Clerihews

(A set of clerihews written for a writing group session) 

Queen Elizabeth the First
Was by no means the worst
It was best to be wary
Of her sister Queen Mary

Queen Victoria
Went to a trattoria
Albert sat down and snoozed
She wasn’t amused

Jeremy Corbyn
Found it absorbin’
To take copious notes
When campaigning for votes

Theresa May
Was discovered one day
In search of an exit
Other than Brexit

Nigel Farage
Went to his garage
His car was resplendent
And, of course, independent

Sam Allardyce
Does not need asking twice
He’ll declare black is white
If the money is right

William the Second
Was generally reckoned
A total disgrace
As well as red in the face

Edmund Clerihew Bentley
Always did things gently
When it came to writing verse
He was never less than terse

Margaret Thatcher?
No-one could catch her
As everyone would learn
She was not one to turn

Anthony Sher
Did not star in Ben Hur
His talents shone clear
In his Stratford King Lear

General George Gorringe
Was eating an orange
To celebrate the time
He provided a rhyme

Donald J Trump
Was given a thump
His chances are shrinking
Or is this wishful thinking?

Hillary Clinton
Was putting a tint on
When seeking votes, east or west
It’s always good to look your best

William Shakespeare
Often makes appear
For me, lots and lots
Of ideas for good plots

Charles John Huffam Dickens
The plot often thickens
In Bleak House there’s thick mist
But not in Oliver Twist

Geoffrey Chaucer
Drank from a saucer
As did most of the males
In his Canterbury Tales

King Richard the Third
Might have thought it absurd
That his bones would long fester
Neath a car park in Leicester

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Was putting on a welly
When out popped a toad –
But it didn’t get an ode

Emperor Nero
Was never a hero
He wrote many a Latin idyll
But he never played the fiddle

Emperor Commodus
Never kept the job in focus
He thought himself a doughty fighter
Instead? A nasty little blighter

Alistair McGowan
Has audiences wowin’
Footy’s his obsession
But he makes a good impression

© John Welford

A Bad Spell

The three witches were sitting round the cauldron on the blasted heath when Witch One felt her thumbs get a bit itchy. For reasons best left unexplored, this appeared to be the equivalent of the doorbell ringing in more conventional domestic situations.

“By the pricking of my thumbs”, she said, “something literary this way comes”.

“Don’t you mean ‘something wicked’?” asked Witch Two. “That’s what you usually say.”

“No”, said Witch One, “wicked produces quite a different thumb itch. The guy coming up the hill is someone who writes, I’m sure of it”.

And she was perfectly correct. A man emerged through the fog and filthy air who was quite clearly none other than the greatest writer of them all, namely William Shakespeare.

His reception was a little less friendly than he might have expected from three of his better-known creations.

“And what might you be after?” asked Witch Three. “If you want us to do a sequel to the Scottish play you’ve missed your chance. J K Rowling has scooped the witches in Scotland scene big time, and I don’t think that even you could get one over on her.”

“I’m sure you’re right”, said Bill. “But that’s not why I’m here. You see, I’ve got a bit of a problem that I think you can help me with”.

“If it’s anything in the bedroom department, count us out”, said Witch One. “What you get up to in your second best bed is entirely your problem”.

“No, it’s nothing like that”, said Bill. “Just listen for a minute and I’ll tell you.”

“OK”, said Witch Two. “Have a seat. Do you want a bit of supper while you’re here?  We’re trying out a few new ingredients – all those dogs’ tongues and newts’ eyes are so 11^th century. How does ‘librarian’s finger’ grab you? We sent our favourite hell hound to gather a few samples, although a few weeks ago he only got a nibble at quite a good one in Leicestershire. He’s a bit miffed about that.”

“If it’s all the same to you”, said Bill, “I’ll give it a miss this time”.

Instead, he turned to the matter that was bothering him.

“The problem”, he said, “is that I don’t seem to be very good at spelling. Even when I write my own name I can’t make up my mind how to spell it. I’d like to be a bit more consistent, and I was wondering if you could help me.”

“Of course we can,” said Witch Two. “Nothing could be easier once we use our magic ingredient.”

“Which is?”

“Alphabetti spaghetti”, said Witch Three. “We keep a large quantity in reserve for just such an occasion, plus the fact that we quite like it.”

“I’ve got just the spell for this”, said Witch Two. “You remember I mentioned librarians’ fingers?”

“I’m unlikely to forget”, said Bill.

