[George Simmers]

Touchstone and Rosalind have arrived in East London:

Indeed, Princess, 'tis a strange country we are in, for though this be Forest Gate by all the signs, yet I see no forest, nor no gate neither. You bade me enquire for the swain who has despoiled all surfaces hereabouts with his markings and his remarkings, and therefore have I contacted his agent, for he is a graffiti artist much praised here, most expeditiously sought after, and paid more for these his efforts than was the knight who sold his honour thrice over to buy codfish. To this agent I remarked that I thought this art nothing, and that a fool could better it with a greater nothing, whereat he straightway placed me under contract. I too am an artist now, and to that end have taken this Audrey for my muse, or more truly my amusement. 'Tis a strange country indeed, princess, but one where fools thrive wonderfully.

[Susan McLean]

Love it, George.

Susan

[George Simmers]

Thanks, Susan.

[Lance Levens]

Falstaff in the Big Apple, Mid-July

These naked legs and arms so writ upon--
you'd say the painters were in want of canvas
and that these bitch wolves were a moving
easel, sporting dragons and their open-arse,
and such a scurvy, bosomy ebullience
for all to let their eyeballs feast on till the lust
swells like a bursting boil to steep the brain.
And steam and fire erupting from the street!
I sped poor Bardolf for a capon and
some sack-I fear a steamy hole has oped.
And Jack, poor Jack, lost like a swag-bellied malt
horse and me dodging all these steel-eared
vipers and nose-ringed nabobs of the night.
God's Blood! Give me a purse to get my fancy
back to good thievery away from these
witches of the oily calf and stapled tongue.

[Martin Parker]

Lance, Respect, man. Pure class ! If there is any justice you should be home and dry with this one.

[John Whitworth]

Agreed! Agreed in spades!

[Lance Levens]

Thanks guys. I can use the cash.

[basil ransome-davies]

A pox on it! My very fibres tremble To wake in Hell, yet like no Hell that was ever writ, can undo a man, be he ever so steeped in villainy. What lifetime's endeavour of roguery and vice could deserve this monstrous show – a fantastical new planet peopled by whores, madmen and sticky-fingered dissemblers, yet withal a giddy merry-go-round of mechanical marvels? The gods in its pantheon are mummers and minstrels, some scarce past childhood, whom a hireling pack of scribblers and acolytes attends upon like slavish, bowing courtiers and whose fornications light up the public prints, while amid the carnival death strides in ironclad battalions, a diabolical energy. Marry, such change might unhinge the brain and send the wits scattering.
And yet 'tis not so changed, after all. What my dazed eyes show me is lechery, lechery, still wars and lechery. Nothing else holds fashion.

[George Simmers]

Puck at a by-election:

What puffed-up poltroons have we posturing here,
Close by a somnolent electorate?
A by-election toward? Then Robin shall
His democratic duty nowise shirk.
I shall participate. I'll take the form
Of a faulty P.A. system, so they'll seem
To mouth like voiceless loons. Then shall I be
A baby who'll be hugged for show, whereat
I'll puke with vigour down those smart dark suits.
Or else a bigoted woman I shall be,
Who'll trick them into much-regretted rants.
I'll make their posters peel; all leaflets shall
Be rich with misprints comical and gross.
Then 'mongst the ballots I'll play hide-and seek,
Till recount after recount lasts all week!

[FOsen]

List, list, O, list! I’m C-List now, at most,
and that’s no place for Hamlet’s father’s ghost—
condemned to work a “Haunted London” tour,
where though my voice and visage are still dour,
childish laughter always greets my line
about the fearsome, fretful porpentine.
Doomed to haunt my agent’s by the day,
who offers only prospects without pay,
like—O, and what a falling off was here—
that public health campaign for swimmer’s ear.
But now I’m not forbad to tell my tale
and hope to sell a series to The Mail,
then get a brow-lift and a facial peel,
switch to ICM, and ink a deal,
which may once more my fading shade illumine,
when I debut on next year’s Being Human.