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Unread 05-15-2014, 01:25 AM
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John Whitworth John Whitworth is offline
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Default Speccie Competition Double Celebration

Chris and Bill win again. Brian and Martin Parker don't quite. Probably there's a nom-de-plume I haven't spotted. Well done those men (and women). I remember Gerald Benson.

Lucy Vickery 17 May 2014
In Competition No. 2847 you were invited to submit a poem celebrating a famous duo.

You wheeled out a colourful cast of pairings. Ray Kelley sang the praises of Flanders and Swann: ‘Never was there a sweeter fit/ of wit to melody, melody to wit’. Brian Allgar proposed a toast to that gruesome twosome Burke and Hare. And Martin Parker saluted south London kings of retail Arding and Hobbs: ‘Posh Knightsbridge had Harrods for nabobs and nobs./ The folks down at Clapham had Arding and Hobbs.’

Hugh King was impressive, as were Michael Swan and Alanna Blake, but they were edged out by this week’s overall champ, Chris O’Carroll, who takes £35, and his fellow winners, who pocket £30 apiece.

I was sad to hear of the death of Gerard Benson, a frequent winner on these pages over many years. His witty and accomplished contributions will be much missed.

In Tweedledum and Tweedledee,
Those icons of propinquity,
Those paragons of amity,
We see what brotherhood should be.

Observe their conduct vis-à-vis
A battle. Note that they agree
To fight, but Dum does not harm Dee
Nor get from him an injury.

They speak of felling every tree
In their conflict’s vicinity,
But deal in no un-brotherly
Displays of bellicosity,

And when by serendipity
A crow appears, as one they flee.
Than valiant foes they’d rather be
Harmoniously cowardly.
Chris O’Carroll

Peter was tall and talked in a drawl,
His characters expert or haughty,
While Dudley was bubbly and chuckling and small
(The piano was known as his forte.)

Pete on the whole was surreal and droll
While Dud, as his stooge, often cracked —
Pete would spin language and Dud would spit sandwich:
That was the gist of their act.

Pete stayed at home, and turned into Lord Gnome,
While Dud went abroad, as a star —
Although built like a thimble, the sexiest symbol.
Pete felt aggrieved from afar.

As Derek and Clive, they improvised live,
And the filth made them mates. They’d been lonely.
But this didn’t last, and as for their past,
The Beeb wiped out most of Not Only…
Bill Greenwell

You wrote the very model of a clever comic opera
With flighty maids as pretty as the brightest Lepidoptera,
And though the plots you plotted were appallingly impractical
You won our hearts with arias appealingly didactical.
The sun and moon were made to serve in sentimental instances,
You gave us tars and gondoliers, three little maids and princesses;
Miraculously making much of matters most ephemeral
You built a perfect picture of a modern major general.
With genius rare and rarer rhymes, with versatile vitality,
You brought your characters to life whatever their locality,
So may your Mabels ever sing with humorous sincerity
To let the best of G and S give pleasure to posterity.
Frank McDonald

Their music springs fresh as fountain
Or ‘edelweiss’ scenting the air,
They climbed every musical mountain,
This ‘whistle a happy tune’ pair;
Such romance one rarely discovers
In two thrown together by chance,
But, getting to know them, ‘young lovers’,
Enraptured, will sigh, ‘Shall we dance?’
Then, swept off their feet without warning,
Like ‘winters that melt into springs’,
They’ll awake to a ‘beautiful morning’,
And sing of their ‘favourite things’.
For melodies ‘softer than starlight’
That ‘younger than springtime’ shine,
And partners who, coupled, win outright,
It’s Rodgers and Hammerstein!
Alan Millard

Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.
From your conjoined lives we have much to learn.
There’s more than one can take in at a glance
To Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.

The currents of a turbulent romance
Engulf you, Guildenstern and Rosencrantz.
Sly eddies, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,
Toy with the certainties for which you yearn.

The path bewilders us at every turn;
Walk with us, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Partner us, Guildenstern and Rosencrantz;
What steps we know lag just behind the dance.

We move with Guildenstern and Rosencrantz
Through plotted tragedy or happenstance.
Like you, we neither summon nor adjourn
These sessions, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Francis Harry
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Unread 05-15-2014, 02:34 AM
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Ann Drysdale Ann Drysdale is offline
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Er - his name is Gerard, John.

But never fear, he would have been delighted by the sentence just as you wrote it. I hear him laughing.
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Unread 05-15-2014, 10:00 AM
Chris O'Carroll Chris O'Carroll is offline
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Gerard Benson, I'm just learning today, was considerably more than one of the Usual Suspects in these comps. A web search turns up numerous appreciations and obituary notices detailing a remarkable list of accomplishments. Here's one link:

http://www.poetrylibrary.org.uk/news...scene/?id=1173
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Unread 05-15-2014, 12:10 PM
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John Whitworth John Whitworth is offline
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Thank you, Chris. Gerard was a King of Men. Gerard as in Manley Hopkins, Hoffnung and Brigadier.
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