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Competition No 3865

Set by Gavin Ross, 17 January

We wanted updated seasonal proverbs and verse, given global warming, etc.

Report by Ms de Meaner

Hmm. A difficult one to judge on the length v quality front. OK, here goes. Cregan and Du Croz (£5 book tokens); Swift, Curran, Morgan and Blake (£10 each); Josh Ekroy and Katie Mallett (£20 each). Josh Ekroy also gets the Tesco vouchers for going that extra mile.

In the mild midwinter

Balmy breeze made moan,

Earth was soft as butter,

Daffies stood alone:

No snow has fallen no, no snow,

Snow, no snow,

Since that bleak midwinter

Long ago.

John J Swift

The Darling Buds of February.

Michael Cregan

One parakeet doesn't make a summer.

Anne Du Croz

Now is the summer of our discontent

Made glorious winter by this cloud of York

And all the light that radiated us,

Above the tall stratosphere suspended.

Now are our brows unsmeared with Factor 12;

Our cankered arms new-heal'd from their disease;

Health warnings changed to polluting ditties;

Within-door sojourns turn'd to rash outings.

Green-fronted eco-war hath dropped his guard;

And e'en now, instead of demonstrations

In Whitehall (cries of "Death to the car!"),

He drives a Porsche round Trafalgar Square

Amidst roaring of lecherous exhausts.

Oh, thus it is that I have grown three heads

And glow withal in darkness, crackling

When I walk, that e'en the mutated dogs

Do bark at me, as I hobble by them.

Josh Ekroy

The north wind doth warm

And locusts will swarm

And what will poor robin do then?

Poor thing!

He'll flee in alarm

And perch in a palm

And hide his head under his wing,

Poor thing!

Shirley Curran

Make hay any day of the year.

Every cloud is a sight to treasure.

"Wintertime and the livin' is easy" (from Porgy and Bess).

One Season by Vivaldi.

Derek Morgan

If you can't stand the heat, better move to the Arctic.

A drowning man clutches at treetops.

Alanna Blake

Oh to be in England

Now December's there,

And whoever wakes in England

In the mild and balmy air

May see beneath the leafless trees

Some flowers dancing in the breeze

As daffodils are out, somehow,

In England - now.

And after Christmas, New Year follows,

And then you'll see the springtime swallows

And the cuckoo will be turning up in tune

To find the nests of woodland birds who think

Already it's the month of June

As the seasons' weather turns all out of sync.

And seven-spotted ladybirds and bees

Wing on the winter breeze,

And though the farmers' fields may still be brown

Geraniums in bloom bedeck the town

And cherry blossom hangs upon the bough

As global warming heats up England now.

Katie Mallett

No 3868 Set by John O'Byrne

We want an extract from an updated children's story, injecting it with suitable doses of economic and social realism, eg, The Famous Five Have Tuition Fees to Pay.

As many as you like by 17 February. E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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