It's been some time since the last poetry competition. I planned to set the theme this time round as "The McBride of Frankenstein", but then I thought it might be a bit incestuous and blogger-centric.So it's an open competition, but I might favour anything brilliant about the Satisfactory Death of McBride.
As ever, puns and inspired rhymes will catch the attention of the judge. You know the type:
He set out as a missionary
To the plains of Timbuktu
There he met a cassowary
Which ate him, and his hymn book too
Limericks, haikus, clerihews and sonnets - all qualify. Pour a glass and summon your muse.
I'll be competing with you.
Is that Hazel Blears in the picture?
ReplyDeleteGood spot, chronic. And now I think of it, it's Bob Marshall-Andrews doing the recital.
ReplyDeleteHow long have we got for this compo? Parents staying and 800m2 of turf to lay...
ReplyDeleteLet's give it until the end of next week, foxy.
ReplyDeleteBless you, Mr Idle. Can't resist a poetry compo...
ReplyDeleteOK, I'll start the ball rolling:
ReplyDeleteDamien McBride
Said "I’m going to hide
Cos Guido is coming to get me".
But alas 'twas in vain
As the emails made plain
So snidey McBridey was slain.
A sighting shot - I may be back later...
Damien McBride
ReplyDeleteTried
To harm others; but the tub of lard
Was hoist by his own petard
Might a ballad enter the lists, Idle ? Humour me on this one and I'll serve you The Most Satisfactory Death of McBride in 5 stanzas and a couplet
ReplyDelete*clears throat*
King Gordon he was insecure
A poltroon for all to see
Desiring but one thing in life
Obama’s bitch to be
“But Barak favours Cameron !
Who’ll smear that man for me ?”
McBride he was a bastard
And a thuggish lout was he
Full ruddy-faced and arrogant
The King’s own appointee
And smearing was his stock-in-trade
“I’ll smear that man for thee !”
Now Derek was a therapist
(Of dubious degree)
And now he blogged to please the King
A pawn for all to see
“I’m independent, though!” he lied
So disingenuously
Fair Guido was a blogger too
And a fine stout fellow he
He’d harried Hain and bogeyed Brown
And never bowed the knee
When lurid emails came to hand
He set his trap with glee
McBride had smeared before and so
Had many an enemy
No course was left for him but to
Commit hara-kiri
The fate of all who cause the King
To make apology !
Thus did fair Guido slay McBride -
Most satisfactory !
A Tuscan post-Wine Library haiku:
ReplyDeleteDamien McBride.
A good for nowt
bladderhead, full of wind
and piss.
Excellent, excellent. After a slow start, a bit of pace has been injected.
ReplyDeletervi went the nursery rhyme route, idle clerihewed, Nick demonstrated that the romantic epic is alive and well, and the Tuscan, his brain strangely unfuzzed by the Wine Library, achieved a haiku of correct syllables (though, to be picky, 'bladderhead' must appear as the last word of the second line).
The ante has been upped; I may start work on a full stage musical about the NuLabour Scottish Raj. (working title: Seven McBrides for Seven McBrothers).
Sod it - Nick Drew's already here!
ReplyDeleteBugger.
Sir Clement Freud,
ReplyDeleteLoved his feud,
It was often froid,
in a pan not a fridge...
Apricers has no excuse Iders, 800 m2 is a doddle...
ReplyDeleteTo claim that so early on in the contract must mean she is actually a builder in disguise!
Charlie Whelan
ReplyDeletemust be feelan
slightly miffed
if not piffed...
Gordon Brown becomes
ReplyDeleteUntil McBride
Became
Hmm I will think more on this excellent comp, Idle.
From The Scottish Play.
ReplyDeleteMacbride's Soliloquy:
Act 5 Scene 5.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and Tomorrow,
A creep in this petty place
So like The Day to Day.
To spin to the last syllable of recorded air-time,
And all yesterday's news,only gave political fools,
A pause for breath.
Out, out, truth vandal!
Life's but a walking shallow, a poor Draper,
That cuts and pastes his hour upon the page
And then is heard no more.
It is a tale
Told by a half-wit, full of soundbites and perjury,
Justifying nothing.
Idle.
ReplyDeleteDo you realise that only 0.5% of your visitors are from Spain ?
Perhaps you should invite some competitors to do their verse in Spanish for purposes of inclusivity.
Be inclusive for the whole of Europe, Idle, write in latin:
ReplyDeleteFor McBride
In taberna quando sumus,
non curamus quid sit decus,
sed ad ludum properamus,
cui semper insudamus.
quid agatur in taberna
ubi nummus est pincerna,
hoc est opus ut quaeratur;
si quid loquar, audiatur.
