Fun Challenges, by Elizabeth Kay

I’ve dealt with Spectator competitions before, but last week husband Bob and I managed the double – after two years of trying. So in celebration of this momentous event, I shall post both the winning entries and ask you to guess who wrote which. We’ve tried this out at various groups we go to, and only one got them right. Indeed, the members of the creative writing group we both attend got them all wrong. So I’ll include a couple of other winners I’ve had recently, with the challenges, and see if you want to have a go at them yourselves. I had quite a few winners initially, and then it was eight months until I had another. I once had a friend who wrote songs, as well as poetry, and she tried several times to get one selected for the UK Eurovision entry, and did get shortlisted. But the one piece of advice she received I have always remembered: Try and get the word radio into your lyrics somehow. This often ensures it gets played. So on the same principle, I included the word Spectator in mine. Unashamedly manipulative. But just think what people have to lie about in the US to be regarded favourably…

 This competition was to take the view expressed in the John Cleese film Clockwise: “I can live with the despair. It’s the hope I can’t cope with.”

 Hope stings

Each Friday when I hear the post –

Spectator time! I bolt my toast

And gulp my tea and start to hope…

I turn the page – it’s not there, nope.

I thought I’d been original,

And funny too, subliminal,

Allusions here, suggestions there,

But writing’s such a strange affair.

I had some wins a while ago,

But nothing since. That hopeful glow

Turned to despair – I’m used to that.

I’d like to scream or kick the cat,

But that’s not me; I’m kind to snails,

I feed the birds and  save the whales.

As time goes by I’ve learned to cope,

Despair’s my friend. But not the hope…

And this was the double! The challenge here was to take an old joke, and rewrite it as a poem. Both husband Bob and I liked the idea a lot. But who wrote which?

 Laughter lines

 I broke down outside Basingstoke

Beside a pub, the Royal Oak.

When help arrived the breakdown bloke

Considered long, before he spoke;

“I’m sorry but your piston’s broke,

You’ll need a tow, and a de-coke,

You’ll have to wait, you’re not bespoke,

Your cover’s just for hard-up folk.”

So wait I did, and sipped a Coke.

A man emerged, to have a smoke,

His drunken query more a croak.

I said, “My car’s not okey-doke,

The piston’s broke, and that’s no joke.”

He slurred, “Me too, I’m pissed n’broke.”

 

Alternatively...

The goatherd, lonely on the hill,

Among the edelweiss,

Thought of Maria yodelling,

And things he thought were nice.

 

His goats were grazing happily

And each one wore a bell.

Why? Though it must be obvious

His thoughts refused to gel.

 

What need had they of do-re-mi?

His sicklied brow grew pale.

For goats, to climb Swiss mountains

Was not a major scale.

 

I can reveal the answer now,

Before you go berserk.

Goats need those bells around their necks

Because their horns don’t work.

This time we were asked to consider a neglected body part. Hearts get a lot of coverage, as do eyes. I chose the colon, as I have the anatomical abnormality of an excessively long one.

 Bring up the bodies

 Behold this tube, mankind’s digestive tract,

A marvel of design – relax! Contract!

It moves your food in peristaltic waves

And mostly it complies, and it behaves.

Believe it or not, this is a scan
of my own colon.

The starting point’s the mouth, the lips that kiss,

They’re paramount for love, for sexual bliss.

The stomach, bile duct, rectum, and the spleen,

These other parts must all remain unseen.

When colons clog things go from bad to worse

For constipation is a wretched curse.

Cocaine and morphine dry you out, it’s said,

And Sherlock used them both. Watson saw red.

Depression loomed. “It’s in my chromosomes.”

“It’s not! It’s alimentary my dear Holmes!”

 

Often pieces that don’t quite make it to publication get a mention. These are a few of my favourites.

 This one had to combine two well-known poems. I chose Chesterton’s The Donkey, and Jenny Joseph’s When I am old I shall wear purple.

 Frankenpoem

 Now I am old I’m wearing purple

With a scarlet hat like errant wings

Some moment when the moon was blood

The devil made arthritic things.

I picked some flowers that were not mine,

Out in my slippers, in the rain –

There was a shout about my ears,

I cursed the pigs, I won’t explain,

I sat down on the pavement, tired,

The time I spent there fierce but sweet.

Point, laugh, arrest me, I’m not daft

I’ve simply got demented feet.

Fools! You see, I’ve earned this hour

My youth I wasted, what a twit,

Too sober, straight and rather sour,

It’s only now I’ve learned to spit.

 

This was to ‘find’ one of the letters Jane Austen wrote to her sister Cassandra, who thought she’d burnt them all…

 

A Letter from Jane

My Dear Cassandra,

How strangely life acquits itself upon occasion. No sooner did I bid farewell to the odious Mr Treadwell than Lady Pleasance arrived, riding astride her grey stallion in a most immodest fashion. Her countenance was flushed; she seemed out of breath. “I have had such an agreeable ride,” she said, “we jumped the brook twice. It is a most diverting experience. Come, Jane, sit behind me and we shall do it together.” I confess I was swayed by her condescension, and despite my misgivings and inappropriate attire I did as she requested. I had no apprehension of the delightful sensation that would overwhelm me, as a consequence of which I was somewhat agitated upon my return. Hall was mortified by my appearance, and bade me lie down in a darkened room. But oh Cassandra. As I lay there I cannot express how ardently I revisited that moment.

On the shocking discovery that that avocado bathrooms are making a comeback, a poem on the interior décor of yesteryear

Suite Memories

In brilliant orange or a midnight blue

Our kitchen units hailed from MFI,

They fell apart before too long, it’s true,

The damage proved too hard to rectify.

So chipboard and formica had their day,

Laura Ashley wallpaper!

And woodchip paper, and magnolia paint

And polystyrene tiles had a way

Of falling off the ceiling – no restraint

If cheeseplants hit them when they grew too tall.

With kilim rugs and sheepskins on the floor

And Laura Ashley paper on the wall,

We spent the weekends stripping the front door.

My Kenwood mixer still works very well,

As do the bathroom tiles that won’t come off,

The plastic chandeliers still cast their spell

The seventies are with us yet; don’t scoff.

 
 Although these competitions are of yesteryear, they are fun exercises to do. Poems are always a maximum of 16 lines, and prose pieces a maximum of 150 words. Have fun!