In Competition No. 2427 you were invited to supply a poem or a piece of prose beginning ‘It began as a — but it turned out a —’, filling in the blanks as you pleased.
It was that forgettable and forgotten poet Austin Dobson who wrote a triolet beginning, ‘It began as an ode/ But it turned out a sonnet.’ Your variations were legion: ‘It began as a hedge but it turned out a casus belli’ (Alanna Blake); ‘It began as a treat but it turned out an error’ (V.M. Perrin, referring to the apple in the garden of Eden) and ‘It began as a total disaster/ But it turned out a lot worse than that’ (W.J. Webster of a stage production). The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each, and the bonus fiver goes to Godfrey Bullard. It was with regret that I had to disqualify Noel Petty for a small verbal slip, but rules are rules.
It began as a lodge but it turned out a mansion
Because of Fiona’s extravagant schemes,
So the project resembled, through steady expansion,
Some megalomaniac’s feverish dreams.
I’d asked for restraint, which our architect neatly
Expressed in his charming provisional plan,
But my wife’s aspirations persuaded him (sweetly)
To add on two wings before building began;
And soon there were drawings of cellars and stables,
With galleries, staircases, hallways and domes,
And porticos, purlieus, gazebos and gables,
All seemingly vital in dignified homes,
And thirty-eight rooms with elaborate features —
‘And turreted roofing — we’ve got to have that!’
But, as harsh economics more soberly teach us,
We’re better off here in our Aberdeen flat.
Godfrey Bullard
It began as a small badger but it turned out a bit of a mishmash. I’d done all the other beasts of the field and I was knackered, so I told Gabriel to finish it while I created tea and biscuits. When I looked, he’d only put webbed feet and a beak on it, said they were left over from the fowls of the air. I asked him whether he’d got it laying eggs and he looked embarrassed and shuffled his wings, so I let it go. Anyway, come the end of the week, I asked Adam what to call it. ‘Platypus,’ he says. Well, I suppose it was better than some of his efforts — I mean, weasels are weaselly-looking, but what the bloody hell is ‘yak’ supposed to tell you? Anyway, we bunged it on that spare continent thingy that nobody’s going to discover for a bit….
Brian Murdoch
It began as a digression but it turned out a profession,
An obsession even, custom-building motors;
My addiction grew and grew, any vehicle would do,
From Jags and Triumph Stags to old Toyotas.
An MOT-less Honda soon became a sleek Lagonda,
Vic’s Vauxhall Vectra’s now a Cadillac;
What was once a Ford Cortina, Mo’s maroon Morris Marina
Can burn up anybody on the track.
Want a 4×4 off-roader? I’m your man, bring in the Skoda,
Two weeks and you’ll be posing at the wheel;
See this hapless heap of bother, neither one thing nor the other?
I’ll resurrect it as a Popemobile.
The missus, more’s the pity, used to call me Walter Mitty —
She moved out, went to live near her Mama;
Never asked for alimony, which I thought was rather funny,
And, stranger still, refused to take the car.
Mike Morrison
It began as a malady but it turned out a melody. I grew up in New Orleans, my folks dirt poor and God-fearing. Me, I was fed on beans, when I was fed on anything, and flatulent from sun-up to sundown. My folks tried everything to cure me of this mighty wind, from medicine to exorcism. Nothing worked; my ass just kept riffing away like before, so they sent me to Blind Raspberry Fool, a pioneering jazz man. This was the time before improvisation had been invented, so he transcribed my farting and — pfff! — invented the jazz solo. Soon musicians were beating a path to our door faster than they beat a path away from it once they’d gotten a whiff of the place. So next time you hear some jazz and it sounds like a lot of old farts, you’ll know why that’s exactly what it is.
Adrian Fry
It began as a row, but it turned out a crisis,
When we took out a double-oar skiff on the Isis,
For the sluices had all been left open that week —
We were swept down to Iffley before we could speak;
The pressure of water was such in the lock
That our rudder received an almighty great knock,
And we then were completely unable to steer
And had all we could do to keep out of the weir.
A backwater offered a chance of repair
And we made our way up through it, quite unaware
That the heads of ASEAN and of the G8
Had met there to hold a most secret debate.
These leaders’ neuroses had now grown so high
That they wouldn’t believe that we weren’t there to spy:
And that’s why the summit entirely broke down
And we’re here in the Tower at the will of the Crown.
S.E.G. Hopkin
It began as a suspicion but it turned out a certainty, only wanting final proof. Actually the conclusions were so obvious it had taken a massive establishment cover-up to conceal the reality from the public. It was all a matter of unveiling connections, of seeing the hidden truth in signs and clues that had been officially pooh-poohed. It’s not the kind of undertaking that will make you any friends. I was laughed at, threatened, obstructed. But once I had traced the web of significance that linked Roswell, a grassy knoll in Dallas, Opus Dei, the Alma underpass, the Bermuda Triangle, 9/11, the Mafia and fluoride in our drinking water I had a map of the secret conspiracy that controls our minds and dupes us with a false version of how things are. And I’m ready to tell the world. That’s why they put me in here.
G.M. Davis
No. 2430: How to be more British
In an attempt to improve our sense of national identity, the government has organised ‘events’, lectures, exhibitions etc., across the country. You are invited to suggest some items in this programme. Maximum 150 words. Entries to ‘Competition No. 2430’ by 9 February.
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