In Competition No. 2537 you were invited to submit a poem entitled ‘The Song of the Chartered Accountant’. You were allowed to substitute an alternative profession.
I interpreted the word ‘profession’ loosely and was tempted by Mike Morrison’s personal shopper and touched by Martin Parker’s sexually frustrated retired flea-circus trainer, though they didn’t make the final line-up in the end.
Chartered accountants are traditionally described in shades of grey, and many of you went down that route. But leading the field this week is Basil Ransome-Davies, who gets the bonus fiver. I was won over by his portrayal of a pin-striped-suited wage slave’s hot-blooded alter ego. D.A. Prince’s bilious librarian’s contempt for the low-brow taste of her customers was also refreshingly off the beaten track, and she gets £25, along with the other worthy winners, printed below. It was a strong entry and commendations go to Mary Holtby, John Whitworth, Alanna Blake and Shirley Curran.
My occupation is a joke
For those who like to sneer.
I’m pictured as a boring bloke —
Inhibited, austere.
True, in my subfusc suit and specs
I look a timid soul,
But after five o’clock it’s sex
And drugs and rock’n’roll
By day I study balance sheets,
A neutral, cool machine,
But later what libido heats
The sheets I get between.
Behind professional façades
The deathless Id survives;
Our outward routines are charades
That mask our inner lives.
Basil Ransome-Davies
The Council halves my budget: still, I smile
To show the public Culture’s welcoming face,
And how we’re Good For Them. It’s not our style
To show discrimination — age, sex, race.
But when we lock the doors I drop that mask.
Odi profanum vulgus. Bloody plebs.
Rude semi-literates who only ask
For books on cooking, decor or celebs —
Or DVDs of pornographic trash.
All the Returns stink of their grubby fags.
We’ve piles of Jeffrey Archers flecked with ash,
Dribbled with lager, stale as plastic bags.
Their sprogs have book-fights; Large Print smells of
farts;
No one reads Poetry (they’d call it Verse).
Whoever’s madness labelled us as ‘Arts’!
You think my tone’s like Larkin? I’m much worse.
D.A. Prince
Now by my troth, a jobsworth’s oath
Is a thing of sacred beauty.
Neither diatribes nor Lucullan bribes
Will divert me from my duty.
I’m like Desert Storm in my uniform
Striped with dayglo yellow trim,
And the parking fool who defies my rule —
Well, so much the worse for him.
On my daily beat, on a city street,
I possess the strength of ten,
Just a man alone with a mobile phone
And his trusty pad and pen.
Though my job’s a joke among lawless folk
And I take a lot of flak,
I steel my nerve for the cause I serve
And just hate the bastards back.
G.M. Davis
With kids and kit all crammed inside a Maxi
She’s shoving all the shopping in the rear:
She’ll never get that lot into a taxi,
So as I clamp I shed a little tear.
When pantomime performance is just finished
And families all hurry through the door,
Their happiness is tragically diminished
To find I’ve clamped their treasured four-by-four.
The vicar’s wife is happily commutin’
With Classic FM massaging her mood.
She parks, and then I put the Denver Boot in:
She calls me something very, very rude.
Some say the odds are slanted in my favour,
That clamping mums with kiddies isn’t fair.
I do confess one conquest I would savour,
I’d dearly love to clamp the London Mayor.
Michael Saxby
One day, I’m sure, I’ll implement policy
But not till I’ve broadened and deepened diversity,
Revisiting our anti-bullying strategy
And filling out triplicate forms.
Some day, I hope, I’ll provide public service,
But first an inquiry; am I quite fit for purpose?
Then a workshop, some role play at which I get nervous
Before filing triplicate forms.
Eventually, I may help run the nation,
But now I must give a PowerPoint presentation
On the pros and the cons of maladministration,
Vainly searching for triplicate forms.
Best just to give up and wait for my pension,
Doing meaningless work on recruitment, retention
And that other dull topic my Minister mentions,
The loss of those triplicate forms.
Adrian Fry
Not one of the Board has a clue what it means
When I give them the figures they use;
Though they look with disdain on the counting of
beans,
I can post any profit I choose.
I’ve set up subsidiaries on- and off-shore,
With cross-holdings hard to explain.
My colleagues would find it a terrible bore,
So I keep it all safe in my brain.
At smart window-dressing I’m better than Heal’s,
At multi-tiered debt I’ve no rival.
I’m specially fond of off-balance sheet deals —
It isn’t deceit, it’s survival.
O the credit crunch seems to have petrified some,
But as for myself I’m not worried.
I think I’ll be here for a long time to come —
I know where the bodies are buried.
Noel Petty
No. 2540: Follow the leader
You are invited to take a historical event and submit a newspaper leader on it in the style of either the Guardian, the Daily Mail or the Sun (150 words maximum). Entries to ‘Competition 2540’ by 10 April or email lucy@spectator.co.uk.
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