[John Whitworth]

You can get an online subscription more cheaply. I have one and it counts. £30 if I remember rightly, which is quite cheap for 12 issues. Don't worry, Chris is a subscriber. They check that.

[Chris O'Carroll]

John is right, I do have an online subscription. It costs a bit less than 30 quid per annum, so even one second-place win a year leaves you well in the black. And even if you just read it for the articles, like so many Playboy subscribers, you're bound to get your money's worth.

In British English, does "filleting" rhyme with "playing," or does it rhyme with "billeting"?

[Jayne Osborn]

In British English, does "filleting" rhyme with "playing," or does it rhyme with "billeting"?

The latter, Chris. The only place that 'fillet' rhymes with Millais is at 'MuckDonald's', as in 'fillet o' fish'. It was never heard of in that context until the aforementioned 'restaurants' opened up here.

Otherwise, it's always pronounced 'fill-it-ing'.

[John Whitworth]

I suppose a billet is a beellay when it's a love letter. I didn't know they said fillay in MacDonalds. Every day you learn something. And the guys round Saint Paul's certainly haven't bought their 122 tents at Millais. Don't the French have a painter called Millet?

Ignore me, Chris. Jayne is right.

Churchill, bless him, called Lyon Lions and Le Havre Haver.

Saint Lewis and New Orleens, isn't it?

[basil ransome-davies]

Millet is strictly for the birds.

[Chris O'Carroll]

Thanks, Jayne and John. I asked in reference to the filleting/playing rhyme in Roger's "Catch of the Day." Yanks pronounce those words as rhymes, but I thought they might be a mismatched pair in the UK.

The city is usually called St. LOO is, but I'm pretty sure the patron saint and the cathedral there are pronounced LOO ee.

As for New Orleans -- locals call it, approximately, n' AW lins. The New Orleans accent (which I love, but many do not) is unlike any other Southern accent, and turns many French street names -- BOI buhn for Bourbon, EYE buh vil for Iberville, CHAW tuhs for Chartres -- into words no Parisian would recognize.

[Roger Slater]

Oh well, my rhyme doesn't. But the poem would have lost in any event, and it was already written, so easy come easy go.

[John Whitworth]

Roman Recipe

A pastry coffin, rich and round:
Flour, butter, water and
Powder prepared of bones fine ground,
The texture of sharp sand.

Now to the filling, take the bonce,
Having reserved the skull,
Mince cheeks lips, eyes and brains – the ponce
Shall be in death less null,

Shall be a fricasee of meat
Delicious to his mother,
A pasty that's a tasty treat.
Do likewise with his brother.

Two pies we have to cook, one hour
On high heat should suffice.
The sauce can be a sweet-and-sour,
And mustard would be nice.

Such fare should make you want to dance
As frenzied as Saint Vitus.
A Roman recipe. Perchance
You will approve it.

TITUS

[FOsen]

Toast to Isabella

One-hundred-fifty years before the brood
Of modern Delias, Jamies and Nigellas,
One woman wrote the book on English food;
The first words in the void were Isabella’s.

Her Beeton’s Book of Household Management
Gave recipes for truffles with champagne
And other dishes much less opulent.
Although Toast Sandwiches sound rather plain,

They’ve been acknowledged by the RSC,
Who’ve challenged others to create a treat
As nice, for less than seven-one-half p.
The author taught a nation how to eat

And also manage house and life and health;
It’s poignant, then to realize her fate
Today would be to have a mogul’s wealth,
Not die while giving birth at twenty-eight.

So, brown a slice of white, and raise a toast
That’s wrapped in buttered bread, to Mrs. Beeton.
And savor. Though it’s not a marbled roast,
No better comfort food was ever eaten.

Frank

[Susan McLean]

Frank,
May I suggest for S4L4 "not die while giving birth at twenty-eight"? I hear a beat too many in your line.

Susan