Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: topical sea shanties

‘A hapless blonde mermaid declared Vaccine War/ Way aye jab the man’s arm…’ Credit: Getty Images/Paul Popper/Popperfoto

In Competition No. 3187 you were asked to provide a sea shanty on a topical theme.

This challenge was an invitation to follow in the slipstream of Nathan Evans, the postal worker and TikTokker whose rendition of the 19th-century whaling song ‘The Wellerman’ went viral and gave rise to #ShantyTok.

Among the multiple variations on ‘What shall we do with the unused Pfizer!’, Hugh King, Richard Spencer and Alanna Blake stood out, as did John Priestland’s homage to Handforth planning committee’s magisterial Jackie Weaver (‘There’s Councillor Brian disrupting the meeting,/ Way aye, kick him off Zoom!’) and Alan Millard’s to Captain Tom. The winners take £30 each.

What can we do with our Scottish shellfish,Sitting on the quay, turning grisly smell-squish?Dump the lot on London as a meal-from-Hell dishOutside Number 10, ho?       Heave-ugh, nowhere to store it,      Heave-ugh, we’ll have to floor it,      Heave-ugh, there’s nothing for it,      All on Number 10, ho. What can we do with our back-logged mussels,Build a giant catapult that’s aimed at Brussels?Pile them up in Westminster — they caused these tussles,Outside Number 10, ho. What can we do with our dying lobstersAnd our clams and cockles now they’re rotting blobsters?Stick ’em ’neath the noses of those Brexit mobsters,Grouped round Number 10, ho.D.A. Prince

As I were a-sailing off Galloway shore,Way aye jab the man’s arm!A hapless blonde mermaid declared Vaccine War.Give me some time to jab the man’s arm! She wanted the vials I had in my hold.Way aye jab the man’s arm!I said to her ‘Ursula darling, they’re sold.’Give me some time to jab the man’s arm! She said, ‘That’s a border I’ve drawn in the sea.’Way aye jab the man’s arm!It looked like the wake of a flounder to me.Give me some time to jab the man’s arm! ‘Your vaccines are useless, I’m soon sixty-three.’Way

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