OK so Latin's not my strong point. I'm sure you could do better..
Song of a Wand’ring Damien
ReplyDeleteA spiteful spinner I
A thing of baseless rumour
And tasteless vicious humour
Against the Tories most vile
I am king of the pile
The PM says “McBride
just get the slurry pouring,
But for God’s sake don’t be boring
like that Irish Guido bloke
Who is just a sick joke”.
“Yes Gord” I say
in deepest admiration
You’re the chap to save the nation
From all these bloggers who moan
That their pensions have flown.
And now I must retreat
into my little bunker
And stay there like a funker
But I’ll really scream and shout
If those emails get out.
(with apologies to Messrs G+S)
All very interesting.
ReplyDeleteScrobs' experimental and abstract piece is puzzling but strangely compelling.
Pip's economy hints at something profound. Then she follows up with latin. Luckily I have a classicist coming to dinner this evening (and an Italian-speaking Tuscan).
I know that Macbeth soliloquy off by heart, so the perfect parody had me purring with pleasure:
"a poor Draper,
That cuts and pastes his hour upon the page"
That is VERY good, Bingo, and will take all the beating.
And then G&S from rvi - Oh Yes, as the once-famous G&S fan John Major would have said.
There was a fat beast called McBride
ReplyDeleteWhose words were mendacious and snide
He sent them to Dolly
Who encouraged his folly
And now they both have to hide
Some do say
ReplyDeleteMcBride is snide
I rather thunk
That he's really a cunt
E.J. Thribb (aged 17)
Here lies the rat, McBride
ReplyDeleteNasty, poisonous,vile and snide.
Result of failed spermicide
And long immune to pesticide.
Ghastly thorn in Virtue's side,
By smears and filth preoccupied.
NuLabour's seamy underside
O'er which McMental doth preside
And his endorsement is implied
Of this most constant Mr Hyde.
In heinous lies he glorified
With the rank Draper alongside.
His spew of vice identified
By Noble Guido he's deep-fried,
A fate completely justified,
Leaving Labour well off-side
And by the righteous villified.
worth waiting for, Foxy
ReplyDeleteThe Apricot has it at the present moment, I think.
ReplyDeleteBrown did keep the Brown side inside,
ReplyDeleteSought to keep the Blair side outside.
Whelan kept the press side onside
Pouring gin inside their inside.
Till he went far too far offside -
Brown, whose hands seemed on the white side
Sent the spinner to the outside.
Now then Damian joined the Brown side -
Ethics-free, he saw no downside.
Civil service on the dull side,
Better far to be at ring-side.
Brown was brought up on the Church side,
Wears a halo on the topside.
Pure and radiant on the outside,
Helping people on Skid Row-side.
But of course there is a flip-side.
Brown is brown beneath the skinside.
Stinking ordure fills his inside.
Moral compass set on sin's side.
Damian's job inside the dark side?
Keep Brown's ordure on the inside.
Make people think that he's on their side.
Only let them see the outside -
Churchman's son, the shining bright side.
Keep the stinking faecal inside
Strictly 'neath his leathered horse-hide.
Many people on the inside
Know the truth about Brown's outside.
Want to the put the inside outside.
They all end up on the dead side.
Damian's hands are on the red side
Gordon's hands stay on the white side.
"Bless'd be Gordon, he's on God's side"
There are no prayers at Damian's bedside,
He has sold out to the dark side.
A ten-pound whore beside the roadside
Selling tricks by darkened kerbside
Has twice as much the human good side
As sits within his rotten inside.
Perhaps he's really on the thick side -
Email messages hit the light side.
Now the people see Brown's inside -
Very different from the outside!
Brown's loyalty is on the thin side.
Casts McBride beside the wayside.
McBride's career is on the dead side.
Nothing for it now but suicide.
Crikey, Alceste! What a lot of inside outsides!
ReplyDeleteMy vote's still for Bill Quango. It's near perfect but I agree with Idle: "Life's but a walking shallow, a poor Draper,
ReplyDeleteThat cuts and pastes his hour upon the page
And then is heard no more." Ah such is political life. Bill has my vote. But of course it's not a democracy, this blog is a dictatorship as all good families are.
Golly. There is some quite splendid stuff here. My own attempt looks doomed to failure.
