November First, 2018

Such an empty peace
A face no longer mobile
Love's anchor cast off

Mair James

1928-2018

Gladdens Hewers of Cleries Everywhere

Could Danny Finkelstein
Be more pleased than Clerihewers he met a Dinkeldein?
Unless Jon were instead a Manny,
It couldn't have been more uncanny.

Credit: Danny Finkelstein

PMQ

Theresa May,
May I say,
Nowhere does it require in Erskine May
The PM answer every Q with "Can I say..."

credit: PA

Taxin the Imagination

Bleating lambs draw you
You bow 'neath the laden bough
Ewe below a yew

Percussion Repercussion

Its tolling squeezed dry
Sympathy through timpani
Wringing a faint bell

Our Pigmy Foreign Secretary

Jeremy Hunt
Managed only a four letter 'RUNT'
Playing Conservative Conference Countdown.
EU 'UNITY' never occurred to the clown.

"You, madam, in the red jumper. Sorry, sir..."

Rod Liddle
Enjoys a good widdle.
"Why do they put up with it?" runs the riddle;
The widdled-upon caught in the middle.

© BBC

International Space Station

Is that star moving?
Slow stately fade into shade
Watched the I.S.S.

credit: NASA's Spot The Station site

Oh, Be A Fine Girl - Kiss Me Right Now!

Russell and Hertzsprung
Each felt an enormous "Spung!"
Deep in the diaphragm
Thinking of the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram.

Hardened Art Series

Don't go feeling sorry for Katie Hopkins;
She's not yet having to root through the bins.
And if she can't face the Schadenfreude,
She shouldn't be such a Scheißschleuder.

Anatomical John

John Hilton
Oft finished dining with a Blue Stilton.
At Fromage Blanc, he drew the line.
His fine white line, ever so fine.

Metronomically Mephistophelian

Modest Mussorgsky.

No shrinking violet he.

Pitchers at an exhibition match, he aimed to please;

Scratchers appreciated his musical fleas.

credit: Ilya Repin

Ghetto President or Geriatric President?

Free Bobi Wine
Demands Rikki Stein;
Afro-beat musician
Now Afro-beaten politician.

credit: Associated Press

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-45269623

With a Lemon, Make Lemonade

McArthur Wheeler's
Not one of the Pittsburgh Wheeler-Dealers.
The career of this bank-robbing thug
Turned as sour as his lemon-soaked mug.

By Elena Chochkova [CC BY-SA 4.0] 

Glastonburied

Athelstan Joseph Michael Eavis.
He conceived this:
'A fallow season,' he blurts,
'Gives next year a better crop of yurts.'

Credit: Justinc

Applaud Quietly

Mr Ivor Cutler
Sourced his jungle tips from a sutler;
Wrote deadpan verse without rhyme or raisin,
And awkward soft Glaswegian phrasing.

Roger Kohn [CC BY 3.0 
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

Sun Fried Tomatoes

Reggae-beating box
Sun beating down parched grasses
Alice Park breakfast

What a Racket

Dogs chase tennis balls
Walkers serve to their pooches
Wimbledon fever

Hi-Vis Football Fever

Small kids with big balls
Soccer-mad in Alice Park
Pre-school worker bees

The Colour Putrid

A few smell colours

And some think in movie reels

Cinesthesia?

Speaker's Cornered

Dominic Grieve,
In again trusting his PM, was touchingly naive.
Meaninglessly he voted against his own clause;
A rebel without applause.

Ofart

Margaret Atwood
Wrote with a pen if she could;
Dictation was beyond the pale
In the creation of a hand made tale.

One Year On...

Moved today listening to first-hand and eye-witness accounts of the terrible fire that consumed Grenfell Tower and 72 of its residents. Particularly harrowing were the insights into the initial and ongoing effects on the children of the neighbourhood, especially the impact of the particular nature of the tragedy.

How to tell a child?
Her pre-school friend's still missing
Though she's still at home.

Ironic Tonic

Gins in plethora
All flavours conceivable
(Except for quinine)

Idyll Observation

It seems the ginger
In Rhubarb and Ginger Gin
Saves two pounds per shot

Suburban Britain

Six of seven shops
Tight-shuttered in a taut row
The last sells The Sun

Heart of a Lion; Brain of a Sheep

David Davis.
Will May order him a car from Avis?
Once lionized as 'Brexit Bulldog,'
He's now more 'Brexit Bullfrog.'

Will he croak?

Size Matters

How big's the Cosmos?
Smaller than Irving, Texas?
More microcosm.

Bring Out Your Dead

Arkady Arkadyevich Babchenko

Tweaked the despot's tail, a tale all men know.

Oh, Ukraine - beware

The Story of the Boy Who Cried Bear!

CLUEDO - NRA Edition

Sophomore Sidney
With the AR-15 in
The School Library

or do you prefer

Always same answer:
Rifleman Ruby; school-hall;
The assault rifle.

Successive Secessions

Once was Boston, Mass.
Ignored but taxed by Tories
Now, it's Boston, Lincs.

Moscow Centre Rules

Spies stayin' alive
Facing Moscow Centre's hoods
The Kay Gee Bee Gees

"The Greatest Man In The World"

"You Win Again"

Mortal Fear Two

That binary switch
Loath to ask others of it
Presume they fear too

From The Archives

Old text reminds me
Does a Normandy beaches
Veteran still live?

