terms? I thought I knew but find knowledge declining with advancing years -- though opinions become more didactic by the day!

It is little I repair to the sweetshops of the modern folk
Though my inclinations there may blow.
It is little I repair to the sweetshops of the modern folk
Since they lack the unwrapped toffee blocks by Sharps which used to show
Just how dentistry for first teeth could reach sweetly painful heights.
Now what I see are user-friendly, neatly packaged flights
Of regimented wrappers holding pre-ordained-sized bites
As my childhood memories flicker to and fro,
To and fro:
O my hammered shards of stickjaw long ago.

Now I peer through sweetshop windows with a sense of sharp dismay
At the lack of dental challenge of the products on display.
And I stand there salivating for a too-long-bygone day
As my childhood memories flicker to and fro,
To and fro:
O my “Sharps The Word For Toffee” long ago.

[John Whitworth]

I think the idea is that a parody pokes fun at what is parodied whereas a pastiche does not. I write pastiches I think. Lucy ought to know the poem whether or not she thinks rightly about cricket. I find too many woman come up short here, as with P G Wodehouse.

[Brian Allgar]

Martin, I remember “Sharps The Word For Toffee” . But I have no idea what cricket's most famous poem might be.

[Jerome Betts]

O my Hornby and my Barlow long ago! Brian, the Parisian fleshpots have clearly lured you away from the Great Game and stopped Martin's vehicle in its tracks in your case. At Lord's by no less than Francis 'Hound of Heaven' Thompson. The link below will give you the text. Have it by heart by tomorrow morning and in the meantime report to Mr Whitworth for nets if you're to stand any chance of a place in his eleven

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket_poetry#At_Lord.27s

[John Whitworth]

Brian, you can be long stop. Martin will open the batting.

[Brian Allgar]

Jerome and John,

When I was at school, I was obliged to play both cricket and rugger. (I use the word "play" in its loosest possible sense.) The advantage of the former was that, unlike rugger, it took place in dry weather. The drawback was that it went on much longer.

Perceiving my total ineptitude for the sport, they tried me out at scoring, but abandoned the idea when they realized that I was recording anything between 4 and 9 balls per over.

After that, they put me on the field somewhere that they thought I could do the least harm. I've forgotten the names of the positions, but they were usually rather deep and extremely silly.