[John Whitworth]

Lovely, Jerome. Write it on my tomb.

[Jerome Betts]

Thanks, John, though I'm not sure it's thickly and thweet enough to fulfil the rubric.

Messrs Dunn and Yanada's remarkable work seemed a little fluid-obsessed, also observing that 'In the sea there is water' and a page later 'There is water in rivers too.' Much potential peril for felines over there, it seems.

They claimed that if you got to Lesson 30 and read through it and its accompanying conversation 'you should be equipped with what you need for maintaining a comversation on any non-technical subject.'

I never got beyond Lesson 3, but have retained the ability to come out with phrases like 'There's a cat over there, isn't there?' in reasonably authentic tones, much to the shock of any accompanying Japanese friends or students, so perhaps there was method in their madness. Mind you, the cat (or dog or pigeon) has to be at the right angle and distance, not always easy to arrange.

[Esther Murer]

this is off the self-help topic, but I can't resist putting it in:

To my muse

"An example of [sentimentality] might be a poem in which an excess of emotion is lavished on a floor lamp." — Ted Kooser

O lamp, you shed your light
on every word I write.
Even in darkest night
you are so calm and bright
I never need the sun
when the long day is done.
Whether incandescent
or compact fluorescent
you stand there on the floor
as out my soul I pour
into verses galore.
Looking over my shoulder
you make my hand grow bolder.
With you, my muse electric,
my writing pace turns hectic,
my poems begin to smoulder
and soon burst into flame,
like this ode to your name.
May it bring you fame
till all the world, O lamp,
knows that you're the champ!

[basil ransome-davies]

Who's Ted Kooser & what's he got against floor lamps?

[Roger Slater]

Priorities

If every hope you ever had
were stacked to make a tower
and you could climb on top of it
and thereby gain the power

to turn them into facts and deeds,
command them from above,
you would not find fulfillment if
you never hoped for love.

But if you stay down on the ground
and all your hopes but one
crumble, but that hope is love,
you life's work shall be done.

[Roger Slater]

Stiff Upper Lip

Keep a stiff upper lip
when your head's in a noose,
for someday you'll drop
and your lip will be loose.

Till then, I'd advise you:
don't stagger or trip.
As long as you can,
keep a stiff upper lip.

[John Whitworth]

'Priorities' is absolutely sickening, Roger. Well done!

[Janice D. Soderling]

Roger, you could make a fortune with Priorities. Print it in silver on navy cardboard, glue on some sparkly tinsel. You could quit your day job.

John is right. It is absolutely sickening and worthy of the master of the caustic quill.

I think the Stiff Upper Lip one might find a home at a light verse venue.

[Adrian Fry]

My Mother, when I was but three,
Said 'If you act proactively
You're certain to self actualise.'
And lo! weeks later, I turned five.

[Brian Allgar]

Yes, Roger, that is pretty sickening. But I can't help feeling that no one has as yet fully tapped that literary vein whose emetic effect would be comparable to swallowing a bit of bacon rind tied to a piece of string, and then pulling it up by the string.