[Chris O'Carroll]

No 4289
By J Seery
J K Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, recently published a thriller called “The Cuckoo’s Calling” under the pen name Robert Galbraith. We want you to send in excerpts from an attempt at something different from an author of your choice.
Max 150 words by 29 August comp@newstatesman.co.uk

[John Whitworth]

Looks very promising. For a New Statesman Comp that is.

What about this. An old one of mine given a tweak. It could be any manifesto o course but this IS the Staggers.

The Larkin Conservative Manifesto

Elect us! We are Unsuccess.
Elect us! We will give you less.
The misery of Adam's curse
Will be immeasurably worse.

You would be foolish to suppose
That any measure we propose
To ameliorate your children's lot
Will come to pass, for it will not.

Our country's future is confusion.
All hopes of growth are an illusion.
Take courage! Drain the bitter cup.
We promise taxes will go up.

Elect us! We will bring you grief,
The withered rose, the shrivelled leaf.
The Torch of Freedom burned to ash,
And Britain sold for foreign cash.

[Rob Stuart]

Jilly Cooper writes for Doctor Who

The Doctor was holding Arabella tightly against his heaving, masculine chest, and even though they were in mortal danger she couldn’t help but swoon a bit about that!!!
From their super, super hiding place behind the TARDIS' to-die-for designer console (a snip at 9999.99 hyper-credits from Liberty’s of Zaxxar VII, if you must know!!!) they now had the most perfect view of the Daleks searching for them. Arabella thought they looked like absolute poppets with their darling ray guns and those simply blissful little eye stalks, but the Doctor knew better.
‘Make no mistake,’ whispered the handsome Gallifreyan in a way that made her go even more tingly than she was already, ‘these are ruthless alien killing machines.’
‘Not ruthless alien filling machines like you then!!!’ she burst out, making a clever (and rather naughty!!!) little pun.
‘Exterminate!!!’ said the Daleks.

[Rob Stuart]

Brian Sewell does the football results

Aldershot, 3. Dartford, 1. A tiresomely predictable result.

Braintree, a dreary little Essex town that no British painter worth his salt ever considered immortalising on canvas, an entirely unsurprising 0. Hereford, 1. Tedious beyond endurance.

Gateshead, a robust if typically northern 2. Grimsby, in keeping with its unusually apposite cognomen, 0.

Hyde, 3. Southport, though it pains me deeply to say it, 2. The referee, although to my mind he is quite unworthy of the title, was entirely wrong in disallowing the eximious goal from Southport striker Hattersley in the last minute of injury time. The man is an incompetent nincompoop, hopelessly in thrall to the panjandrums of the Football Association and their fashionable, politically-correct rules.

Tamworth, 0. Macclesfield, 0. Incredulity is the only reasonable response of the sane man to such an execrable score, even if he is working class.

[John Whitworth]

I think that is very funny (and very true - God, how tedious football is) but I wonder whether it stays within the rules.

[Rob Stuart]

Moot point, I reckon. We shall see.

[John Whitworth]

Here's another Larkin. I've got baldy on the brain.

Philip Larkin Introduces His Agony Column

I read the wretched wrecks of dreams and hopes.
I trace the tracks of tears, so wan and ghostly.
I see the letters in their envelopes,
And the addresses, neatly written mostly.
You have to keep your spirits up, you must
Preserve the possibility of better.
Your past and future crumble into dust
And yet you find the strength to write a letter
To me, to me. Because? Because to tell
Your sadness and your suffering amends them?
The wounds you bare here never will be well,
You know, I know, we know that nothing ends them.
Something far back, too far, was bad begun.
No comfort save the lack of comfort. None.

[stephenspower]

What mighty contests rise from trivial things
Such as the New York Jets' late fumbling.
Thrice rung the bell, the slipper knock'd the ground,
Then the two-minute warning came around.
O say what stranger cause, yet unexplor'd,
Forced Sanchez to throw deep, not kneel down, bored.
The dream that hover'd o'er the safety's head
Was lived; he caught the quail ere it fell dead,
And thus in whispers said, or seem'd to say,
The endzone and the win are thataway.
With golden crowns and wreaths of heav'nly flow'rs
The Patriots escaped the meadowed bower.

[Douglas G. Brown]

Wal-Mart hemorrhages cash,
McDonalds had a major crash,
Exxon passed its dividend,
And Google’s in a downward trend.

The Chairman of the mighty Fed
Was murdered as he slept in bed,
And turmoil in the Middle East
Has made the bear a raging beast.

The latest hedge-fund Ponzi scheme
Surpasses Madoff’s wildest dream.
Foreclosures reached a record high,
Though no one knows exactly why.

Without a paddle, up the creek,
Wall Street had a brutal week.
(Though, looking at the brighter side,
Cuba’s Castro finally died.)

[John Whitworth]

I think these poems all extremely amusing but it is well known the Staggers has a tin ear. Socialism in Britain is a very prosy thing. Though that was not always so.