In Competition 2648 you were invited to recast Kipling’s ‘If’ addressed to women.
The nation’s favourite poem (rescued from a wastepaper basket, to which Kipling had consigned it in disgust, and reassembled by his formidable wife) was famously branded as ‘sententious’ by Orwell, but has illustrious champions none the less. Geoffrey Wheatcroft argues that ‘it is only sententious if you have been taught to think so, if you see it as another admonition to play up, play up, and play the game, if you associate it with housemasters and scoutmasters and the sporting spirit. Not for the first time, it is easier to see what it really means if you aren’t English.’
It certainly brought out the best in you. A large entry, in which veterans and newcomers rubbed shoulders, displayed remarkable wit and inventiveness of approach which is, I hope, reflected in the cream of the crop, printed below. The winners get £25 each, and the bonus fiver goes to G.M. Davis.
If you can swear with Gordon Ramsay’s vigour
But not put ugly furrows in your face,
If you’ve a Mandy-sized self-love, or bigger,
Yet have some feeling for the human race;
If you share Paxo’s clarity of diction
Without that smarmy air of look-at-me,
Or match Jez Clarkson’s passionate conviction
While not insulting those who disagree,
If you can hit the bottle like Rod Liddle
And not look like a bag of mating toads,
If you agree that sex can be the middle
Of far too many going-nowhere roads;
If you ignore Max Clifford’s glib equation
To calculate the street price of a heart,
If you require intelligent persuasion —
My dearest one, you might have made a start.
G.M. Davis
If you can change a wheel when all about you
Are in despair — and free the blocked-up loo;
If you can drain the sump when your man
doubts you,
And praise him when he lights the barbecue;
If you can calmly find the things he loses,
His bank card, glasses, passport and his keys
Or keenly watch the channel that he chooses,
And nurse him when he gives the slightest sneeze:
If you can fix the laptop when it crashes
And understand and fill in tax returns;
Discreetly change his clothing when it clashes
And work out what he’s spent and what he earns;
If as you mow the lawn and cook the dinner,
You gently reassure him that he’s smart;
Yours is the Earth, my girl, and you’re a winner;
You’ve clearly understood a woman’s art.
Shirley Curran
If you can stay serene when men about you
Are fuming, flapping, getting in a stew;
If home and family collapse without you,
But yet don’t flaunt the miracles you do.
If you stay principled while men are fêting
Their latest fetish-model, zero-sized,
And being baited, don’t give way to baiting,
And hold your tongue when you are patronised.
If you can rise above the glassy ceiling
Then give it up as hardly worth your time,
If you stand tall while grovelling men are kneeling
Begging for one more greasy pole to climb.
If you can multitask on autopilot,
Enriching all you touch with what you give
Yours is the finer world and none defile it,
And you know, as a woman, how to live.
D.A. Prince
If you can learn the ways of male dissembling,
Then play them back astutely, and in spades,
If you can leave the office Tarzans trembling
With put-downs like emasculating blades;
If you can fix the odds and ride the strictures
To be the one on top in mating games,
And afterwards the one to keep the pictures
While leaving all your exes in the frames;
If you can name a price for indiscretion
Far better than a man who thinks he’s wise,
If you can tweak a masculine obsession
With energies that stun and paralyse;
If you can look as fondant as Grace Kelly
Smiling the smile that masks an inner snarl,
You’ll turn the nerves and will of men to jelly,
And which is more, you’ll make a femme fatale.
Basil Ransome-Davies
If you have parents fond of gin and tonic
And like to crack a backhand down the line,
If you find talk of politics moronic
And think that men are crass and asinine,
If you had brothers whom you loved to tussle,
Or do not give a hoot for frocks or fashions
Or have a really rippling set of muscles
And don’t believe in eating tiny rations:
If you are happy with a horse in harness,
And love the open air, and value vigour,
And keep the trophies won in your gymkhanas
And do not cut an anorexic figure,
If you prefer a burst of perspiration
To beauty parlours, cinema or slumber,
And drive a car with merry indignation,
John Betjeman would like to know your number.
Bill Greenwell
If you can read that poem by Rudyard Kipling
In which he showers pearls upon his son
Tendentiously, and though you are not tippling,
Grow drunk upon his words until they’re done,
Then start at the beginning and reread it
While keeping in perspective time and place,
And though its tone annoys you, still concede it
Speaks the truth with elegance and grace;
If you can read his words, mutatis mutandis,
And still believe that they were meant for you,
That girls as well as boys should understand this
Because, though they’re bombastic, they are true;
If reading Kipling’s ‘If’ can make you happy
While all about you everyone’s distraughter,
You’ll find there’s never been a prouder pappy
Than I whose loins engendered such a daughter.
Roger Slater
No. 2651: Tongue twister
You are invited to submit a limerick that is also a tongue-twister on the subject of your choice (maximum three entries each, please). Entries should be submitted by email, where possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 9 June.
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