“Well”, said Witch Two, “we’ll just throw a load of alphabetti spaghetti into the pot, add a generous quantity of librarians’ fingers and, because librarians are so clever, when we say the magic words the fingers will stir all the letters into the right order and you’ll never spell another word wrongly ever again.”

“And what is better”, said Witch One, “if we get it right this will apply to absolutely everyone in the English-speaking world - even Americans if we’re lucky”.

“And if you’re wrong?”

All three witches studiously pretended not to hear this.

Witch One poured a large quantity of alphabetti spaghetti into the cauldron, Witch Two added the librarians’ fingers, and Witch Three uttered the magic words:

“Hocus pocus bogus logus.”

“Just a second”, said Bill. “Did you say ‘bogus’ just then?”

“Don’t think so”, said Witch Three.

“Surely not”, said Witch Two.

“She said ‘hocus pocus bocus locus”, said Witch One. “I’m sure she did. It would be a bit odd if we cast a spell to make everyone spell properly and we couldn’t even spell the words of the spell.”

She laughed uproariously at this, as did the other two witches. William Shakespeare didn’t laugh.

The cauldron bubbled away for about five minutes, then it gave a wheezy sort of cough and spat out a number of spaghetti letters that fell on to the ground and spelled the words: “Spell complete – patent applied for”.

“So,” Bill said, “You are telling me that every time anyone writes a word from now on it will be spelled the same way in all circumstances, whatever the context and whoever is doing the writing.”

“That’s write”, said Witch One. “The librarians’ fingers have determined that their is now only won way of righting every word in the English language.”

“But sometimes you need too”, said Bill.

“Wye?” asked Witch Three.

“And sometimes you knead moor”, said Bill, “because some words sound the same but mein something different. Will you’re spell make shore that nobody ever gets it wrong?”

“Oh deer”, said Witch Two. “Probably knot”.

“Wee didn’t think of that”, said Witch One.

“Wheel get people writing lead instead of led and piece instead of peace,” said Witch Three.

“I’ve only won thing two say”, said Bill Shakespeare.

“Witch is?”

“Bloody Liberians”.

© John Welford

Royal conference

The truth must now be told about a secret royal conference that was held at Windsor Castle not long ago. The Queen had gathered a select coterie of royal predecessors and others to advise her on whether she should abdicate the throne.

“You see”, she said, “One is getting on a bit and one wonders whether it would not be better for one to pass the job on to another one, who for the sake of argument one could refer to as Two”.

“Och, you should be good for a few years yet”, said Macbeth. “You always look sturdy enough when you come to the Highland Games each year.”

“But that’s just the point”, said the Queen. “You always expect one to toss the first caber and one couldn’t get it further than five yards the last time one tried”.

“Maybe you’ve got a fair point there”, said Macbeth. “Perhaps hammer throwing is more in your line. I’ll invite Jeremy Corbyn next time to give you something to aim at.”

“But one is still thinking that maybe it’s time to step aside”, said Her Majesty. “Charles is always dropping subtle hints, like buying one a box set of ‘One’s Foot in the Grave’ for Christmas last year. One hasn’t forgotten the time he got one to open a retirement home and slashed the tyres on the royal car while one was busy cutting the ribbon. And you should hear the things he says when he thinks one has nodded off but is only pretending.”

“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child”, King Lear offered.

“Nicely put”, said the Queen. “One of your own little sayings?”

“William Shakespeare”, said King Lear. “You must have seen the play?”

“Probably”, said the Queen. “But one never takes much notice of the words. Philip’s usually rabbiting on about how much he fancies the actress who’s playing Cordelia.”

“You’re lucky being able to talk about abdicating”, said Richard II. “I got shoved aside to make way for Henry IV Part I”.

“And I, in turn, had to hand over to Henry IV Part 2”, said Henry IV Part 1.

“I’m so glad you did”, said Henry IV Part 2. “But spare a thought for our grandson over there, Henry VI, who ended up in three bits”.

“We’re here to talk about me”, said the Queen, a bit tetchily. “But one is glad you mentioned grandsons, because one is wondering about skipping a generation if and when one gives up. One is not sure that the country is ready for Charles, what with his strange ideas about tree-hugging and homeopathy, but everyone likes William, given his helicopter and everything.”

“What’s a helicopter?” asked Richard III.

“It’s a wonderful flying machine”, said the Queen. “It can pick one up anywhere so one can parachute into the Olympic Stadium, as one once did – that was not a stunt double one hastens to add – and Phillip loves it when William flies him over the moors near Balmoral so he can take pot shots at the deer and anti-blood sport protestors.”

