[John Whitworth]

Melissa Balmain, Bazza and I all won money in the Night Music competition. Bill Greenwell took the fiver with a really top-notch piece of word play.

This competition looks a piece of cake. Doreen and I, only yesterday, were discussing ways in which the old (i.e. us) can be perhaps even terminally irritating. Moaning is the chief thing, drivelling on about the superiority of the past when people wore ties, opened doors for ladies, kept their children in order etc etc.

Role reversal
You are invited to submit a poem that contains advice from young to old (16 lines maximum). Entries should be submitted, by email where possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 6 October.

[Marion Shore]

OMG. I should get my son to write this one!

[John Whitworth]

Role Reversal

Dear Dad, forget that you forgot.
You think it matters? It does not.
Forget the blokes with builders’ bums.
Forget the teenage single mums.
Forget the gays. Forget the blacks.
Forget the bloody council tax.
Forget the horrid eco-crimes
Reported in the Sunday Times.
It’s curtains for the polar bear.
To hell with it. We won’t be there.
Remember Paris in the rain,
Cuban cigars and pink champagne,
Remember Mum. I know you do.
And me, as I remember you.
Welcome Joy. Farewell to Sorrow.
And lunch with me in town tomorrow.

[basil ransome-davies]

You war-babies and boomers need to shed your soured dreams –
The golden age of yesteryear and other dreary themes.
Enough of the monotonous complaint that everything's gone wrong;
Update your rackety old brains and sing another song.
The Welfare State? The Sixties Vibe? Delusions of the past.
They made you happy for a while, but pipe dreams never last.
You've got the Hobbesian nightmare now, so get your mind in gear;
Switch off the drool of peace and love, retune to greed and fear.
You may call it dystopia. The fact is that it's real.
Why get het-up when politicians lie and bankers steal?
The rich are in pig heaven, while the sick and poor don't count –
So much for all that twaddle in the Sermon on the Mount.
Don't prop yourself on fantasies, as on your Zimmer frame;
Remember that the rules have changed, and play a harder game.
Accept the ironclad bottom line: the world's a basket case,
But just don't live too long. We need your money and your space.


I've an itch to tell John that he shouldn't rhyme 'graph' with 'graph'. But he knows that. He's having a larf.

[Cally Conan-Davies]

John - you are a darling! From Blake to Keats in a week!? Another classic?

I think so.

Cally

P.S. So's yours, Bazza! Waste of space, indeed!

[John Whitworth]

No I'm not. I hadn't noticed. That's what comes of composing in swimming barfs.

You cannot read the Telegraph
When swimming in the swimming barf.

I've put in an alternative couplet. I hope it works