[John Whitworth]

Bill Greenwell, Peter Wyton and me - all winners this week. And an hon mensh for Jayne Osborn. Well done us! The new competition has appeared before, as a Speccie one I think. Time to dust off my non-winning entry then and maybe write another. I suspect octosyllabic rhyming couplets, as in most, though not all, of Belloc, will be preferred.

COMPETITION NO 136
The chief defect of Henry King, as we know, was chewing little bits of string. Morality verses, please, for a more modern defect. Maximum 16 lines.

Entries to 'Competition No 136 email comps@theoldie.co.uk by 8 April.

[John Whitworth]

Vanessa

Vanessa was a vampire bat.
I fear there’s no gainsaying that.
She thought it was a ripping lark
To go out biting after dark.
She’d bite an inoffensive peasant,
Which really wasn’t very pleasant;
It spoiled the honest turnip’s day.
And sometimes, I regret to say.
Her conduct was so untoward,
She’d bite a bishop or a lord
And stretch him lifeless on the lawn
To startle the approaching dawn.
Her parents took it on the chin:
When they had called Van Helsing in,
Tormented by a sense of failure,
They emigrated to Australia.

[Lance Levens]

Young Ignatz adored his plush iPad,
a sub for his trendy Benz-driving dad.
By day and by night he punched out them apps,
giggled and cooed and tapped out them taps.
There was nothing young Iggie couldn't research,
from chitlins to chutney to head gear in church.
He'd look up the datum, then pack it away
in his fact- packed noggin, until one day
he was seized in the brain with an pain profound.
He screamed, he shouted, he fell to the ground.
"I'll go back to pens, to tools outmoded--
just make it stop!"--but his head exploded.
In this relativistic universe
our morals are flabby, but here's a fine curse.
I pads are cool; they cost a pretty sou,
but punch 'em too much and you'll burst, too.

[Roger Slater]

Yes, Speccie ran a similar contest. Here's the first of my two losing entries from that contest:


JOHNNY

Johnny liked to chat online.
His busy Parents said, "That's fine,
But never tell the Folks you meet
Your Name, your Number or your Street.
Don't even state your Hemisphere!
Johnny, have we made that clear?"

Johnny told his Parents "Yes,"
But one Day gave out his Address
To Someone he believed to be
A little Girl named Emily.

In fact it was a Man named Jim
Who took a Knife and Limb by Limb
And bloody Slice by bloody Slice
Showed Johnny that his Folks' advice
Was wiser than he'd thought before.
Now Johnny chats online no more.

[Roger Slater]

And here's the second:

CHESTER

Chester was a Facebook fiend.
His list of friends was endless.
He bantered on a thousand screens,
but offline he was friendless.

The day he died poor Chester typed
this message: "Help, a stroke!"
Six good friends left LOL's
to laugh at Chester's joke,

but none believed him, and he died,
alone, astonished, bitter.
The moral of my tale is clear.
I've posted it on Twitter.

[FOsen]

Bernard's impatient, foul, and rude—
that's what we call his sunny mood.
The undisputed king of brats,
I’ve heard it said that feral cats
have better manners at their luncheon;
he’s warm and cuddly as a truncheon.
He doesn’t wash, his room’s a mess,
he won’t say, “please,” or “thanks,” or “yes.”
In short, he’s such a toxic pill,
that those know him wish him ill.
His mother tried to rein him in
until he kicked her in the shin.
“You must indulge me, I'm your child,
who cares if I'm a little wild!"
The woman, hopping on the floor,
said, “Son, you’re nearly forty-four.”

-- Frank