In Competition No. 2703 you were invited to submit a hymn entitled ‘All Things Dull and Ugly’. Long lines mean space is tight so I’ll keep it short. George Simmers nabs the bonus fiver; £25 each to his fellow winners.
All things dull and ugly, all creatures gross and
squat,
All things vile or tedious, the Lord God made the
lot.
He made the sly hyena, the hookworm and the slug,
Your moaning Auntie Margaret and pervy Uncle
Doug.
He made that dreary Welshman who so often reads
the news,
And he made us, the ragtag lot who worship at
St Hugh’s.
We’re far from high achievers, we don’t have
gorgeous bods;
At best you’d call us humdrum, a group of odds
and sods.
We’re verging on the useless, and we have got a
hunch
No Deity could think we were a prepossessing
bunch.
That’s why we’re rarely cheerful, but feel a bit
less blue
When thinking how the mighty Lord can be
ham-fisted too.
Cause frankly we’d be daunted by a more
efficient chap;
We feel a lot more comfy with a God who’s
slightly crap.
George Simmers
All things dull and ugg-erly
All politicians too,
All bankers and solicitors,
That make you want to spew,
Each international crisis
That makes your stomach wrench,
(I blame the bloody foreigners,
Especially the French),
All day it has been pouring down,
The sun does not come out
All through the so-called summer-time.
What is it all about?
All things dull and ugg-erly,
Hymns that don’t scan or rhyme,
How can this lot all indicate
Intelligent Design?
Brian Murdoch
All things dull and ugly,
All things bald and weird,
All things smiling smugly,
The Lord God engineered.
The hagfish, slick and slimy,
The slug beneath your boot,
The earthworm, pink and grimy:
He made the whole bang shoot. (Chorus)
Electric eels that shock us,
The sneering pipistrelle,
The leech and streptococcus:
He knocked them up as well. (Chorus)
The toad with every wart on,
The bunk-bed bug, the skunk:
I’d rather snog Charles Laughton
Than praise God’s odder junk. (Chorus)
Bill Greenwell
All things dull and ugly,
Misshapen, drab or bland,
Each unsung piece fits snugly
In God’s enfolding hand.
The boring and the bumbling,
They also have their place,
Like the clumsy and the stumbling
Made awkward by God’s grace.
We shrink from the unsightly,
Avoid it where we can,
But if we see it rightly
It’s part of God’s great plan.
God blessed the dull and ugly,
The dark that frames the light,
To stop us thinking smugly
That they are ours to slight.
W.J. Webster
All things dull and ugly:
Subways and high-rise flats,
Call centres unlovely —
Man came up with all that.
The blocky little hatchback,
The trilling mobile phone,
All furniture that’s flat-pack,
Man made all these alone.
Man made the high-vis jacket,
And then the gastric band,
Rap is a man-made racket
As are Greggs and Poundland.
All things crass and risible
From Hull to wheelie bins,
AV and the liberals —
Man authored all these sins.
Adrian Fry
All things dull and ugly come
As bounty from the Lord,
That we may feel extremely glum
And also very bored.
The drone of Clarkson’s chatter,
The food at KFC,
The visage of Sepp Blatter,
He made for you and me.
He made Ikea, Pot Noodles,
The Indie and Jaws IV,
Ripped jeans and labradoodles,
And many, many more.
For all things gross and hideous
From piles to Kim Il Jong,
For everything invidious
We thank the Lord in song.
Basil Ransome-Davies
No. 2706: four letter words
You are invited to supply a plausible and entertaining piece of prose written using words of only four letters (150 words maximum). Email entries, if possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 20 July.
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