Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: playing Cluedo with Trudeau, getting it on with Macron…

This time round, competitors were asked to provide poems about a bromance. Pairings including Friedrich and Karl, Laurel and Hardy, Nigel and Donald lit up an entry that was witty, touching and generally pleasingly varied. I liked Chris O’Carroll’s ‘Boris and Donnie’, a twist on Jimmie Rodgers’s ‘Frankie and Johnny’. And Bill Greenwell had the same idea, only with David and Jonathan from the Book of Samuel as the loved-up duo. Commendations also go to Shirley Curran, Jonathan Pettman, A.C. Smith and John Morrison. Basil Ransome-Davies’s entry transported me back to the 1970s, when real men wore chunky cream-and-brown hand-knit cardigans. He and his fellow winners, printed below, are rewarded with £25 each.

Basil Ransome-Davies There’s a legend in Bay City They don’t tell to strangers much, Concerning a man in a cardigan And his buddy, Detective Hutch.

I got some of the skinny By bribing Huggy Bear. He’d shuck and jive, then ‘Man alive!’ He chuckled, ‘What a pair!’

‘Man, that was made in Heaven. They were sweethearts, you can bet. It’s a proven fact, opposites attract, Like a blond and a brunette.

‘You see, whenever Starsky Or Hutch had a wandering eye For a fancy skirt, they might get to flirt, But the woman had to die.’

Mike Morrison There’s nothing new to Bromance, It’s not girly or grotesque But a literary romance Properly styled the ‘picaresque’.

Consider Twain’s creations, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, Whose mutual admiration’s Carried them through thick and thin.

All along the Mississippi They have acted out our dreams; Two boy-men, sassy, dippy, Scheming wild, preposterous schemes.

Their ilk are in abundance But it’s strictly guys, so, please Think always Butch and Sundance, Never Thelma and Louise.

David Silverman Not many there are who Befriend Netanyahu, Play Cluedo with Trudeau, Get it on with Macron. Next month we’ll be seein’ Him hug the Korean — Like everything else with our Don It’s a con! So don’t be deceived, He should not be believed. Soon all those world leaders Will be left on the shelf. They’ll be down in the dumps, Thinking their hearts were Trump’s. When the only true bromance Is him with himself.

Alan Millard We met on the North Lawn — we met on the South, Ah yes, I remember it well, I was reflective — and I was all mouth, I charmed — and by golly, I fell. We talked of our meeting in Paris that night, Gazing down from the Tower on the City of Light, I championed the Left — no, you championed the Right. Ah yes, I remember it well. Embracing like brothers — like brothers in arms, We bonded — but didn’t quite gel. I was for arms deals — I sounded alarms, I’d barter — I’d blow them to hell! We pined when we parted — I phoned every day, I longed for the White House — or Champs Élysées, Where we’d felt for each other — in most every way. Ah yes, I remember it well.

W.J. Webster Their secret correspondence shows That with each ruthless master move Their mutual admiration grows To form a gruff comradely love. They find so much in common, share Some ponderously blokeish quips And even at one point compare The way they dress their upper lips. But what most bonds them is to know The loneliness that comes to sour The sense of triumph that should go With exercising god-like power. Josef and Adolf never met Before they broke up, bromance dead; Their fates divided them, and yet They’re linked as moral twins instead.

Max Ross The love I shared with Arthur was Celestial, of purest form; Wild, wonderful and ever warm Transcending nature’s many flaws.

We shared our souls and understood Profundities we did not speak; Our love engulfed us, week on week, Providing us with heaven’s food.

Will men in future months perchance Regard the subject of my art As something sprung from Cupid’s dart, A monument to male romance?

I do not care. My love is seen In lines that brought me years of pain; Yet having lost I found again Remembered buds of what had been.

Your next challenge is to submit a sonnet to a well-known contemporary figure’s characteristic feature. Email entries to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 6 June.

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