Act of contrition

In Competition No. 2961 you were invited to submit limericks that might have been written by Boris Johnson in an attempt to smooth ruffled feathers on the international stage.

Boris has said that ‘it would really take me too long to engage in a fully global itinerary of apology’ to all those who have taken offence at comments he’s made over the past 30 years. But that’s OK because you were on hand to do it for him. Olive branches were proffered to, among others, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Hillary Clinton, the Chinese people and the citizens of Papua New Guinea, though I was disappointed that nobody felt moved to pen an emollient rhyme to the ten-year-old Japanese schoolboy mown down by Johnson in a street rugby match on a visit to Tokyo last year.

The winners below are rewarded with £10 per limerick printed.

When I meet dear Hills, I will gulp a
Me paenitet, o mea culpa.

Her back? I will scratch it

(Though I love Nurse Ratched.)
Put the rest of my speech through a pulper.
 
Papuans! Feel my remorse:
You eat paw-paw and pig! I endorse

Your culture and taste

And if that seems three-faced,
I am happy to be your first course.
Bill Greenwell
 
Erdogan was not a wankerer,
It was some other guy from Ankara,

An expat maybe,

With a goat by a tree,
Who had not enough Turkish to thankera.
Fiona Pitt-Kethley
 
Let’s hear if for Angela Merkel
Though sooner or later some jerk’ll

Make fun of her free

Open borders (not me),
But possibly some angry Turk’ll.
Katie Mallett
 
When I said that compared with the Yanks
Chinese cultural influence ranks

Next to nil, be aware —

Given Hollywood fare —
I was merely expressing my thanks.
Max Gutmann
 
When I dined with the Chinese ambassador
It’s true that I did raise my glass at her

But a translator’s slip

Spoiled my elegant quip
And she thought I had just made a pass at her.
 
I did indeed call Monsieur Juncker
A kakistocratic old clunker

But that bathetic bloomer

Was mere English Humour —
Now please may I climb from my bunker?
 
If I’d known how your press would react-o
I’d have ladled on lashings of tact-o

So I hereby revoke

My indecorous joke.
I said something nice, ex post facto.
Frank Upton
 
Yes — African people are tall,
I didn’t insult them at all!

The term ‘Piccaninny’

Is taken from Pliny —
It’s a province just south-east of Gaul
John Priestland
 
At the FO I met with some rancour
And resolved I must cut out the canker.

I implied that the Turk

Was an ungrateful berk
I lied: he remembered to thank her.
Michael McManus
 
With all that quite ghastly gun crime
The Yanks get much Yanker with time,

But if Hillary C

Will think better of me
I’ll abandon my Ankara rhyme.
Brian Murdoch
 
I’d like to allay all your fears,
Papuans, when eating your peers,

Or killing your chief,

I don’t mean to give grief,
The Tories have done it for years.
Sylvia Fairley
 
Look, old China, I got the thing wrong;
We need trade and the pound isn’t strong.

On behalf of my breed

I’m empowered to concede
Wiff-waff’s yours and by rights called ping-pong.
Adrian Fry
 
You Chinese may think I was wrong
To say we invented ping-pong.

If it was a gaffe

To call it whiff-whaff,
Just remember we gave back Hong Kong.
David Littlewood
 
For the candidate born in Chicago,
I’m declaring a critic embargo.

For dismissers of Rodham

Well, I just say ‘Sod ’em’ —
It’s all just lies, myth and farrago.
David Silverman
 
I was simply expressing our bond,
For, like her, I’m improbably blond,

And a loony-bin nurse

Is, I daresay, no worse
Than a loony this side of the pond.
Sylvia Smith
 
From Boris to his new friend Hillary,
Whom I had no intention to pillory:

Since I’m masochistic,

To call you sadistic
Was a compliment — please don’t think ill o’ me.
Nicholas Hodgson

No. 2964: no idea

You are invited to suggest a really bad idea for one, or several, of the following (using up to 150 words): a children’s book; an Olympic sport; a television sitcom; a reality TV series. Please email entries to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 31 August.