My Klingon for a horse...

If you're writing science fiction and running low on plot, it's not unheard of to dip into classic literature and... erm... borrow a story (I'm looking at you, Russell T.)

There are only so many plots, right?

Anyhoo, I was just about to go to sleep the other night when someone on Twitter started up  #SciFiShakespeare - a 'hashtag (or should that be mashtag?) game' with an irresistible combination if ever there was one.

As some of you are not on Twitter and so miss it's more fun elements, I have listed as I sometimes do here, some my favourites (some in the screen grab on the left, and some pasted below).

Do chip in with your own Shakespeare / scifi mashups in the comments below:

@Dr_Dmo: My Klingon for a horse

‏@JohnMoynes: 

But soft, what beast through yonder stomach breaks?

@Beanmimo: 

(Stolen from Spitting Images a long long time ago) To be not not to be, that is illogical Captain.

‏@HefSan:

Close Encounters of the Richard III Kind

 @sturadernie:

To take arms against a sea of tribbles and by opposing, end them…

And of course, not to be outdone, I came up with:

For in that sleep of Darth what dreams may come? and Don't Panic and let slip the dog of war!

Funny Submission Guidelines #1

I wish I'd started this post when I first began sending out poems and stories for publication. But here are a few little gems I've found in submission guidelines recently for your delectation - you may even want to send some of your writing to these markets ...

"Please no poetry, we don’t understand it." The Safety Pin Review (short fiction)

"750 or fewer words. Weird. Surprising. Preferably no elves." Brain Harvest

"We’re just not the best market for doom-laden go-nowhere stories which push the boundaries of the English language into new and unfortunate places." Andromeda Spaceways In-flight Magazine

"We're not looking for poetry. Feel free to submit limericks. We won't publish them, but we might read them. Limericks are cool."  Crowded Magazine  (Who also need to be clear on this point: "No purple midgets, gay pirates, or unicorns. Actually, that's a lie. If you have a great story about a unicorn-riding purple midget battling a fleet of gay pirates, drop it in the queue. Really. We don't see enough of that kind of thing.")

And finally, two favourites from Short, Fast and Deadly:

"We're pretty sure our mothers read this page. Yours might too. We don't mind if she flinches a bit but we don't want her keeling over or anything."

and...

"No Haiku! For the love of God. No Haiku."

Let me know if you come across any other good ones... I feel this may turn into a regular feature!

p.s. And of course, the best place to find out the best places to send your submissions to is the excellent free writer's database and submission tracker called Duotrope which I can't recommend highly enough

The Odd Couplet... and other Poetical Films

One of the things I love about Twitter is how it's become a natural home for the dreadful pun. I've blogged before* about Hashtag games, where people compete to come up with the worst puns on a particular subject - usually a mash up of film titles, songs, animals and some topical theme.

This week I had a lot of fun with #poeticalfilms ... I don't know who started it but was surprised how many took it up and ran with it. Here are some of my faves...

Faust Amongst Equals
@bingaddick

2001: A Space Ode Essay
@adrianbriggs

Crocodile Spondee
@hudsonette

Doggerel Day Afternoon
Raiders of the Lost John Cooper Clarke
@pifflechimp

Private Betjeman
Die Hardy
Whitman Can't Jump
‏@Balls_to_Monty

Silence of the iamb
@Tarawuski

Rimbaud: First Blood
‏@m_yates

The Men Who Stare At Goethe
Honey I Shrunk The Keats
Debbie Does Ballads
The Odd Couplet
@CosyFanTootie

Look Ted Hughes Talking
‏@AntBeal

Mad Max Beyond The Palindrome
PignusDominus

The Hitchhaiku
‏@FakePaulCoia

The Hughes Brothers
Dead Men don't wear Plath.
@martysm

Con Ayres
@Trudski2012

Haiku Fidelity
‏@standardbrit

Here are some of my own: ‏

For Whom the Belloc Tolls
Anapest in Show
Truly, Madly, Hegley
Baudelaire of the White Worm
Woolf Creek
Quatrain Man
and of course Carol Ann Duffy the Vampire Slayer

@ClareKirwan

and, a personal favourite... drum roll...

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day of the triffids
‏@JimGall5

Go to it! You may not be on twitter, but you can still join in here...

* Why are there so many songs about librarians?

Here lies...

