In Competition 3472 you were invited to submit a sonnet inspired by a well-known contemporary figure’s characteristic feature.
These, in a top-notch entry, ranged far and wide, from David Attenborough’s whisper and Richard E. Grant’s forehead to Paul Hollywood’s handshake.
Richard Warren, Seongsang Park, Bob Newman and Mike Scriven were among a long list of unlucky losers. The £25 John Lewis vouchers belong to the authors of those sonnets printed below.
Oh Andy, how your eyebrows can convey
your mood, define the state of your emotion,
a single glimpse will indicate the way
those manly brows have captured my devotion.
Electoral Reform? Your brows vibrate,
Public Control will make them fly sky-high,
descend again, to estimate the rate:
the cost involved if plans should go awry.
The homeless plight will make your eyebrows droop,
there’ll be no sleeping on the street, you say,
the cost of living – we’re not in the soup,
your brows are up, you’re on to it – hooray!
Your silky brows are strictly all that counts,
I’ll dance to the rhythm of the Burnham Bounce.
Sylvia Fairley
Outstanding Leader! Brilliant Comrade Kim!
Swift-riding Horseman! Wisest of the Wise!
Our Great Leap Forward – does it pass a gym?
And who, the nation asks, ate all the pies?
Broad balustrade in Pyongyang’s own baroque,
Lest sniggers snipe at stout superlatives,
Colossus, born to boss us, pray take stock:
Your figure need not match the figurative;
May bibimpap and kimchi keep you strong,
And cause your matchless intellect to swell!
But, grilled gopchang washed down with Ryong-song,
These may cause other things to swell as well….
Might not your mighty appetites abate?
Or, like the ‘Great’ and ‘Dear’, you’ll be the ‘Late’.
Nick Syrett
I don’t think I can be the only chap
To be quite mesmerised by Kemi’s gap
Between those gleaming teeth, so bright and white,
The gap transforms her smile to pure delight.
Even when her words speak seriousness and grit;
The gappy smile hints mischief, style and wit,
And I, who normally am apolitical,
Become her slave, devoted and uncritical.
Back in the day, observant Chaucer wrote
Of the comely ‘gat-toothed’ Wife of Bath; a note
In our staid euphemistic school edition
Declared this meant ‘an amorous disposition’.
Oh smile, oh gap! Could you on me once beam –
Then I – but oh, a man’s allowed to dream…
George Simmers
That Farage smile is nothing like the sun
Even Count Binface earned his stack of ‘Ayes’
Manchester made its mark and Burnham won.
Yet still we have to love those fancy ties,
That beaming face. He’s happy to be here,
His asset is that splendid Farage mouth
Smiling behind the cig and pint of beer.
He’s one of ours. He woos both north and south.
He won’t be fazed when big shots overseas
Pay massive sums to energise Reform;
He’s having a good time and wins like these
Will lubricate those smiles – a fertile norm.
Oh, cunning Farage, your smile makes us blind
To those ambitious thoughts that lurk behind.
Shirley Curran
O fulsome-figured Dolly, what a rack!
Your rhinestone bras worked hard from 9 to 5,
You kept Jolene pea-green, your mighty back
Supporting you in heaving overdrive,
Big heart, big voice and one mahoosive bust,
Those ample knockers, islands in the stream,
From jeans to glamour gowns, your fans could trust
The cleavage leverage to be extreme,
How deep your valley, silicone-enhanced,
Amazing mammaries, impressive chest,
Your chief endowments easily entranced,
That hair, those nails, that look; you did it best,
You were a country queen, and the truth is
You had the greatest assets in the biz.
Janine Beacham
Resilience, the bounce-back British way,
the means by which the brightest souls can master
life’s setbacks, large or small, and overcome
what frailer vessels call complete disaster.
The bulldog breed’s best side, a stubbornness,
the backbone Kipling’s ‘If’ identified;
determination, firm against the odds
believing it holds truth while others lied.
Faith that believes it can — and must — win through,
a deep commitment to its higher cause,
believing, brushing off gain-sayers’ words,
hearing the critics’ carping as applause:
exemplified in all that makes Liz Truss
so proudly, resolutely, one of us.
D.A. Prince
A fine and royal race, the Windsor men,
A line of kings ruling in majesty,
Down to the latest, Charles and William,
But all of them challenged follically.
‘You know,’ people ask archly, ‘what they say
About men who are bald?’ Well yes, I’ve heard.
They liken them to river-dwelling coots.
A worthy, but not very sexy, bird.
Even young Harry has the Windsor spot,
And though he has sometimes been known to whinge,
Viewed from above, he also proudly sports
A bald spot circled by a ginger fringe.
So let us cherish the great Crown of State.
Long may it cover the royal bald pate.
Brian Murdoch
No. 3475: Any questions?
You are invited to take a well-known figure on the world stage, living or dead, and cast them in the role of agony aunt/uncle, submitting a problem of your invention and their solution. Please email entries of up to 150 words to competition@spectator.co.uk by midday on 4 November.
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