[Julie Steiner]

Yes, and that's as it should be. I'm just enjoying a vicarious thrill.

(Vicars having a proverbial association with thrills, apparently. Which I guess explains the "tarts and vicars" fancy dress party phenomenon.)

By the way, if any of you tarts, vicars, or others will be in London on 27th June, you might swing by Jayne's thread at General Talk.

[John Whitworth]

Middlesex

I sing of rural Middlesex,
A presence ghostly and benign
To raise the hairs along your necks
Along the green Electric Line.

Tall poplars shimmering and trembly,
Tea-time trios at the Grand,
Wet Willesden, melancholy Wembley,
All the dreams of Metroland!

Walk to the West from Hampstead Heath
To Hatch End, Harrow on the Hill.
The fields lie sleeping underneath.
Breathe deeply and you smell them still.

Ah Ruislip Manor, Rayners Lane!
Our world is wearing worse and worse,
Yet Middlesex can live again
In Betjeman’s romantic verse.

Romantic isn't quite right.

[Ann Drysdale]

Immortal ?

[John Whitworth]

Better, but still not....

In J.B.'s elegiac verse?

In Betjer's elegiac verse.Or is it Betcher's

[Jerome Betts]

nostalgic verse? rose-tinted verse?

[John Whitworth]

In Betjeman's allusive verse.

[Nigel Mace]

Despite my admiration for him - "In Betjeman's post-Pooter verse."