Spectator competition winners: Foggily-froggily/ Michel B. Barnier…: topical double dactyls

The latest competition, a wildly popular one, invited you to compose topical double dactyls. The double dactyl was dreamed up in 1951 by the poet Anthony Hecht and the classical scholar Paul Pascal. My well-thumbed copy of Jiggery-Pokery, a wonderful 1967 compendium of the form edited by Hecht and the poet John Hollander, reveals with pride that Auden (to whom the book is dedicated) used the form ‘thrice’ for the choruses in his Aesopian playlets Moralities. Double dactyls generally bring out the best in you, and this comp elicited an entertaining parade of double dactylic notables — and pursuits egomaniacal, unoligarchical, prosecutorial, heterosexual, philoprogenitive… The winners earn £15 each, but in a strong field Bill Greenwell, Penelope Mackie, Philip Roe and J. Kerr shone too.

Hugh King Foggily-froggily Michel B. Barnier, Consummate bureaucrat, Raises the price,

Crushing the will of our Flummoxed and browbeaten Plenipotentiaries Held in his vice.

Nick MacKinnon Higgledy piggledy Pastuso Paddington gets himself banged up in Pentonville gaol. 

Even the lairiest anarctophiliac joins in the whip-round for Paddington’s bail.

Adrian Fry Mopily-ropily, Manchester’s Morrissey Goes back to crooning, his Novel a fail.

Hoping his audience, Hari-karistically, Still want to hear a man Tunelessly wail.

W.J. Webster Biffety-boffety Anthony Joshua Heavyweight champion Top of the pile;

Talks of his legacy Hyperbolistically; Nemesis listens and Smiles a slow smile.

George Simmers Doubly-Dactylly Benedict Cumberbatch, Won’t you indulge in a Three-in-bed romp?

While you’re behaving so Uncontroversially I have got nothing to Mock in this comp.

Rob Stuart Yummily, mummily, Catherine Middleton’s Pregnant again to the Rapture of Wills. 

I’d be as lavishly Philoprogenitive If I could stretch to the Nursery bills.

Joseph Conlon Hoitety-Toitety Emily Thornberry, Feminist lawyer and Labour MP,

Speaks with a manner quite Aristocratical Save when men style her as Lady Nugee.

Rob Hirst Taxily, maxily, Franklin D. Roosevelt Gave the inheritance Levy a hitch. 

Trump says ‘Repeal it! Our Agroindustrial Future depends on my Kids staying rich!’

Frank Osen Limberly, Kimberly, Khloé Kardashian, Kourtney, and Robbie seem Destined for Fame’s

Roster, since they all have (Double-dactylically Speaking) stupendously Talented names.

Robert Schechter Higgledy piggledy, Ludwig van Beethoven, if he could glimpse what our world has become,

likely would find a new applicability for his immortal phrase: dum dum dum DUM!

Max Gutmann Nobody-joebody George Papadopoulos, ‘Fetcher of coffee’ the Trumpists have said,

Incontrovertibly Met with the Russians, so Maybe Trump sent him for Vodka instead.

Your next challenge is to provide a new year’s resolution (or more than one, if you like) in verse. Please email entries of up to 16 lines to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 27 December.