McRonin

Japanese Speyside's
Accomplished sommelier-san
Whisky Anorak

Invergordon More Tinnies

Two week's run ashore
In Invergordon, oh Laird
No horse, just two pubs

Wakes Weekend

Raven enlivened
Kingswood charabanc party
(Though they came by train)

The Power of Marketing

Jägermeister ads
Think back to the Eighties when
Dossers' fav tipple

It's Not Shakespeare...

Never vanquish'd be
Garrard until Boreham Wood
To Tranmere shall come

Changing Times

Last stitch through the nose
Checking the corpse for life signs
Now? Check for retweets

Polar Bare

Elsa Schenthal
Possessed the powers mental
And the fortitude
To face Arctic waters nude.

The Dickens To Pay

Charles Dickens
Thought there were rich pickings
In merchandising his Pickwick Papers.
He mined whole acres.

Charles Dickens - Man of Science ('The Fat Boy')

Image by Kyd (Joseph Clayton Clarke) (http://www.oldbookart.com/)

The Beautiful Great Game

England's World Cup team
Better dodging honey trap
Than the offside trap?

'The Big Reveal'

Little Red Riding Hood,
If she'd entered the wood
In an Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini...
It'd be a very different tale. Fini!

Branching Out

Why does it bother?
Blind deaf dumb it knows to grow
A tree's will to live?

Chain Smoker

Isambard Kingdom Brunel,
If not chain-smoking felt unwell.
Never without his stovepipe headgear;
Monoxide poisoning his greatest fear.

Eeh, Ewe and Eh, 'Aiku

Emma Grundy.
Her election win shocked all and sundry.
What could be wickeder
Than using Ambridge Analytica.

credit: The Archers (BBC Radio Four)

Third Rock from THE SUN

Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Never broke the Prime Directive bar
One time on Sol III
As the Brexites tribe he sought to set free.

Frequency Hopping Mad

Radio Silence
No secret mission Emcon
Lost vehicle code

credit: Nissan

Mixed Metathors

Thor.

His moves invoked awe.

Whereas Loki

Mastered nowt but the hokey-cokey.

Or do you prefer

Odin

Kept his woad in

Pandora's Box

Along with some odd socks.

Happy 95th

Sharing dementia
Forgetfulness and deafness
An Aged Dailogue

Or do you prefer

Non-verbal being
Deafness and forgetfulness
Aged Ps talking

Oh Dear

One is mortified
For years one's not framed Haiku
To wit: Senryū

Schwarzer Panther

Trinken nebenan
In Kunstoffkino Kneipe
Wetherspoons? Nein dank'!

Name Five Famous Canadians

Miguna Miguna
Kenya's Boris-shaped lacuna
Was he press-ganged to Dubai?
Aye aye.

https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2018/03/31/what-about-miguna-kot-ask-after-uhuru-scraps-visa-rule-for-mozambicans_c1739095 etc, etc

Meh to follow...?

Donald J. Trump,
Before he got out on the stump,
Told a fling she reminded him of his daughter.
Does he know he shouldna oughta?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-43536745

One Defence Secretary, Former, Disgraced, for the use of

Doctor Liam Fox

Prescribed pulling up their socks

To directors idling with their board

On the golf links more than exporting abroad.

Or

Doctor Liam Fox

Added vegan woks

To the jam and bassoons, if you please,

He’ll export post-Brexit to the Chinese.

Or

Doctor Liam Fox

Doesn’t prescribe from airports and docks.

“Don’t seek substitutes;” (he never tells the House)

“Keep your existing trade.” (he hasn’t the nouse)

Or perhaps you like

Doctor Liam Fox.

Not the sharpest scalpel in the box.

No vetinarian, he

Couldn’t a scapegoat see.

Computer Says 'No'

Professor Stephen Hawking
Let his computer do the talking,
As he revealed secrets of Spacetime most profound
While barred from most stations on the Underground.

Wheelchair access to the Tube in 2015

Pencil in your Choice of Autocrat

Dictator-for-Life's
Grateful for one more year to
The Idles of March

"Two Tommies"

Thomas George Thomas, First Viscount Tonypandy
Might have thought his legs too bandy.
Yet wearing the Speaker's tights
Gave him no sleepless nights.

"Bury me where I am assassinated"

Petr Arkadevich Stolypin's
Rewards for political sins
Included single tickets for Stolypin Carriages;
His Stolypin Neckties tightened like bad marriages.

Das Einfrosten aus dem Osten

Zwei Stunden fahre
Auf schneebedeckten Strassen
Nach Haus' zu kommen

The Beast From The East

In shorts and four shirts
Cold shins and warm heart powered
My thermocouple

S.S. Great Britain

Penned iron giant
Once took hopefuls to new worlds
Gazing ever West

Has Gareth Scored?

Gareth Edwards,
Unlike the Jedwards,
Did summat to deserve fame.
Usually by winning the game.

Fossil Thoughts

Pressed leaves on the path
Like wee dinosaur footprints 
More ephemeral

credit: Manchester University

Be Careful For What You Wish

Gaius Julius Caesar
Crossed the Rubicon without a visa.
He wanted to be Dictator-for-life;
A wish granted by the assassin's knife.

Unchained Madman

Warm water floods ears
Submersion beats seduction
Plato's sudversion

Sharks and Suffrajets

Emmeline Pankhurst.
Misogyny made her fit to burst.
As too the straitlaced correctness of Suffragists;
Suffragettes ruled out nowt bar their fists.

Credit: Wikipedia

Or do you prefer

Emmeline Pankhurst
Conshies cursed.
Men who'd not fight the Boche
Got white feathers no matter how posh.

Credit: Wikipedia