C’est ça
Last September I mentioned that I’d completed four years of A Limerick A Week (ALAW) and that I’d give it another year before downsizing to Occasional Limericks Only (OLO).
Well, today’s ALAW marks five years of The Good, The Bad and The Indifferent. No week was missed and, although one or two were a day or so late, there were several bonus limericks to make up for that (including today!).
I would have liked my last ALAW to be a perfect blend of clever word play, intelligent bawdiness and anapestic correctness, but although I’ve given you two to finish with, sadly neither is that…
It’ll never ever be orthodox
For ‘gateaux’ to be pronounced ‘gattox’
Which just goes to show
Why we don’t say ‘bolleaux’
When he’s told that his lim’ricks are ‘bollox’!
A limericist tried hard to coax
A rhyme that’s so pure it invokes
The most noble of verse,
But his oeuvre got worse
So he quit, saying “That is all folks!”
Postscript: there are two limericks that I came across over the last five years, written by others, which, I really, really, really wish I’d written myself. But I didn’t. So, with full acknowledgement that these are the work of others…
… the first, by Mick Twister (@twitmericks), uses clever word play and was contemporaneous with the event that inspired it. In this case, it needs context to be fully appreciated (see pic, below):
A Rotterdam artist’s creation
Prevented a train conflagration
On leaving the rail,
It stopped on the whale,
Which wasn’t its scheduled cetacean.
As good as that is, if I’d only ever written one limerick, I’d wish it was as clever and inventively bawdy as this one (NB, you have to pronounce the name the American way, ie, ber-NARD rather than the British way, BER-nud):
A cross-dressing monk called Bernard
Dropped dead when crossing the yard.
Post-mortem inspection
Revealed an erection.
It seems that old habits die hard!
(Author unknown to me, but I doff my cap regardless – reply in comments for credit.)
Big congratulations on lasting 5 years with ALAW! It’s tough producing anything creative on demand to a schedule. My sadly passed friend Arthur Deex used to produce a limerick special interest newsletter (The Pentatette) every month and did without fail for fully 30 years. When he finally got tired I said I would try to take the baton. I lasted but three issues …
I am a latecomer to ALAW, but look forward just as much to the occasional, less pressured version. Thanks for the fun had and yet to come!
Thanks Doug. There will be others, but hopefully ‘occasionally’ rather than ‘weekly’ will raise the standard. There have been a few ‘fillers’ over the years that were posted simply to get something out. They’re no fun to write. For the better ones, I really wish I could draw because to have illustrated them would have been fun!
Hi Phil.
5-year’s worth of ALAW – a remarkable achievement and every one a winner! Adopting an American police idiom, I’ll definitely BOLO for your next OLO.
Cheers
Chris
Thanks Chris. I’ve gained increased respect for columnists who manage to produce long, humorous pieces week after week that make my five lines look a tad minimalist! Nevertheless, I’m still endeavouring to pen the perfect limerick one day, so keep watching this space!