My series of posts last year on short forms of writing was incomplete - it covered the shortest of short stories, tiny rhymes, haiku and filthy limerick but didn't finish off with a good epitaph.

The Penguin Book of Comic and Curious Verse had some excellent examples:

Billy, in one of his nice blue sashes
Fell in the fire and was burned to ashes.;
Now, although the room grows chilly,
I haven't the heart to poke poor Billy.
Harry Graham

Mary Ann has gone to rest,
Safe at last on Abraham's breast,
Which may be nuts for Mary Ann,
But is certainly rough on Abraham.
Anon

The perfect place for an epitaph is the gravestone: the last empty page that any of us can hope to write upon ... with no room for superfluous detail. Short of having yourself or your loved one stuffed, how can we immortalise someone who's passed? And can you sum up a life on a piece of granite?

This chap could:

Here lies my wife:
Here let her lie!
Now she's at rest
And so am I.

Ideally, it would be better if you, or someone who actually liked you were left this task. W.B Yeats took no chances by writing his own:

Cast a cold Eye
On Life, on Death.
Horseman, pass by!

But one wonders if the deceased would have approved sometimes:

"Here lies Lester Moore,
Four slugs from a forty-four.
No Les,
No Moore."
(Boothill Cemetery, Tombstone)*

"Here lies John Yeast,
Pardon me for not rising."
(Cemetary in Ruidoso, New Mexico)*

Perhaps the most famous tombstone inscription (although it has been used several times before his death - perhaps by fans who pre-deceased him) is Spike Milligan's:

'I told you I was ill.'

Interestingly, the inscription had to be written in Gaelic to be approved by the Chichester Diocese)

So what would you like to see on your gravestone? Or, indeed, mine?

* Both sourced from Funny and Famous Tombstone Epitaphs

Book: Gravestones, Tombs and Memorials: Symbols, Styles & Epitaphs (England's Living History)

Awareness Awareness Month

I'm sorry to disappoint long-standing followers, but I forgot about National Double Entendre Week back in March.

This was a completely fictitious theme week that myself and Moptop invented last year and planned to bring into being merely by pretending it was real!

I was reminded of this by this tweet from comedian Jimmy Carr:

Stress? I know about stress. Hypertension is my middle name. (Actually it's Marion... I made that up too.) I packed in my lucrative PR job because of it, but not before sending my blood pressure to near-critical levels and irreparably messing up my kidneys.

But when I looked on the web I couldn't decide if it was National Stress Month here or in America - I mean I'm not going to get all 'aware of the issues' if it's some foreign thing. Then I found this list on Wikipedia.

So - in April, we should be especially aware of alcohol, the earth and sexual assault whilst appreciating jazz, pets and volunteers, and preventing cruelty to both animals and children. No wonder it's stressful!

... and if you can't be bothered to scroll down the whole hellish confection there, here's some examples:

• National Be On Porpoise Month... sorry that should read Be On Purpose (I did that 'on purpose)
• Return Shopping Carts to the Supermarket Month
• Creative Romance Month
• Typewriter Appreciation Month
• Black Hole Awareness Month (I dare you to click on that link - it will mess with your head!)
• Antiphospholipid Antibody Syndrome (APS) Awareness Month (and let's face it - they need the publicity because I've never even heard of that)
• National Library Card Sign-up Month

October is National Dessert Month, National Pasta Month AND National Pasta Month (AND pork, pretzel, pickled peppers and popcorn months) - are they trying to kill us?.... And it's also, ironically Hunger Awareness Month: People will just keep saying: ''Yes, I'm aware that millions of people are starving to death, but pass me the Parmesan!' until the penne finally drops.

There's even a National Constipation Awareness Month - no shit! (And I'd made that up as a joke before I even found out it was real!)

I think National Double Entendre Month would fit right in, don't you. Although I am vaguely suspicious - it being Wikipedia and all - that some of them (Dirty Harry Month?) might be just as made up as mine... and actually don't they all exist only because somebody says they do?

What kind of awareness month would you champion?

p.s. I must STRESS that these are just the themed months... I haven't even started on the themed weeks or days - and nor shall I (probably) - not with my blood pressure!

Ho Ho Ho! My favourite Christmas Jokes

It's a funny time of year - and I hope these Christmas jokes make it just a little bit funnier:
Q - Why is Christmas just like another day at the office?
A - You end up doing all the work and the fat guy in the suit gets all the credit.