“You know”, said Richard III, “a flying machine would have been so useful at Bosworth. I can see it now –

‘A helicopter, a helicopter, my kingdom for a helicopter’ – Henry Tudor wouldn’t have stood a chance if I’d been able to say that.”

“But that would have been impossible”, said the Queen.

“On the grounds that helicopters hadn’t been invented in 1485?” asked Richard.

“No”, said the Queen. “On the grounds that that line would have broken all the rules of blank verse – far too many syllables”.

“Anyway”, she went on. “This is getting one nowhere. One has nearly made up one’s mind, but one needs to be sure that one has a decent speech to hand when one makes one’s announcement to the nation.”

“You can borrow mine”, said Prospero. “When I abdicated rule of my island and returned to Milan I made quite an affecting speech about breaking my staff and drowning my book.  It’s one of the best things I ever said”.

“No way is one drowning any books”, said the Queen. “When one has finished one’s book it goes straight back to the library – the fines are outrageous if one doesn’t. And did you say something about breaking one’s staff?”

“I did indeed” said Prospero.

“Well that settles it”, said the Queen. “One’s staff are essential. One always needs people to polish one’s tiara and feed the corgis. If abdicating means breaking up one’s staff then one is not doing it. One has every intention of being gloriously happy for a good while longer, thank you all very much.”

And that is precisely what happened. Given that you weren’t there, how do you know otherwise?

© John Welford

Haikus and tankas

The writing challenge was to compose a pair of poems on each of six themes, these being:

Theresa May; map reading; making tea; writing a poem; bird song; dog bite.

The poems had to be a haiku and a tanka. A haiku comprises three lines with syllable pattern 5-7-5 and a tanka is a five line poem with a 5-7-5-7-7 pattern. Rhyming is not allowed in either form.

----------------------------------------------------------

Theresa May

A Prime Minister

Should prime all her ministers

Theresa may not

Theresa, P M

Stood in the street and declaimed

About the future

Will she keep her promises?

Or will the future keep her?

Map reading

I once owned a book

Called “The Map That Came to Life”

And it always does

To get where you want

Forget the sat nav device

A spouse with a map

Will take you both to places

That may not even exist

Making tea

Teabags are so cool

But useless for making tea

Until hot and wet

“You’ve made it too strong

And you know I put milk in first”

It all goes to show

Making tea and making war

Can be hard to tell apart

Writing a poem

Rhyme, metre, rhythm

Weave special magic to show

The power of words

Heroic couplets

Iambic pentameters

Flowing, perfect rhymes

When complete the poet gets

Heroic satisfaction

Bird song

The birds’ dawn chorus

Shouts their wish to rise and shine

Hours before you do

The songs of the birds

May have hidden messages

Should you choose to hear

The woodpigeon says to me:

“Take two books with you, you dolt”

Dog bite

When the dog bit me

No way did I remember

My favourite things

A bitten finger

Six trips to the surgery

Stitches and dressings

Waits for nurses and buses

Gave lots of time to read books

--------------------------------

(And an extra tanka for good measure)

In the library

On library shelves

Opportunities await

For curious minds

Imaginations bleeding

Into brand new dimensions



© John Welford

The Parting of the Ways

( For other pieces of creative writing by me, see Stories and Poems: an index to my blogs )

The Parting of the Ways

The track led steeply up the side of the South Downs towards a celebrated viewpoint at the top. Climbing the track were four people – the older couple were the parents of the female half of the younger married pair. The young marrieds did not have a car of their own, so when a parental weekend visit was made it was good to take advantage of the chance to visit a local beauty spot that would otherwise be difficult to reach.

It had been a fine summer’s day up till then, so they were dressed accordingly and had no protection against the sudden heavy shower that fell upon them as they plodded up the track. They were soon completely soaked to the skin, and a debate started as to what to do next.

“That’s it. We’re turning back” said the older man. However, the younger man was not so sure.

“Why?” he said. “What’s the point of sitting in a parked car, soaking wet and uncomfortable, when we might as well carry on up the hill and see what we came to see? We’re not going to get any wetter than we are already”.

“We’re turning back.” repeated the older man, and promptly did so.

The younger man carried on walking up the track, determined not to miss this rare opportunity to see a fine view and convinced that the shower would soon pass and they would not stay wet for long once the stiff warm breeze that blew over the Downs had got to work.

He was the only one of the four who continued to the top. His wife followed her parents back down the track.

As far as the view from the top was concerned, everything turned out just as he had expected. It was a wonderful view, enhanced by a splendid rainbow as the late afternoon Sun caught the retreating shower cloud passing into the distance above the ridge of the Downs. He stayed there for several minutes, completely dry as he had forecast, and he looked forward to telling the other three about what they had missed.

