Christopher Matthew

Christopher Matthew is the author of Now We Are Sixty

A.A. Milne and the torturous task of writing

From our UK edition

For those of us lucky enough to have been regular contributors to Punch magazine, April is a slightly crueller month than most, since it was on 8 April 32 years ago that the last edition collapsed, exhausted, on to the newspaper stands. By then it was way past its best, but in its day it had employed some of the very best brains in the business, led by some of the very best editors. I was lucky enough to be around when Alan Coren was in his prime. He led the magazine from the front, literally, and set a standard that the rest of us did our hardest to emulate, but rarely achieved. If ever.

The joys of light verse

From our UK edition

Coleridge defined poetry as the best words in the best order and at no stage did he ever suggest that being light-hearted in verse is any less worthy than the solemnest offerings of Milton or of his old pal Wordsworth. Nevertheless, there is a feeling among many who take their art seriously that anything in verse form liable to raise a good natured smile is somehow not the real thing, no matter how well it is executed and however perfectly it conforms with rhyme and metre. Since the earliest days of the quill pen, some our greatest poets have deliberately used humour to enlighten, inform and indeed entertain their readers And yet since the earliest days of the quill pen, some our greatest poets have deliberately used humour to enlighten, inform and indeed entertain their readers.