[Janet Kenny]

And who hadn't met the kennel Landseer? Surely Landseer's "Monarch of the Glen" was in every grandmother's house? At least on a calendar in the loo?
http://www.bestpriceart.com/vault/abc_landseer22.JPG

Interesting that Kipling said mischAnce with a flat A as in "bat" but said Frahnce. Things like that fascinate me.

[Mary Meriam]

Well done, Janet!

[Janet Kenny]

Thanks for the good tidings John and thank you Marion and Mary. Congratulations Bill. Well done Martin and Melissa.

[Gail White]

I haven't been paying attention to these contests for very long, so would like to know if there is any preferred format for sending an entry by e-mail.
Thanks, all--

[Mary Meriam]

Gail, I don't think they accept emails from Louisiana. Sorry.




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[John Whitworth]

Down, Mary, down! I send mine in the body of the email, thoough I don't see why they shouldn't go as an attachment. Don't forget to send your name and address or they have nowhere to send the cheque to when you win. However, you wil have to to well because I have composed a PEACH!!!

Does anyone send the thing as an attachment, I mean someone who has won and therefore knows it works? Bill Greenwell, what do you do? You don't actually send the thing by post, do you?

[Gail White]

Originally Posted by Mary Meriam

Gail, I don't think they accept emails from Louisiana. Sorry.

()

We're always afraid that Congress will expel us from the Union for not meeting the required standards for a real state. However, it would be nice to belong to France again, and we could get foreign aid.

[Maryann Corbett]

John, about attachments: some servers just out-and-out reject messages with attachments because they can carry nasty viruses and such. So if the poem doesn't need special formatting, putting it in the body of the e-mail is probably simpler all around.

[Jerome Betts]

Re W.F. Lantry's posts, I hadn't heard of the canine flavour criticism of Landseer's lions, but had read that Londoners claimed he modelled the paws on those of a domestic cat. According to one source, the Trafalgar Square commission was plagued by what Landseer called 'nasty inconvenience'. London Zoo supplied a lion as model but it sickened and died while the artist was away and he had to make hurried sketches, for as long as he could stand it, of a carcass noble but noisome. Although in his youth he had dissected a lion, on this occasion "anything as fearful as the gases from the royal remains it is difficult to communicate". There was criticism that his lions, recumbent for the sake of economy, or perhaps reflecting the state of the model, looked sleepy and overfed.

[John Whitworth]

Thank you, Maryann, that sounds like good advice.

Jerome, ALL lions look sleepy and overfed. That is because they are. I think Landseer's are splendid lions. They are recumbent because (presumably) they are guarding Nelson from the filthy cheese-eaters - not that he needed much protection in his day.

Incidentally, re cheese-eaters, do Republicans not eat cheese?

Oh, and here's my sonnet. It's not as good as I thought it was but it's been improved by Sam Gwynn (one word).

Holding Fourth

Up on his column in Trafalgar Square,
Nelson commands, with naval elegance,
A view from London, England, out to where
The Corsican scowls back from Paris, France.
And Landseer’s lions can see with sightless eyes
An Empire further flung than Bonaparte
Could dream, a miracle of merchandise
And circumstance, assembled a la carte
From Terra Incognita, New Found Lands,
The Fabled Wealth of Afric and of Ind,
Drowned in the Oceans, buried in the Sands,
Frittered away and scattered to the Wind,
Gone, gone. So what of England? Truth to tell,
An empty plinth will serve us very well.