***
Three men die on Christmas Eve. St Peter says they can get into heaven if they have something Christmassy with them.
The first guy clicks his lighter. 'It's a candle!' He says, and is allowed in.
The second guy jangles a bunch of keys. 'Jingle bells!' He sings, and is allowed in.
The third guy thinks for a minute then fishes a pair of ladies' knickers out of his pocket.
'In what way are they Christmassy?' asks Saint Peter.
'They’re Carol’s!'
***
We were very poor. Every Christmas my mother would give us all a haircut and then we’d sit down to Xmas dinner with all the trimmings.

***
Q- How does Darth Vader know what Luke Skywalker is getting for Christmas?
A - Because he has felt his presents.

***
A woman goes into a post office to buy some stamps for her Christmas cards. 'What denomination do you want?' asks the lady at the counter. 'Good God!' she said. 'Has it come to this? I suppose you'd better give me twenty Catholic and twenty Protestant.

***
Q - Why does Santa come down the chimney?
A - Because those pants are tight and he wriggles a lot

***
I got a Helium book for Xmas. I can’t put it down.
***
I got a U2 jigsaw for Christmas. I'm starting with the Edge.

***
I bought my kids a David Blaine doll for Christmas – they couldn’t open the box!

***
Tampax are replacing the string on tampons with a piece of tinsel – but just for the Christmas period only


More seasonal sillies in The Funniest Christmas Joke Book Ever

~ That's all folks! ~

There's more Christmas humour at christmastime.com

I was a Magician's Assistant

Not knowing how to describe myself in just a few words -as Twitter requires -I leave my description as: 'I used to be a magician's assistant but, after years of therapy, rarely appear out of an empty box these days.

This may sound like something made up to amuse but it is, of course,  absolutely true.

I was twelve. He was a workmate of my father's - a member of the Magic Circle - and he started a small (very small) 'School of Magic' in his basement every Sunday morning. It was mainly pubescent girls, and his wife would make us costumes - we'd dress as mini showgirls or circus animals for his magic shows. 

Ahhh the roar of the greasepaint, the smell of the crowd... the vicious little teeth of Mr Wuffles, the dwarf white rabbit!

There was one trick where a dog 'magically' appeared out of an empty box - which was then shown to be empty again. Then me and another girl jumped out too with our special 'Ta daaaa!' faces on. 

It was quite a tight squeeze in the empty box with my friend and the dog.

I know what you're thinking. It does sound a bit pervy when I consider it now - but it was all in innocence and lots of fun. I was 'Young Magician of the Year' in 1977 - admittedly in a local competition they ran themselves which only had four entrants. I themed my act around outer space, wore deely-bopper antennae and a silver lame bodkin - 'sadly' there are no pictures - and did my tricks in rhyming couplets:

I'm a Magician, come from Mars I do magic on the stars.

(Oddly, I didn't win any poetry prizes.)

Perhaps, in retrospect, my parents were concerned - my dad came with me on Sundays and pretty soon he was learning the tricks of the trade and knocking up 'magic boxes' in the shed. So then I started being his 'glamorous' assistant at house parties for posh families and Christmas bashes for the kids of local factory workers. 

It was hard work and a bit scary - wondering if they would be well behaved and enjoy it.  By now I was a glowering, spotty, teenager - and when I had my hair cut off it took away my special powers. After all, it was all done with mirrors.

I suspect we were both very glad when he stopped. 

Update: I just found more pictures: The 'empty' box we used to appear out of and me in my lion costume.  Easily as dodgy!

Now, children, are you sitting comfortably?

A couple of times lately, I've had to work a few hours in the Children's Library - which is conveniently (for me!) separate in an adjacent building. 

It isn't really my 'oeuvre'. I don't have kids or young cousins. I'm not an auntie. I don't have many friends with kids (once they have them, they tend to mix with other parents) and most of my neighbours are elderly.

So it's like they're an alien species. I'm not sure how to communicate or, indeed, what to say. I'm quite chatty to adult borrowers but feel my chosen topics (government cutbacks, spreadsheet techniques, identity theft, the weather) may fall on stony ground with youngsters. So I opt for talking to everyone as if they were about 35, and if aliens come I'll probably do the same. Heaven knows, some of our young visitors even behave as if they were 35.  

