For Comp. 3411 you were invited to submit a passage or poem on the subject of dynamic pricing. Thanks to Paul Freeman for the suggestion, who deserves a nod for his entry too. So do Mike Morrison, Matt Quinn, Nicholas Lee, Elizabeth Kay, Frank Upton and others, and here’s John O’Byrne’s Larkinesque riff:
I listen to prices surging. It’s like Dallas Blues,
Or any ragtime number you care to choose;
Syncopated malady, stiff C-sharp shock:
This be The Economics, its sums ad hoc.
Poetry prevailed over prose this time, and the £25 vouchers go to the following.
Like weasels with their beady eyes
They know exactly when to strike
And when we need what’s hard to find
They’ll twist the knife and prices hike.
They’ll spot a shortage of supplies
And act, though never on the hoof
But purposely, with ill intent,
By sending prices through the roof.
Peak times, rush hours, sports events,
Whenever openings come by
To line their pockets, make a mint,
They’ll seize the chance to milk us dry.
They’ve learned however scarce it is,
If people want it, then it sells,
I spurn them, Sir, as rogues and cheats,
Yours Disgusted, Tunbridge Wells.
Alan Millard
Everyone wants to buy dinner with Donald:
Drill-baby-drillionaires, autocrats, me.
Our vaults must be opened, their keypads well pommelled
Since dining with Donald ain’t free.
Dining with Donald will sure cure our FOMO:
Odd casts of podcasters, MAGAcrats, you.
All pumped on rolling news pimped out as promo:
‘Buy Trumpcoin; you’ll dine with Don, too!’
Prices are spiking for dinner with Donald,
Trebling, then doubling, troubling none
Who’ll pay to be lectured or hectored or fondled
By POTUS, who won baby, won.
Nobodies, they won’t bid for Donald’s dinners:
Fakers from newspapers, Democrats, liars.
Cash sanctifying all tech bros, all sinners
Each dinner with Donald is ours.
Adrian Fry
‘HOW MUCH?!’ quoth brave Aeneas, son of Venus,
Beholding Charon’s new Infernal fare.
One coin had always been the going rate;
One obol, to embark for Hades’ shore –
Jove! Themis! Curse the Stygian Ferryman
Who now demands a hundred silver coins
For one-way tickets to the Underworld!
‘Dynamic pricing, mate’ quoth Charon then,
‘Supply, demand: the plague, the war in Troy,
The bloody tourists, Orpheus, Hercules –
Not even dead, they booked a river cruise –
Then dog food for a mutt that eats for three…’
Thrice nodded Cerberus, then quoth Aeneas:
‘Know ye not who I am? Father of Rome,
The empire that shall conquer all the world…’
Quoth Charon ‘Think I’ll need a bigger boat.’
David Silverman
Cheekily sneakily
sites such as You-Know-Who
raise ticket prices
as soon as you’re hooked.
This algorithm’s mad
hyperactivity
means nothing’s ever
as good as it looked.
D.A. Prince
Wallets lightened, anguished faces,
Mortgaged twice to see Oasis,
Water bills make tough guys shiver,
Laundry’s rationed, gardens wither,
Flight fares surge, a soaring pain,
Time to buy a private plane,
Hot demand makes profits grow,
Could capping be the way to go?
Peak-hour Ubers charge us dear,
Fees shoot to the stratosphere,
We cough up with rictus grin,
Forced to take it on the chin,
Perhaps we’ll build a reservoir
When water prices grow bizarre,
Or else fill tins each time it rains,
Before our funds pour down the drains.
Janine Beacham
There’s nothing special with surge pricing.
You can charge what the market will stand.
It’s only a supercharged version
Of the law of supply and demand.
You can sum it all up using clichés:
A few of them very well worn:
A fool and his cash are soon parted,
But every minute there’s one born.
A surge charge is only a surcharge
Apart from a letter or two.
It’s good economics as long as
There are plenty of punters to screw.
So let’s charge triple-whack for Oasis!
The fans will all stump up! Whoopee!
(Though mind you, if I had to hear them,
That’s how much you’d have to pay me.)
Brian Murdoch
In theory it makes perfect sense
To pay the exact pounds or pence
She is willing to pay
For service that day
But still the offence is immense
She resents all this optimisation
And fanatical profit fixation.
She prefers analog
Else she feel like a cog
In a Silicon Valley creation
Juliet Radcliffe
No. 3414: Ad it up
You are invited to provide an extract from a well-known literary work rewritten to include appropriate product placements (16 lines/150 words maximum). Please email entries to competition@spectator.co.uk by 20 August.
Comments