ReplyDeleteBoozymandies (after PB Shelley)
ReplyDeleteI met a blogger from the G Fawkes site
Who said: Two small and rat-like men of Brown
Were caught red-handed peddling lies and spite
And are now sunk. The PM’s hideous frown
Betrays a troubled, haunted sense of fright
That Guido has a few more beans to spill.
The Brown survival hangs upon a thread
“My legacy! My obituary!” Will
These words writ on his pedestal appear?
“His name was Boozymandies, Shit of Shits
Look on his slanders, Gordon, and despair!”
Nothing besides now matters. The decay
And stench of ruin hangs rank upon the air;
Long years of bleak retirement stretch away.
Labour took their chance
ReplyDeleteOn the Son of the Manse
But the McSnot shot was fried
By the progeriac McBride.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTypo!!
ReplyDeleteAfter William Blake's 'The Sick Rose':
McBride, thou art sick!
The invisible one
Who blogs in the night
Across the raging web
Has found out thy desk
Where thou didst smears deploy
And his bright, truthful scorn
Does thy life destroy.
Idle, you have exerted y'self, man ! (and to good effect) is this a first ?
ReplyDeleteIn the dying of the light
All the dogs of Labour fight,
And the warring factions wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;
Intellectual disgrace
Stares from Gordon’s coward face;
People’s hopes and yearnings lie
Locked and frozen in his eye.
Follow, Guido, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unaffrighted voice
Still persuade us to rejoice.(apologies etc etc)
Ahem all my own work ...( but I may have had Kipling in mind )
ReplyDeleteThe Ballad Of Mc Bride
There now the drums
His time is soon come
and the crowds gather outside to mock
‘He is evil , that creature
Its writ on `iz features ‘
And his head is assailed by a rock
At his back a sword’s end
In his face spittle sends ,
A message of hate and alarm
“Oh look at iz ands
The ‘ave poisoned and planned
To do fair prince Osborne such `arm’
‘He was favoured and thought
He`d destroy men for sport
He`d feast on the blood of a toff ‘
‘Look at`m shake
How his fat belly quakes
At the though his head comin’ off ‘
And now there`s no sound
But his breath and the crowd
And he laughs at their ravenous eyes
‘Do you think when I`m gone
It won’t carry on ?
You think when I die that it dies ?.’
Other s have served him
And you have deserved him
He`d murder us all for his crown
Reid ,Field Millburn Clarke
All got stabbed in the dark
Not by me
But by him
Gordon ……..
Thud.
(The End )
Multifaceted magnificent manifestations of masterful magical musing.
ReplyDeleteI fold (I only had a pair of queens anyway!)
Inspired by the great Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) in The Thick of It, and with thanks to WH Auden and Stop All the Clocks:
ReplyDeleteShut the fuck up, get off the telephone!
The blogs have got us touching our toes and taking a big juicy bone.
They’re playing honky-tonk piano and the big bass drum
They’ve got me in a coffin and Draper on the run.
There’s a skynews chopper hovering overhead
With a bloody great pendant saying ‘McBride is Dead’
I’m so fucking angry I could strangle a dove
Get the police onto Staines and tell them not to wear gloves.
In the dailies of the North, South, East and West
It was working fine – the Sundays were best
At noon and at six the news sang our song;
Well, if we thought it would last forever, we were fucking wrong!
I know I’m not wanted; well, fuck everyone!
I’m going to murder Rebekkah and dismantle the Sun.
Tell Gordon the moron I did what I could
But the truth is he’ll never come to any fucking good.
I like it
ReplyDeleteDamien has been on. He says that Mr Idle entering and judging his own competition with no external independent judges or reviewers is a bit like postal voting in Scottish by-elections.
ReplyDeleteI must say I do agree with him "with regard to this one" as a certain ex-PM might have said.
rvi has a point, and I have a solution, which I will explain in a brief post, coming right up.
ReplyDeleteOn second thoughts, my solution - an email ballot - is unlikely to garner more than a handful of votes, as the great majority of readers of this blog do not comment and are highly unlikely to want to expose their email addresses.
ReplyDeleteSorry, rvi, looks like I am judge and jury!
I have complete confidence in Idle's unprejudiced taste - he's not a self-serving politician.
ReplyDeleteFor the record I like all entries here but Bill Quango still gets my vote for exceptional writing.
Idle! Very good! I am inspired to try again...BUT...too much to do and totally over-cooked myself slaving in the garden yesterday...
ReplyDeleteOK, that's it. Judging has commenced......
ReplyDeletewell we trust you are acquainted with the principle of nemo iudex in causa sua, Idle
ReplyDeleteWatch Family Guy
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