Anyway, browsing through the (broadly) safe and cuddly world of children's fiction, I couldn't help noticing that some of the stories need a bit of updating.  After all, nursery rhymes are sometimes believed to be about social issues of the time, so I have set about the task... 

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
Jack jumped over the cfl...


Mary Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With insecticide and fertiliser
and B&Q gazebo


Rock-a-bye baby in a tree top
Call Social Services - this has to stop!


Baa baa, black sheep - have any wool?
No sir, no sir - since there was the cull

Little Jack Horner, sat in a corner
Eating his five a day...

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall...
Humpty Dumpty! Had an accident that wasn't your fault?
Call 0800 ….

Three mice with visual impairments...

P.S.  Some excellent additions in the comments posted below including a fine reworking of my favourite Belloc cautionary tale

 

Top 20 Lightbulb Jokes

The clocks go back this weekend here in the UK and the nights are drawing in so I thought light up your lives by sharing some of the best lightbulb jokes I know.

My favourites (of course) are the ones that subvert cliches or play with words/ideas.

If you're not familiar with the type, the (otherwise disappointing) LightbulbJokes.com gives this definition:  How many (name of group of people/persons) does it take to change a light bulb ? Answer: (A finite positive integer F) One to change the bulb, and the rest to (behave in a manner stereotypical of their group) or (say something stereotypical of their group in certain situations)

But don't go rushing off over there because these are better, starting with oldies-but-goodies:

Q: How many men does it take to change lightbulb?

A: One to do it and 9 mates to congratulate him down at the pub

 

Q: How many Blue Peter presenters does it take to change a lightbulb ?

A: Two. One to change it, and one to turn the old one into an attractive Christmas tree decoration.

 

Q: How many librarians does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: "I don't know, but I can look it up for you."

 

Q: Another topical one! How many Local Government Officials does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Fifty, one to change the light bulb and 49 to carry out a fact finding mission to Shanghai to see how they change light bulbs there.

 

Q: How many censors does it take to change a light bulb?

A: One to ---- ------- ----- and another to ---- ----- ---- while ---- ---- - - -----with a ------

 

Q: How many Orwellian thought police does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: None.... There never was any light bulb, don't you remember?

 

Q: How many Catholic Priests / C of E Vicars / Orthodox Rabbis (delete where applicable) does it take to change lightbulb?

A:  "Change? Change??”

 

Q: How many Vietnam war veterans does it take to change lightbulb?

A: "You don’t know? No you don't know - cos you weren't there, man!"

 

Q: How many modern artists? does it take to change lightbulb?

A: One to climb the giraffe and the other to fill the bath tub with brightly colored machine tools

 

Q: How many surrealists? does it take to change lightbulb?

A: A fish

 

Q: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Whereas the party of the first part, also known as "Lawyer," and the party of the second part, also known as "Light Bulb," do hereby and forthwith agree…

 

Q: How many defence lawyers does it take to change lightbulb?

A: How many can you afford?

 

Q: How many psychoanalysts does it take to change lightbulb?...

A: Two: One to change the lightbulb and the other to hold the mother - er, penis - er, ladder!

 

Q: How many Microsoft engineers does it take to change a lightbulb? 

A: None. They just declare darkness the industry standard

 

Q: How many Zen Buddhists does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Change must come from within.

 

Q: How many mice does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: Two, but don’t ask me how they got in there!

 

And on that subject…

 

Q How many copy editors does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A “I can't tell whether you mean 'change’ a light bulb or 'have sex’ in a light bulb. Can we reword it to remove the ambiguity?”

 

Q: How many mystery writers does it take to change lightbulb?

A: One to write the majority of it and the other to give it an unexpected twist at the end

(last two from: http://darkerotica.blogspot.com/2005/01/literary-light-bulbs.html)

 

Q:  How many poets does it take to change a light bulb? 

                   swimming

A:  None, fish are          through the       of my consciousness,

           and                          edges

           I          dark.

             like the

This last from the vast vaults of : http://www.eyrie.org/~thad/strange/lightbulbs.html

There's also more here and here, but by far the biggest selection I've come across on the web is on this site

The Oxford Comma... and friends

I first heard of the Oxford comma on one of Dogberry's posts at Inky Fool. 

