[Jerome Betts]

Bring me Hunting Gothic Corbels,
Please, dear Santa, on your sledge,
Also, Mackintosh’s Gorbals,
And Lost Views of Wenlock Edge.

Poor old Archie keeps on moulting;
Soon he’ll be a furless bear;
People say he looks revolting,
So bring garments he can wear.

Clothes for me spell needs more flagrant–
As an ancient rhyming ham
I want khaki shorts, all fragrant
With the musky scent of Pam.

But, should this appear too shocking,
You’ll assuage my senile lust
If you leave within my stocking
A blow-up Peggy Purey-Cust!

[John Whitworth]

That is very good. Dammit!

[Jerome Betts]

Many thanks, John. Competition is already very hot on this one. Brian, I didn't notice your shocking-stocking rhyme before I posted

[Martin Parker]

Jerome, having read your Betjeman I have consigned my own to the bin.

I doubt if this one is a goer. But I hope my namesake would have recognised the manner of her exit from many a Round Table lunch --


"Dear Santa," from Dorothy

A limousine? You've still not brought one yet.
This broad now reckons it's her turn to get
a Cadillac, for preference, or an Oldsmobile,
a Studebaker, Pontiac or coupe de ville –
not one more perfect rose:

maybe a Packhard, Chrysler or a Cord
or at the very least a top-range Ford
(though not an Edsel, Santa, I implore).
This dame has pressing need to ask for more
than one more perfect rose

so folk at The Algonquin can applaud
each day when she's post-prandially poured
into a car that reeks, Oy vey! of money's stench.
Dear Santa, super-uber Merry Christmas Mensch,
please not another perfect bloody rose!

[Sylvia Fairley]

Zepheniah, perhaps - all the presents (except the turkey) are in a Christmas gift catalogue that's just plopped through my door...


If yu wanna be kind dis Christmas
Dis is the stuff I like,
A bubble-wrap suit an dem jelly beans
An a Jedi dat glows in de dark.
Den dere’sTerry de swearing turtle
An de soap dat’s a gnome on a rope, hey!
An one of dem singing egg timers
Dat mek music an play reggae.
An a Borat mankini, an whistling keys
An mebe a onesie an a spud-firing gun,
An I wanna have one of dem turkeys,
Cos a turkey is cool an likes fun,
It could hip-hop along wid de turtle, yu see,
An mek friends wid de gnome on a rope,
For dis is de moment fe yu an fe me
To mek dis a christmas WID LUV.