[John Whitworth]

The Vice and Folly of Mankind in 16 lines!!! You said a heaping mouthful, Lucy.

No. 2841: VICE VERSE


You are invited to paint an amusing portrait in verse of the vice and folly of humankind. Please email entries (of up to 16 lines), wherever possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 26 March.

[Adrian Fry]

Vice and folly? Us?

[John Whitworth]

You can imagine it, Adrian. You don't have to do it.

[RCL]

Petersburg’s muse restrained, Ayn shrugged
the Soviet sphere, and soon discovered,
far from Russia, a fountainhead
that fed her streams of US pelf
for writing what appeals to youth,
so unaware of their mortality,
dazed by hormones, seeking identity,
routinely resisting all authority
(remember rebels Dean and Brando?)
restricting them through adolescence—
a phase of passing callowness
that’s cruelty when their older, richer
selves, now seasoned second-handers,*
propagate her selfish anthem,
and namesake Rand’d love to lead ‘em!

*people Ayn Rand despises, repeatedly derides

[Douglas G. Brown]

Though blessed with intellect and brawn, man’s born a slave to Folly;
His Gluttony of food and drink results in melancholy.
Man’s Lust infects his flesh and blood with horrible diseases,
And Avarice will make him steal most anything he pleases.

Green Envy eats away man’s soul and torments his existence,
And Sloth will lead him blindly down the path of least resistance.
His Wrath inspires homicide, which loads a million hearses,
While Pride provokes the likes of me to pen insipid verses.

But lovely woman, blessed with grace, inspires admiration
And saves this cus-sed human race from absolute damnation.

[John Whitworth]

Nice one, Douglas, and plenty of brownie points from your significant other, no doubt.

[Rob Stuart]

Other demerits aside, this is probably a bit light on chuckles.


ooooooooooooooooooThey called it MAD for ‘Mutually
oooooooooooo Assured Destruction’. This is how the theory went:
ooooooothe Russians and the Yanks could not afford to go to war, for
olaunching missiles meant the other side would launch theirs in return, and
neither of these nations were inclined to see their greatest towns and cities burn,
oooooooor have their wives and children blasted blind. Alas, those
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooofellows
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooowith the
oooooooooooooooooooooooshoulder stripes turned
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo out to be
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooocomplacent
oooooooooooooooooooooooooo bloody fools.
oooooooooooooThey never guessed islamofascistootypes would
oooooooocome along and rewrite all the rules. These would-be martyrs
ooooreckon they will get a gift of girls post-mortem, so are glad to die
oooooo as well as kill. This is a threat as real as it is evidently mad.

[Adrian Fry]

Ah, Rob, it is also well worth remembering that Chairman Mao actually wanted a nuclear war, feeling that there were a sufficient number of Chinese people on Earth that they would be statistically most likely to survive. Even Stalin didn't go that far.

[Graham King]

Oh, Rob, that is BRILLIANT!
Blindingly, earth-shatteringly so...
I hope you win with it.

Originally Posted by Rob Stuart

Other demerits aside, this is probably a bit light on chuckles.


ooooooooooooooooooThey called it MAD for ‘Mutually
oooooooooooo Assured Destruction’. This is how the theory went:
ooooooothe Russians and the Yanks could not afford to go to war, for
olaunching missiles meant the other side would launch theirs in return, and
neither of these nations were inclined to see their greatest towns and cities burn,
oooooooor have their wives and children blasted blind. Alas, those
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooofellows
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooowith the
oooooooooooooooooooooooshoulder stripes turned
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo out to be
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooocomplacent
oooooooooooooooooooooooooo bloody fools.
oooooooooooooThey never guessed islamofascistootypes would
oooooooocome along and rewrite all the rules. These would-be martyrs
ooooreckon they will get a gift of girls post-mortem, so are glad to die
oooooo as well as kill. This is a threat as real as it is evidently mad.

[Graham King]

There was an acrostic here which I realized belatedly being simply a grim list, not amusing, did not meet the brief (must read those properly before writing!) I don't know how to (or if I can) edit a title once posted. The title would be 'I Floss my Nostrils Daily'. It's one I submitted for Speccie 2797, a comp which I think was called 'do your worst':

I floss my nostrils daily with a toothpick and some thread
I’ve spun from a year’s saved-up navel lint;
I keep a Christmas bauble in that socket in my head
My lost glass eye filled: My, but it does glint!
I shave with a veg-peeler then I peel veg with the same-
For two such tools would be a shame and waste.
I wear the clothes I sleep in, which I salvaged from a skip.
I eat raw silt; it has an earthy taste.
I never use a lighter – shove my ciggies in the fire
Held between my toes: it makes my tootsies brown
While igniting the nicotine (I often smoke a pair
At once so as to keep the effort down.)
I leave cats in my dentist’s waiting room to run about
(Boy, you should hear folks shriek at all their play!)
Then trundle home in someone else’s car I’ve just picked out;
All this outlines my average fun-filled day.