Punctuation named after places? Whatever next? Apparently it's the comma that you could (but may choose not to) put before the 'and' in a sentence list. 

As an example, here's what Simon Says at Writers Bureau had to say on the subject:

"I dedicate this book to my parents, Martin Amis and JK Rowling."
...it suggests that this author is the love child of Martin Amis and JK Rowling! ...To clarify the sentence, we need to insert the Oxford comma, before the word 'and', like so: "I dedicate this book to my parents, Martin Amis, and JK Rowling."

But why is it called the Oxford comma? And are there other geographically-related punctuation marks I should know about? 

The Papworth Colon - for colons which need to be removed forthwith

Stratford-upon-Avon Quotes - for extravagantly-phrased theatrical spouting

The Westward Ho! exclamation mark - to describe exclamation marks used for decorative effect (including a sub section for multiple exclamation marks at Christmas - or the Westward Ho! Ho! Ho!!!)

The St Martins Lane* Apostrophe - in response to the Grocer's Apostrophe, this is for apostrophes notable only by their absence.

The Wallasey Ellipsis - any ellipsis with the wrong number of dots, which disregard the laws of God and man (in Wallasey there are no less than three roundabouts where the usual rules do not apply)

I'm not sure who should get custody of the Question mark:

Watford? Hooton? Howarth? Wensleydale? Somewhere in the Wye Valley?... or perhaps Pendle – where the whiches come from?

*cackles*

If there are any punctuation marks associated with place names that any of you have made up know of, do tell!

* No one's too rich to need the occasional apostrophe

Related post: My 10 Punctuation Pet Hates

Filthy limericks

Readers of a sensitive disposition should avert their eyes now.
It is time to acknowledge the place the limerick holds in impolite society. 
There is something about this poetic form that lends itself rather too well to the lewd, the crude and the downright scattalogical. It is, I like to think, a saucy postcard from Poetryland.
Yesterday I dabbled in its origins, early examples and some favourites. But now to the 'hard' stuff. First some lubrication, all from David Bateman's Curse of the Killer Hedge:
There was a young man from Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch*
With a trans-Menai-Strait-travelling cock
From his home he could screw with
A girl in Bontnewydd
That happy young man from Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch 
A singer who came from Milano
Had privates made out of Meccano.
He sang bass-tenor, but
By unscrewing one nut
He could also reach mezzo-soprano  (ibid)
A sensitive aardvark called Mingus
Found foreplay hard work with no fingers.
But his praises are sung
For his fourteen inch tongue
Gives his ladies a pleasure that lingers. 

*** IF YOU ARE OFFENDED BY FILTH OR HUMOUR ABOUT RELIGION - LOOK AWAY NOW ***

Right, that got rid of them - you're not still reading are you? I did warn you. Now to the filth. 
I was told these (apart from the final one) by a respectable god-fearing lady dentist at the wedding of mutual friends. It has lead me to the conclusion that a significant number of the best limericks have an ecclesiastical bent, and indeed, a bent ecclesiastic.


There once was a woman from Crewe
Who said as the Bishop withdrew
The vicar was quicker
and slicker and thicker
and two inches longer than you


There was a girl from Aberystwyth
Used to kiss with the lips that she pissed with.
By way of adventure
She fitted a denture
Now she's got a front bum she eats crisps with


The once was a Bishop of Birmingham
Who rogered young boys while confirming 'em.
To comply with his wont
They'd bend over the font
As he pumped his episcopal sperm in 'em.


From deep in the crypt at St Giles
Came some screaming that carried for miles
The curate said: Gracious!
Has Father Ignatious
Forgotten the Bishop's got piles?


When the holy ghost came, say traditions,
Mary acted without inhibitions.
She had God on her side,
And then had him astride,
And in several other positions. (David Bateman, again)

I shall return to this form when you're least expecting it as I haven't shared any of my own with you. But meanwhile you can find more filthy limericks in The Mammoth Book of Filthy Limericks (Mammoth Books)  

The final word should come from this (author unknown) limerick I found online for National Poetry Day 2020:

There once was a man from Nantucket,

who, tired of life

inside a lewd limerick,

moved out

and set up home

in a piece of free verse,

situated

just on the outskirts

of Chepstow.

There was a young lady called...

