[John Whitworth]

Ah, this is more like it. Give us some more of the old.

No. 2803: Lost

You are invited to supply a nostalgic poem about a product that is no longer available (16 lines maximum). Please email entries, wherever possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 19 June.

[John Whitworth]

And of course here is a golden oldie I have had here before. If at first, don't you know.

Lost

This was a very small backward-pointing periscope marketed in the 1950s.

Throw out my fangs, my stick-on boils,
My stink bombs, my potato-gun,
My fornicator’s unguent oils,
My exploding rat (just see him run!),
My itching powder by the ton,
My pubic wig, my black face soap,
My cornucopias of fun …
Just bring my old Seebakrascope.

Desires as sweet as chocolate mice,
Desires that nothing else can reach,
Need just this submarine device;
It offers more than books can teach:
Young girls undressing on the beach,
Breasts that would tempt the very Pope,
And bottoms downy as a peach …
Yes, bring my old Seebakrascope.

[Brian Allgar]

Ah, what a compendious bottom drawer you must have, John. I don't know if you were ever a Boy Scout, but you appear to have adopted their motto: "Be prepared!"

[John Whitworth]

I was a boy scout, Brian, but I didn't like it much. I much preferred being wolf cub with a green jersey covered in badges. In was a senior sixer and our cub pack sat on a tiger skin donated by my father.

[Adrian Fry]

'Fornicator's unguent oils', John? What manner of child had those?

[Graham King]

Originally Posted by Adrian Fry

'Fornicator's unguent oils', John? What manner of child had those?

Probably it was all the the sitting on the tiger-skin that started it. (Aphrodisiac body parts, 'tis said...)

[John Whitworth]

No, Adrian, these were just the ads. Actually I rather think I made up the unguent oils. What could they have been? Patchouli is a scent which was supposed to make eastern men irresistible to women What's patchouli, then.

Butter seemed to do it for Marlon Brando.

[Brian Allgar]

Time has become a shoddy imitation;
They try to make us think it’s just the same,
A product built to last for the duration,
But I’ve caught on; I know their little game.

No doubt for reasons of expedience,
They make the stuff much thinner, shorter, meaner;
They’re skimping on the old ingredients,
And time, once plentiful, is growing leaner.

As days and weeks and months and years all dwindle,
And birthdays now come once or twice a quarter,
We’ve been the victims of a monstrous swindle:
The time we’ve bought is running out like water.

The wretched stuff is going ever faster,
Accelerating even as I speak.
We’re heading straight for temporal disaster,
And Christmas will be every bloody week.

[Jerome Betts]

Brilliant stuff , Brian. Hope it fits the rubric.

[Brian Allgar]

I hope so too, Jerome. But with a competition title like 'Lost', what could be more appropriate than temps perdu?