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Competition No 3892

Set by Valerie Yule, 25 July

We wanted famous poets rewritten.

Report by Ms de Meaner

£20 to the winners. Mr Silverman also gets the Tesco vouchers for added length!

I wandered lonely as a cloud

My Geiger clicking much too loud.

Before my eyes there glowed a yield

Of purple daffs called Sellafield.

They screamed, they yelled, their petals raw.

Along the lakeside edge they tore.

I smiled. I grinned. I paid no heed.

They were the non-maneating breed.

Had they been orange-pink and pale,

They would have been the type Windscale.

In that event you are soon dead

Unless, of course, you're clad in lead.

J Seery (Wordsworth)

You know, at least you ought to know

The nurse to children ratio

Required by the Children Act.

You know that nurses should be checked

And trained to keep a careful eye on

Children spied by hungry lion

That zoo trips should be risk-assessed,

According to the DfES;

That nurseries should be Ofsteded

To prevent our young from being beheaded

By wild cats or other creatures,

When in the care of nurs'ry teachers.

So on this inauspicious day

When Jim slipp'd off and ran away,

A working task group had begun

To put in place an action plan.

Its primary strategic aim?

"Protecting Children from Big Game."

The key performance indicator -

"No child attacked by alligator,

Lion, tiger, chimpanzee . . ." -

Was clearly placed in jeopardy,

Since, sadly for poor Sonny Jim,

A lion had just eaten him.

(All job descriptions need the clause:

"Saving kids from carnivores.")

David Silverman (Belloc)

Tyger! Tyger! dying out

In your concrete zoo redoubt,

Every goggling eye can see

Your next stop's the cemetery.

In the conquered deeps and skies

No more like you shall e'er arise,

So, why tarry on the brink?

You'll be precious when extinct.

What the torment? What the pain?

Knowing you won't mate again.

In this fell, bar-bounded place,

Nothing left to do but pace.

Adrian Fry (Blake)

Little lamb, who cloned thee?

Dost thou know who cloned thee?

Gave thee name and DNA,

Test-tube birth and sponsored play;

Gave thee fleece and woolly face,

Status on the database?

Little lamb, who cloned thee?

Dost thou know who cloned thee?

Little lamb, I'll tell thee,

Dolly's child, I'll tell thee.

He is Kevin in the lab

(The government picks up the tab)

With his team of PhDs

In genetics-linked IDs.

Little lamb, they cloned thee.

Little lamb, they owned thee.

D A Prince (Blake)

No 3895 Set by Valerie Yule

"With Mercury in an uncooperative mood" and "your ruling planet on a three-week break" . . . we want you to write on the theology of the astrology found in modern magazines.

Max 150 words, in by 25 August. E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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