COMPETITION

After you, Ogden

Jaspistos

IN COMPETITION NO. 2139 you were invited to supply a poem in the style of Ogden Nash on the subject of golf, the opera or Englishness.

Three typically Ogdenish subjects. As Aubrey Wilson pointed out in last week's Letters, there is a splendid Nash poem about the English; I learn from Alanna Blake that there is also a warning to women not to many golfers, and I bet my boots (curious wager, come to think of it) that there's one about opera too. Owing to the poetic 'conventions' of Nash, there's room for only four winners this week. They each get a well-earned £35, and the bottle of the Macallan Single Malt Highland Scotch whisky goes to Michael Swan.

While some entertainments are not considered proper, others are deemed much properer, And the properest of all is undoubtedly opera. But I can never remember whether we are seeing La Traviata or II Trovatore, And whatever it is, I cannot make any sense of the story.

Because in opera they all dress up as each other, So the Count ends up confusing his girlfriend with his mother Despite the fact that the latter is much larger than the former, and sings bass, But she is holding a piece of cardboard with two eyeholes in front of her face, And in the world of opera this counts as an adequate disguise.

Also, there is the fact that everybody sings very healthily for a long time when he or she dies. And furthermore, when you get two young lovers like Tristan and Isolde, They are both 40 lb heavier than you expect, and 50 years older.

So please do not attempt to take me to Figaro or Lucia di Lammermoor: I would relish sitting in a swamp being hit on the head with a hammer more.

I hope you enjoy your evening at La Boheme or The Magic Flute or Carmen.

Speaking for myself, I plan to renew acquaintance with several barmen. (Michael Swan) Opera is a riot of passion, music and spectacle That makes your eyes run, your ears pop and your neck tickle.

You sit wallowing in emotion, But of what it's about you haven't the least notion, Because it's usually in German, Italian, Russian or Finnish, Which does tend to make one's comprehension diminish.

For the benefit of those ignorant of opera (of whom there are plenty), I'm writing a 'Guide to Opera for the Non- Cognoscenti'. My first piece of advice is: don't bother with the story, Particularly in works such as 11 Trovatore, In which the most exciting parts Of the plot have already happened before the opera even starts. But for action-packed drama — murders, curs- es, incest, suicides, arson, evil dwarfs and giants — try The Ring, which is terrific, Though after five hours you may find it soporific. (Geoffrey Riley) Golfers have lived a life of groans Since the days of Harry Vardon and Bobby Jones. In the past you'd ping a pearler close to the pin, then, blimey, On would come your opponent's ball and lay you a stymie.

Now the dirty work's done by committees who put tough Features like death-trap bunkers and two-foot rough, And let you chip, then watch your ball kind of scrabble on Down greens like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

Or else you plop your ball in the water, Because, however many times you've told your- self about it, you still don't keep your head down like you oughter.

But one thing about your double bogey processional Puts you one up on that godlike circuit professional: You may be the sport of the gremlins' malice, But you're not a source of avuncular funnies for Peter Alliss.

(Chris Tingley) The nature of the English — I speak as a colonial - Tends towards the stiff, also the baronial. Ever since the War of Independence Was fought by our forefathers (we are their descendants), Our former masters Have thought the loss of revenue from the Virginia plantations one of their greatest disasters; Since when they have waxed satirical About our literature, tragic or lyrical, Our English, our wars, our fashions, And our other passions.

They tell us, while it is Uncle Sam's brief hour To be a world-dominating power, That we in America have become lately A little too united, a little too stately.

(John Causer)