Continuing in my series on small poems (I covered the smallest poems in the world and haiku in previous posts), I come with some trepidation to the limerick.

According to Wikipedia the limerick is: "a five-line poem in anapestic or amphibrachic meter with a strict rhyme scheme (aabba), which intends to be witty or humorous, and is sometimes obscene with humorous intent"
This is not a blog to go in for lengthy scholarly explanations for anything - I leave that to the links. Suffice to say that the name Limerick is thought to have come from a popular tune 'Won't you come up to Limerick' which presumably fitted the rhythm. The form was popularized by Edward Lear but I dislike most of his that I've seen because they are neither clever nor funny (an accusation he may respond to with a curt: 'Nonsense!') For example:

There was a Young Lady of Lucca
Whose lovers completely forsook her;
She ran up a tree
And said: ''Fiddle-de-dee!'
Which embarrassed the people of Lucca.
See what I mean? Yawn! And that was in my battered 1962 copy of the Penguin Book of Comic and Curious Verse, which at least had the good taste to include the anonymous:
There was an old loony of Lyme,
Whose candour was simply sublime;
When they asked: 'Are you there?'
'Yes,' he said, 'but take care,
For I'm never "all  there" at a time.'
I'll come back to the filthy ones in my next post, but my personal favourites are the ones which subvert the form. As with any strict rules in poetry, they are there to be flouted. Here's another anonymous one from the same volume:
There was an old man from Dunoon,
Who always ate soup with a fork,
For he said, 'As I eat
Neither fish, fowl nor flesh,
I should finish my dinner too quick.
And we all know this one, which also appears to be from an unknown author:
There was a young man from Japan
who's limericks never would scan.
When asked why this was,
He said: "It's because
I always try and put as many words in the last line as I possibly can."

You may think the limerick is old hat and poets don't do that anymore, but they are alive and flourishing (the limericks, not the poets... who are merely alive). I'm sure the incorrigible Liverpool (via Kent) poet David Bateman - who still flies the flag for nonsense -won't mind me slipping in a couple from his excellent 'Curse of the Killer Hedge' (Iron Press) collection, one here and a couple in tomorrow's - including probably the world's first rude aardvark poem:

My diction goes wrongly syntaxative
And my wordage is holy intraxative
I think that I fear
I have verbal dire-rear
But it may be I'm merely dyslaxative
And here's one I wrote just for him:
A poet of Liverpool 8
Loved dispute, pedantry and debate
But because he stuttered
Each word that he uttered
Came too low and too fast and too late.

I could go on (and on and on) but I'm going to finish with one from the curious and mercurial Will Type For Food blog:
There once was a woman called - what?
Do you know her name? I've forgot.
Nup. I can't recall
What she did at all,
Which screws this poem up quite a lot.

If you feel inspired to pen your own,  you can find many more general examples here and here
My intention is to continue with filthy ones tomorrow to protect the more sensitive reader, because as we all know:
The limerick is furtive and mean
You must keep her in close quarantine
Or she sneaks to the slums
And promptly becomes
Disorderly, drunk and obscene.

The dog ate my library book

Would you believe some friends of mine never darken the doorstep of their local library? 

'I love the smell of new books," says Bambi*. "That's why I never go to libraries."

It's a common misconception that library books are as  tattered, torn as a tart's tights. Not true! Here in Wirralia we get new books in all the time - and those that stagger back to us having fallen foul of the rougher type of borrower are resuscitated using special, librarian CPR:

• Cleaning
• Pritt stick
• Re-labelling

A lady brought a book back the other day which had been savaged by a puppy. Strangely, she wasn't the same lady who has a note on her account when you scan her card saying: 'Check books for teeth marks'.

(Did I mention? Vampire books are almost as popular as serial killer books in Wirralia.)

I've written before about some of the fates that can befall the written word.  Old library lags tell of books being returned having shared bags with fish or dirty nappies. And a good blockbuster makes an amusing coaster for your drinks, don't you think?  Or a goal for an impromptu game of football? Or a plate?

We do our best to keep things clean. But are pristine books what we should be striving for? Does that not imply they have never been read? At home, I'm forever buying books and then not reading them - I've had books for thirty years and never opened the covers. 

