Poetry Result (at last!)

For those of you who missed my previous apology, I am sorry that I am arriving so tardily with news of the winner. I was in Puglia on holiday last week and had intended to do some desultory judging. lazing by the side of the pool and sipping a substantial G&T. No pool because the owner of the villa had not filled it yet, the temperature being only a spartan 27C. More and, as it happens, better, no wifi which had been promised as part of the hire of the villa. The G&T’s were indeed substantial (Bombay Sapphire, Schweppes, lime and ice, for the avoidance of doubt). I regret to say that I felt little regret in leaving you all in suspense about the result.

Puglia’s lovely, by the way. Even the fairly touristy bits like Alberobello.

Moving on to the judging, five entries from four stalwarts, FEEG, Janus, LW and Ara.

The thing is that in 1959, my Dad had been posted to Nigeria, which was not a family posting, so Mum, Big Sis and I were left in Perth. Most Saturdays, we took the bus down to Leven to see Mum’s family where I would be dumped with my cousin to go the pictures in the morning and East Fife (if they were at home) in the afternoon. If they were away, we dug out my cousin’s Big Sis’s Dansette and played her extensive collection of records (either 3 or 4). I mention this because there may just be an element of bias in my judgment.

Whatever. To deal with Feeg’s pom first. you’ll notice the blue stuff at the top of the picture of the trulli in Alberobello. Not a lot of it around when we flew south to the Great Wen for a wedding the day before jetting off to the Mezzogiorno, so his offering definitely struck a chord. It was dull, drizzly and dreich as we drove into the Royal Festival Hall for the nuptials. Didn’t matter. The view of my Capital City from the room in which the ceremony was held reminded me of why I am so happy to be British.

More and better, as I sat in the queue in the lights on the way there, watching the rain falling down, I had the chance to take this picture.

On to Janus. Effortlessly witty and apposite in both his offerings. The trouble is that I think that his poms are just too good this time, doggerel-wise.

Ara, alias Ethel, nothing wrong with serving up previous offerings but I fear that you have also been too poetic this time, in my opinion. ‘Fluff’ with ‘Sooth’ is a bold statement.

Anyway, back to that Dansette. One of my cousin’s Big Sis’s records was ‘The Battle of New Orleans’ by that great Jock singer, Lonnie Donegan. Learnt it by heart.

So, the winner is LW. Not only is his pom a fine piece of doggerel but the subject was dear to me. I particularly liked the fact that you have to tweak ‘McHenry’s’ to ‘McHenery’s’ to keep it driving along – that may only be in Jockinese of course.

Just out of interest, and from memory of Lonnie’s lyrics, I think that you will find that they state, incorrectly, that Pakenham was in charge of the American army and not the British one.