However, when he got back to where the car had been parked it was nowhere to be seen. They had not waited for him to return but had driven off, presumably as some sort of punishment for daring to contradict his in-laws.

He had no choice but to start walking the twelve miles back to his home, and it was therefore well into the evening before he reached his front door.

He had hardly stepped through it before the shouting started. How dare he be so stupid as not to follow the older man’s advice? He was clearly in the wrong, so why did he not accept this? If he was going to be so wrong about not knowing when to turn back in the rain, what other dangers would he attempt to lead their daughter into? Just what sort of husband was he?

He was too tired to argue, but not too tired to say a few things that, in retrospect, were probably better not said. Wounds were opened that were going to be very difficult to close.

As for his wife, she said absolutely nothing. Just like her mother, she faded into the background and let her father do all the talking.

And that was how the marriage proceeded during the months that followed. Whenever the young couple needed to make a decision, she never agreed anything with her husband if she thought that her parents would disapprove. Instead of talking things through with her husband she would get on the phone to see what they thought.

His in-laws were keen to give the young husband plenty of advice about how to put things right. “You need to work at your marriage” they said. But how could he, when every move he made had to be referred back to the court of Mum and Dad? Or - to be more accurate - the court of Dad?

The literal parting of the ways on the downland track was only one stage in the inevitable breakdown and the final parting. As long as the young woman saw herself as a daughter first and a wife second, what other conclusion could there be?

There was a final irony to their separation, when he came home one day to find that she had packed her bags and was ready to call a taxi to take her to the station. She would have gone already, but she didn’t know how to read the railway timetable. When it came down to it, she needed his help before she could leave him and go back to Mum and Dad.

( For other pieces of creative writing by me, see Stories and Poems: an index to my blogs )

© John Welford

A helpful person

(The brief was to write a true story about something that happened to the writer when they were much younger than they are now)

A Helpful Person

When I finished my degree course at Bangor in 1974 I did not have a firm idea as to the career I wanted to follow. Librarianship was something that I was drawn towards, but I did not want to commit myself by going straight to library school as soon as I got my degree.

I took advantage of a scheme that was available for people in my position, which offered a year as a paid pre-qualification assistant at a university library. I therefore soon found myself at one of the largest and most prestigious such libraries in the country, namely that of the University of London.

The library occupies a large proportion of the Senate House, a 1930s Art Deco skyscraper building close to Russell Square and the British Museum. The building also contains the central administrative offices of the University, which is highly relevant to the story that follows.

My placement as a “student assistant librarian” involved spending time in a number of different departments so that I could get a good idea of the various things that a university library did. One such department was the main Reference reading room, in which the chief task was pointing students and staff towards the resources needed for answering specific questions. I have always enjoyed this aspect of library work, involving as it does a certain amount of detective activity in finding information derived from all sorts of places.

During quiet times in the Reference section I was asked to tackle the various puzzles that came our way in the post, often from overseas students and academics. The worldwide reputation of the University made it a target for all sorts of enquiry, some of which took the form of letters expecting us to write half of a student’s PhD thesis for them!

Some of the letters were due to the existence of a publishing firm that called itself the University of London Press, despite not having any formal connection with the University.  It was not a difficult matter to find out if the query related to something published by this company or by the University’s actual publishing arm, which was called something completely different! Incidentally, the ULP was eventually bought by the University of London, so this problem no longer arises.

I remember on one occasion finding a letter addressed to the “State University of London” that should have gone to the State University of Leiden in the Netherlands!

I must have been quite good at this particular job, because the librarians asked me to carry on doing it for an hour a day after I was supposed to have moved on to another department. That was why I found myself, one fine morning, sitting at a desk in the Reading Room with a bank of phones in front of me and a pile of queries to sort out.

One of these related to the fact that the University was – at that time – one of the organisations that set school exams at GCE O- and A-level. My own school qualification certificates were almost all issued by London University. The query was from someone who wanted to buy a set of past papers in a particular subject.

I therefore picked up the phone to call the Publications Department, which lurked somewhere else in that vast building, and so began an extraordinary episode of telephonic pass the parcel.

The first person I called was quite sure that they could not help, but – if I waited a moment – they would put me through to someone who could. That was OK by me, but the second person was also apparently not the one I wanted, and neither was the third.

The fourth person reckoned that this was a matter for the School Exams Department, so off I went again. The same happened in this department as in the previous one, with my call being passed around like a hand grenade with the pin already removed.

