Transliterate the flow
No 4084
Set by Tim Hopkins
You were asked to take a weighty poem of your choice and turn it into light verse

Report by Ms de Meaner
Yes, I know that, strictly speaking, “transliteration” means “mapping from one system of writing into another, word by word” (one comper complained about the title), but thankfully no one thought we actually meant that or attempted such a fiendishly difficult task.

There was an enormous postbag this week, but thanks to the non-appearance of comp no 4085, next week we will be able to publish some more winners from 4084. This week’s three winners get £20 each, with the Tesco vouchers going to the top dog, Shirley Curran.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Kubla Khan
Daddy was a Mongol,
Grandpa was one, too
Tho he’d captured most of China
What’s now left to do?

I know! I’ll build a great big dome –
Bigger than at Greenwich
And fill it up with all good things
Jezebels, caramels, gammon and some spinach

Fast, thick hot pants will they wear,
Disco-brightening the pleasure park
Glastonbury could not compare –
All smoky haze and blown-up days
Fighting in Iraq.
Tim Cartwright


Shakespeare
Sonnet 18
If A and B can both agree
They like each other, who am I
To mock and sneer, to interfere?
If they see eye to eye
And heart to heart, will never part
But stick it out through thick
and thin
No matter what, not give a jot
When problems come a-crowdin’ in,
Love is their star amid the dark,
Their lighthouse in a stormy sea,
The anchor on their Noah’s Ark:
B for A, and A for B.
If I am wrong, and you can show it,
This isn’t rhyming verse, and I’m no poet.
Frederick Robinson

Arthur Hugh Clough
Say not the Struggle Naught Availeth
Don’t say the hassle isn’t worth it,
The body search and queuing vain,
Don’t spit and snarl and soundly curse it –
The long-delayed incoming plane.
Though PA systems could be
lying,
It may be soon that screens
will yield
A boarding gate, and you’ll be flying
To paradise that was revealed
In brochures you’ve been vainly reading
Each morning on the work-bound train.
This is the break you’re sadly needing –
Hot sun, hot sex – a week in Spain!
And even if your plane’s a bummer
And you are flying through the night,
Tomorrow there’ll be Spanish summer!
And southward, look, the sun
is bright!
Shirley Curran


No 4087 The midwife’s view
Set by Hank T Romein
While Norwegians are said to be born on skis and aristocrats with silver spoons in their mouths, this can only lead us to wonder what birth abnormalities might identify a baby as American, Australian, a future MP, police chief, or member of another category of your choice. Suggestions, please.

Max 10 categories by 30 July
Email: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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This England
Each printed entry will receive a £5 book token. Entries on a POSTCARD, please, to This England, NS, address on page 3

Health and safety lapse
A taxi driver who pulled into an Esso garage to clean her windscreen was refused a bucket of water on health and safety grounds.

Mother Karen Milsom, 46,
said: “I couldn’t believe it. I told the guy at the counter surely my own health and safety on the road was more important as I couldn’t see where I was going. He said I could buy mineral water.”

Esso apologised for the “lapse” in customer service at its garage near Salisbury, Wiltshire.
Metro (F Harvey)

Taking advantage
A cinema wrote to elderly filmgoers accusing them of “unacceptable” and “juvenile” behaviour at its special
screenings for pensioners. The letter, handed out at one of Odeon Leicester’s weekly Senior Screen events, claimed that customers had threatened, pushed, bullied and intimidated staff, saved seats for friends and jumped queues.

They were also accused of taking advantage of the free tea and biscuits handed out.
Guardian (Peter Barnes)