I'm reading Best of Myles just now - an anthology of Flann O'Brien's early columns in the Irish Times under the pseudonym Myles na Gopaleen. He suggested a solution to books looking unread: "Why should a wealthy person...be put to the trouble of reading at all? Why not a professional book-handler to go in and suitably maul his library for so-much a shelf?"

He proposed a graduated scale from 'popular' ("four leaves of each to be dog-eared, and a tram ticket, cloak room docket or comparable article inserted in each as a forgotten bookmark. Say £2 17s 6d. Five per cent discount for civil servants") to 'Le Traitment Superb' which involved passages underlined in good quality red ink, notes in margins ("Yes, but cf Homer, Od., iii, 151") and forged inscriptions from the author: "From your devoted friend and follower, K. Marx")

I can't help wondering if some of our borrowers may have employed similar services. Perhaps they think we'll look down our noses if we think they haven't thoroughly read  the books they borrowed?

But dogs?  As Myles points out: "Novice handlers, not realising that tooth-marks on the cover of a book are not accepted as evidence that its owner has read it, have been known to train terriers..."

What do YOU think?

Do you only really love a book that is still unsullied by human hand/eye/other parts of the anatomy?  Do you want to know others have enjoyed it or is a desirable slim volume dead to you once its spine has been bent, it's corners fondled, and there is herbage growing out of it? 

Related posts: Don't touch the sticky books.

* Names have been changed, but this friend was once described by another as 'like Bambi on ice' which immediately became one of my favourite similes.

Small packages - poems that punch above their weight.

I blogged yesterday about short, short stories but as a writer of fiction and poetry I'm here to tell you that it's a helluva lot easier to write short, short poems instead... or is it?

Stories are supposed to have a plot, character development, conflict and resolution. You can get away with anything in a poem. The basic aim of a poem (I believe) is to make you look at something slightly differently than you otherwise would, or to provoke some kind of emotional reaction.

I'm going to ignore haiku's for now, because you'll be expecting them (although you're probably not expecting zombie haiku's so I'll let you have them.)  I'm talking about really, really, really short rhyming poems that stick in your mind forever.

Here are some of my favourites. First, one for writers everywhere from the intriguing Hiliare Belloc:

On His Books

When I am dead, I hope it may be said:
'His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.'

Hilaire Belloc

Ogden Nash, an old favourite from the wonder years of the The Penguin book of comic and curious verse has many fine examples of tiny rhymes including this early examination of the proliferation of advertising and its impact on the environment:

Song of the Open Road

I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,
I'll never see a tree at all.

Ogden Nash

And, even more pithily, on lounge lizard methodology:

Reflexions on Ice-Breaking

Candy
Is dandy
But liquor
Is quicker

Ogden Nash

I'm sure Oscar Wilde will have had something to say in this form, but not going to quote him here, because he is overly quoted, as Dorothy Parker points out:

Oscar Wilde

If, with the literate, I am
Impelled to try an epigram,
I never seek to take the credit;
We all assume that Oscar said it.

Dorothy Parker

I particularly admire the work of Wendy Cope who isn't afraid of brevity and even named an entire collection Two Cures for Love: Selected Poems 1979-2006 for a two line poem that says reams and reams about romantic love:

Two Cures for Love

1. Don't see him. Don't phone or write a letter
2. The easy way: get to know him better  

Wendy Cope

I have written one on a similar theme, so I'll just slip it in here while no-one's looking:

Relationship Trouble

I don’t know what it is with me
I haven’t got the knack. 
First of all you wouldn’t leave
And now you won’t come back!

Clare Kirwan

I'm afraid my own shortest poem cheats rather badly by having a very long title. Nor does it change the way you think about anything of provoke anything other a small smile, which means it probably isn't even a poem at all by my own definition:

Love song for the first engineer on the Starship Enterprise

I’m potty
for you, Scotty.

Clare Kirwan

Oh, and I nearly forgot. I did promise you the shortest poem in the world.

This isn't it:

An Attempt at the Shortest Poem in the World

Already
This is too long

Gareth Owen

(From Roger McGough and Giles Brandreth's jolly, celeb-packed fundraiser The Big Book of Little Poems)

But this one might be*, although the author is unknown or disputed (I'd like to think it was Ogden Nash too):

Lines on the Antiquity of Fleas

Adam
Had 'em.

To work, me hearties! 

*Even this is disputed. Me/Whee! and the Dutch U/ Nu! being quoted here