[Chris O'Carroll]

No 4292
By Leonora Casement
Words change their meaning over time. Define what the term “bohemian” means today.
Max 150 words by 19 September comp@newstatesman.co.uk

[Adrian Fry]

The bohemian lives with his exes, dates his wife, neglects, especially, the children he knows about. He classifies rustication his highest qualification. He’s more often preoccupied than occupied, more often either than employed. At the bohemian’s place, it’s always ‘open house’, never home. He invariably accepts a drink because he lives in the moment, never buys a round as he despises the smack of patronage. He likes music loud, shirts black, socks odd. To him, everything is Art; why shouldn’t his sexts scoop the Turner? The bohemian is spiritual not religious, his horoscope more binding than any marriage vow, God no worse than his bankrolling father writ large. To his doctor he’s depressed, to his lovers Romantic, to the off-licence an undiscerning connoisseur.

[Brian Allgar]

My Mum says the people who live down the road are very bohemian. I asked her what that means, and she said they don’t live like the rest of us, and have peculiar ideas of what is proper. They haven’t concreted over their garden to make a car-park. In fact, they haven’t even got a car. Their garden is full of scruffy plants, and they keep chickens in a cage at the bottom of it. They go on about stuff called “organic food”, and grow a lot of weedy-looking vegetables. My Mum says, why can’t they go to the supermarket like normal people? They don’t do emails or texting or Facebook or Twitter, but they’re always sending hand-written letters. They never watch telly, except old black-and-white films with writing at the bottom of the picture. She says they don’t even fiddle their social security claims like everyone else does.

[John Whitworth]

Nice one, Brian. You're hard to beat.

[Peter Goulding]

Difficult one this - whether to go down Adrian's "reading Keats on his i-Pad" route, or Brian's "abnormally normal" route? Sadly I couldn't possibly do as well as either of the above, so...

Today’s bohemian has difficulties differentiating between fantasy and reality, except when caught up in some natural disaster, such as a landslide. Generally from impoverished stock, he retains a strong affection for his mother, yet does not baulk at acts of murder, which he commits gangland-style. In such circumstances, his only plan of action is to rely on the prevailing meteorological conditions to escape justice.
He has visions too, frequently of archaic Italian clowns, whom he will ask to perform strange dances. He also converses with mediaeval Italian astronomers in alternate falsetto and tenor voices yet curiously is terrified by the natural phenomena of lightning and thunder, believing that they are manifestations that the Devil has set aside for him. These violent mood swings often cause him to challenge authority to hurl rocks or phlegm at him but again his dislike of facing into a breeze determines his direction of escape.

[Ann Drysdale]

Truly rhapsodic, Peter. Hope it's not too late...