There was a young man, rather silly

Who would bathe in warm Piccalilli

He said “It is great

For changing the state –

From warm to decidedly chilly!

-/-

A Limerick is

What it was and what it is

No argument there

But, what if we did change it,

Made it unfunny – like this.

-/-

The Word of the Day is Upsetting

It’s spilling the coffee you’re getting

Or telling a God’s Honest fact

When you should have used tact

And those words that you’ve said, you’re regretting.

-/-

There once was a podiatrist named Hector

Who treated a Police Chief Inspector,

The policeman’s flat feet

Were from his years on the beat

So Hector the podiatrist fitted the Police Chief Inspector with a low-arch corrector and that seemed to do the trick.

-/-

There was a young Scotsman named Jock

Who had a huge enormous… caber

It was covered in muck

So Jock, he said: “Oh, dear!

To clean it will cause me some labour.”

-/-

The ‘Alternative Word of the Day’ it is… “OSTENTATIOUS”

It’s big and it’s brash, and in your face, yes

It’s too big to be practical

Larger than life – to be factual

And if it says that it’s humble – it’s being audacious!

-/-

Thursday Late-Night Opening Limerick

There was a young shopper named Alice

Who went to Harrods to look for a chalice

The stock there was light

And none of them ‘quite’ right

So she stole one from Buckingham Palace!

NB – No, Alice didn’t really do that; she is much too nice and wouldn’t steal anything at all; it was just a made-up story.

-/-

Character Limerick (with a little help from…)

The illustrious Fifi Go-Cart Smith;

A writer, a legend, a myth

To her animals a god;

And with her flexible bod

Is seeking employment, forthwith.

-/-

Limerick-Writing (extracted from my book – available at some point in the future)

I am on my break, but came up with the lines:

“There was a young man from Dungannon

Who was fiddling about with a cannon…”

I shall mull on this as I wash-up last night’s tea things, clear the decks, and prepare my repast. I’ll be Arnie.

Update (though I am still in the midst or ‘mist’ of washing up): I am considering the choice of a ‘room / boom’ or a ‘face / space’ as the end rhymes for lines 3 and 4 of my Limerick. Bearing in mind, as I am, that the shorter lines need to really move the complicatedness of the plot along quickly. I am happy (at the moment) with the first two lines – but that may change.

Back! And a Radio 4 Extra play has given the word ‘priapism’ to my vocabulary – I hope that I do not need to use it again anytime soon.

Also in the play was a ‘canon’ and if the first two lines above had a ‘canon’ rather than a ‘cannon’, well, that may have slewed the Limerick considerably. I shall stick with what I have so far.

Information for you (gratis): Dungannon is 220 miles away from Limerick via the AA route planner (www.theaa.com)

I think the crux of this Limerick is to find that final rhyme for the fifth line that will turn it from a series of words into a valuable poetic edifice. The Dungannon / Cannon effect requires nothing from the young man’s place of origin, but everything from the (created literary) fact that he is fiddling about with a cannon. Cannons being quite limited in what they can do (essentially they go ‘BANG!’) the scenario is that the cannon will go off and the consequence will give us the rhyme. Perhaps we should look for a rhyme that would fit into that situation. When searching for rhymes that are not ‘actually’ leaping at you waving for attention, I use different ways of getting there. Alphabet Cruising: where you take the end of the rhyme ‘an-non’ and put all the letters of the alphabet (separately) onto the front. We have such possibilities as ‘ban on’, ‘can-on’, ‘fan-on’, ‘man-on’, and so-on! Nobody said this would be easy.

If I thought about the fact that the young man was from Dungannon and the place name may have similar sounding place names nearby, I could make this into a very parochial Limerick – keeping it all within the bounds of a ‘united’ Ireland. Here I will take a short leave of absence in order to check a search engine for maps of Northern Ireland.

Once there I immediately find that a place of the name of Duncannon exists in Eire; I then have options. Do I resite my first line, losing the fact that ‘cannon’ and ‘cannon’ rhyme ‘too’ perfectly; or do I have the young lad travelling across the Emerald Isle a mere 90 miles from Duncannon to Limerick?

NB Surprisingly, Dungannon to Duncannon and Dungannon to Limerick are both distances of 210 miles. I think that we may have the makings of an Irish isosceles triangle…

…or the design for a new stirrup for the Irish Derby winner.

Back to the plot. Our hero, a nameless young fool from somewhere in the poetic land of Erin, is messing about with an explosive machine of dubious origins. His tampering with the said device is very much destined to end in tears. He is probably in his room and the device will, at some stage soon, go ‘boom!’ Where he will end up is still up for grabs. Let’s just put our 4 cards so far on the table:

There was a young man from Dungannon

Who was fiddling about with a cannon

He was alone in his room (as stated)

When the damn thing (excuse language) went ‘BOOM!’

And we end the Limerick with…?

Okay, in order not to rush this I shall take a break and the answer shall enter my subconscious whilst the kettle is singing merrily to itself. Back for the denouement soon.

And we saw it fly past with a man on!

Well, it is only the process of creating a Limerick. Nothing too ‘high brow’ here; ‘move away from the building!’

-/-