Eventually I spoke to someone who had every sympathy with my dilemma, although she did not have the answer I needed.

“Mind you”, she said, “When I get a question I can’t answer I usually try someone who nearly always comes up trumps. Wait a second and I’ll put you through.”

I waited a second. Another phone on my desk started ringing. I picked it up. “Hello”, I said.

I was talking to myself.

© John Welford

Volunteering the Dark: a story

(This story was written in response to a challenge to write something with a title created by selecting random verbs and nouns. The three titles on offer were "Volunteering the Dark", "Feeding the Cottage" and "Running the Zoo".)

Volunteering the Dark

Conversations in the afterlife tend to be a mixture of “if onlys” and “wasn’t I greats?” That is certainly the case when Richard III and Henry V get chatting, as in the instance related here.

Richard was bemoaning his fate, as he had done ever since his despatch at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.

“And the ignominy – the disgrace – of having my remains dug out of a council car park in Leicester. A council car park!”

“To be fair”, said Henry, “it wasn’t always a council car park, on the grounds that for most of your centuries of incarceration there weren’t any cars.”

“That’s true”, said Richard.

“It was probably a council horse and cart park before then”, Henry offered, although this didn’t seem to do much to calm Richard’s mood.

“And look at you”, the latter said, “buried in a magnificent tomb in Westminster Abbey, alongside all the great and the good. That’s where I should be. Nothing wrong with Leicester Cathedral, of course, but it’s not Westminster Abbey.”

“On the other hand,” said Henry, “my mortal remains have to share the same building as your old sparring partner Henry VII. God – how he goes on and on about getting the better of you. You’re better off where you are, I can tell you.”

“And another thing,” said Henry, “When his son Henry VIII came along, some vandal stole the head of my effigy. If only you could have won your battle, I’d still be in one piece.”

“I would love to have won my battle”, said Richard. “Just like you did at Agincourt.”

“Do you want to know why you lost and I won?” asked Henry. “There’s one simple answer to that.”

“Which is?”

“Intelligence”, said Henry. “Something I had and you didn’t”.

“There’s no need to be insulting about it” said Richard.

“Oh, don’t take it the wrong way, “said Henry. “I’m not being personal. I meant military intelligence.”

“Oh that”, said Richard. “What do you mean, exactly?”

“I knew what was going on before my battle started and you didn’t. That’s because I sent out spies to get me the information about what I was up against.”

“So did I”, said Richard.

“And how many came back alive?” asked Henry.

“In round numbers?”

“Round numbers”.

“In round numbers”, said Richard, “approximately none.”

“Exactly”, said Henry. “None. So you hadn’t a clue what your enemy was up to. And you knew even less about what side your supposed allies were on, either.”

“Point taken”, said Richard.

“Your main problem”, said Henry, “was the way you recruited your spies. Presumably you asked for volunteers?”

“Of course”, said Richard.

“And how many came forward?”

“In round numbers?” asked Richard.

“Oh, not that one again”, said Henry. “You mean none, don’t you?”

“Indeed”, said Richard.

“So presumably you tried the line that I did, and every leader of men has done from time immemorial?”

“You mean”, said Richard, “I want three volunteers – you, you and you”.

“Precisely”, said Henry.

“I’ve always wondered why we bother asking for volunteers at all”, said Richard. “Why don’t we just grab the first three idiots we find and tell ‘em what to do?”

“It’s so that we can tell their widows that they died heroically rather than just as cannon fodder”, said Henry.

“Oh yes”, said Richard. “I’d forgotten that.”

“But”, he went on, “that doesn’t explain why your volunteers succeeded and mine did not.”

“Describe the men you sent as spies”, said Henry.

“Oh”, said Richard. “They were fine upstanding young men, dressed in bright tunics that showed they were proud ambassadors of their king, ready to do their duty to their rightful monarch.”

“That’s where you went wrong”, said Henry. “My volunteers were nothing like that”.

“How so?” asked Richard.

“I sent my men out at night”, said Henry. “I made them blacken their faces with mud – there was plenty of that at Agincourt – and dress in dark costumes. Nobody saw them as they approached the enemy camp and they were able to take as long as they needed to make a full assessment of the French forces before slipping away and reporting back to me. Your spies, on the other hand, would have been spotted a mile away and promptly despatched. Do you now see why I won and you didn’t?”

“I’m beginning to”, said Richard.

“You see”, said Henry, “when you volunteer your spies the secret lies not in volunteering the bright young things in your army but in volunteering the dark”.

© John Welford