Category: Creativity

Late arrival – Easter Poetry winner

My title refers not to the winner but to a speeding car which crashed through our hedge at 4 a.m. today! A boozed-up youth was arrested in short order, leaving the car to grace our grass until somebody sorts it out. Luckily none of the five occupants was hurt.

However, I then spent the waking hours reviewing the excellent crop of entries for the Easter comp.  – quantity and quality both.

But how to decide? My shortlist includes those which reflect my own particular likes and dislikes. Papag’s Bubba and Balotelli, FEEG’s Humphrys (except the spelling, sorry!) and Livingstone, Christopher’s Angela and Barack, LW’s Kim and Humperdinck, JM’s Salmond, Soutie’s Nelson and Clarkson, Sipu’s Queen and of course Arrer’s Guardianista. Phew!

So I awarded points for poetic words, alliteration and added vitriol and came up with …….. John Mackie’s cinquain devoted to his bête noire, Alex Salmond:

Salmond, Scottish Nationalist, Hates my country, Slavering, slaistering, sleekit scunner, Shite

Congratulations, John, and thanks to everyone.

Last chance saloon

No, it’s not Clarkson’s latest put-down, it’s the Chariot’s pome comp which ends at midnight tonight. Out of respect for my burdensome rôle as da judge, I have changed my gravatar – which depicts me/us weighed down by gravitas.

Entries to date are already impressive – reflecting cherished colleagues’ natural talent for a vibrant vignette.

So one last push guys, eh?  And as you see I’ve brought along a noggin to celebrate.

Who do you think you are kiddding, Mrs Windsor?

Yes, I know how sensitive cherished colleagues are when it comes to Buck House and its endless soap opera. But p-lease. The ever-loyal DT opines how ‘wonderful to see how (Camilla) has won the public over’, thus deserving the Queen’s gift of the ‘Dame Grand Cross’. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/queen-elizabeth-II/9193856/A-gracious-gift.html

I’d be absolutely astounded if any opinion poll supported such a statement. I believe the public’s perception is still of a manipulative interloper who has succeeded in bagging the rôle she wanted all along. She will never be forgiven for ousting Diana, whatever gloss the Windsors choose to put on it.

Only four days left

That is, if you fancy your chances of winning the Chariot’s exciting Easter pome competition (or if you just like messing with words).

There are plenty of targets at which to aim your vitriol, I’m sure – or on which to lavish your praises too. From the Tideway Twerp to Shivnarine Chanderpaul, from Assad to Bubba, from Balotelli to Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger. The very stuff of the classic cinquain.

Backside

Alter ego

Never looks back

Can’t avoid his gaze

Pest

Chariot fashions

I realise that cherished colleagues have been spurred by the recent spots of spring sunshine to prepare for the long hot summer we all eagerly anticipate. Honing our abs, polishing our six-packs and deepening our perennial tans, we are already planning how to impress the waiting world with our fashion selections for the new season. Aren’t we? No. OK. Continue reading “Chariot fashions”

Have a guess

Hay-on-Wye is the place of legend, or so it would have us believe. A place for writers and writings, with its annual book festival, mysteriously situated in Powys, Wales but with a postal address in Herefordshire, England (no bull – geddit?).

So have a guess which other mysterious place – somewhere in the world, perhaps at the other end of the rainbow – is ‘twinned’ with Hay? (No googling just yet, p-lease.) Then, if you get it right, you might wonder Wye!