[R. S. Gwynn]

John, this may be a form of money laundering.

[Marion Shore]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

We are heading for a takeover of this Speccie thing. I'm waiting for a 100% show.

Today the Nemerov! Tomorrow the Speccie!

[Martin Parker]

Thanks to Marion for the welcome and to Ereme for more genuine-sounding appreciation than I am used to as a webzine Editor!

UNASHAMED PLUG! Those of you who have not yet seen it might like to go to www.lightenup-online.co.uk We have been going for a year and our sixth Issue is due to appear on 1st June -- always provided the dread technology does not defeat me and the friend who is the Technical Dept.! You will recognise a number of our contributors (yes, including B... G........!) as well as our august Moderator and others, many of them proper poets who also want to improve the standing of light verse! A prize will not be given to anyone who recognises my own work under my occasional alias.

Please take a look and send stuff.

Incidentally, the current Comp. is for a hitherto undiscovered sonnet revealing the name and some biog. details of the Bard's Dark Lady.

Over to you.

[Bill Greenwell]

"Congratulations, Sphereans (this now includes Bill Greenwell, whether he likes it or not)."

Thank you. Exclude me in, as Goldwyn didn't say.

And do we think the alphabet is the whole alphabet, or only up to 150 words?

Bill (who can vouch that M***** P***** is not me. We've been in the same room. He is a charming shock-headed teenager with plenty of stamina).

A mighty deep bench? In cricket, erm, probably a surfeit of sad captains...

[John Whitworth]

I thought it was the whole alphabet. In fact I've done the whole alphabet.
I'm not entirely happy with some of it and it actually had the curious effect (what you might call the Stephen King effect) of cheering me up because I don't think the noughties children are QUITE as bad as that. A Stanley Knife is what they call a box-cutter in the USA. FUMPING is THUMPING is Estuary pronunciation, indeed in my pronunciation (Forty fousand fevvers on a frush's froat) Oh, and GBH is Grievous Bodily Harm, the most serious sort of assault.

A is for ASBO and B is for BUNK.
C is for CONDOM and D is for DRUNK

E is for ECSTASY, F is for FUMPING
G is for GBH, H is for HUMPING.

I is ILLITERATE, J is for JERK.
K is for KICKING and L is for LURK.

M is for MUGGER and N is for NIFE.
OP is OLD PERSON begging for life.

Q is for Queer-bashing, R is for Rape.
S is for STANLEY KNIFE, T is duct TAPE.

U is for UNDERCLASS, V is for VILLAIN,
W – WASTING of X-rated chillun.

Y is for YES as they all happy-slap you.
Z is the end when they finally ZAP you.

[Julie Steiner]

John, John, John...I know that they've set a rather grim tone from the get-go with "A is for ABSO," and that the disturbing accumulation of the violent images is supposed to contribute to the humor...but the stuff targeting specific groups absolutely kills the joke for me, perhaps because that violence is no longer safely hypothetical.

What if you disregarded the naughty connotations of our Noughty decade and just focused on current events?

A is for Arrogant, B is for Bankers,
C is for Curse their Can't-Reaches with Cankers...

[R. S. Gwynn]

AB is for asbo, which sounds anti-social.
CD is for something you play while you're motial.
EF plus a U's what you add to a glare.
GH can be F or just silently there.
IJ is In Jail, where you go in Monopoly.
KL is for KingsLey, who never wrote sloppily.
MN is for money, of evil the root.
OP is a golf shirt you wear when you shoot.
QR is a quarterly poetry review.
ST is what's sexually transmitted to you.
UV is what sunglasses bounce from your eyes.
WX and a rag? Simonize!
YZ? Well, Y not? It could win you a pryz.

[Roger Slater]

X and Q have asked me to lodge a complaint on their behalf. But they're just jealous, I think. To hell with them.

[John Whitworth]

Julie, I'm inclined to think you're right, though it seems to me that the competition is asking for it. Sam's seems a much better way to go. Oh well, you can't win 'em all and I've got the Daily Mail vote. I've no idea what the American equivalent of the Daily Mail is, or even if you have one. The children I see about the place seem all right, much the same, about as noisy, fat, criminally inclined, etcetera, as children have always been, and as pretty, charming, funny etc. too. But hell, what do I know? I live in a nice place, what the socially caring tend to call a 'leafy suburb' in a rather dismissive way.

Anyway, I think an important part of poetry is cheering you up - that's the Sir Philip Sidney defence. I think I'll enter a version of this and then forget about it for ever.

[Janet Kenny]

I've just realised that I don't know any Noughties.