Ah, another offering from WAV (Wearisomely Abject Versifier) to dissect. Now, where shall we start...

213 of 230: MORE AMOR PATRIAE

There is Tai Chi AND there is tennis,
    Line is fine BUT so is Morris,
There is curry AND there is the roast,
    And, when England is playing host,
It is the rest-of-the-world's good wish
    To sense culture that is English.

...ah yes - the rhyming scheme. Well, what's it to be - is the thing to rhyme or not to rhyme? We have "roast" & "host", and "wish" & "English" (I'll deal with THAT particular pair in a minute), but what about "tennis" and "Morris"? Doesn't fit somehow, does it? I suppose you could have written "Line is fine BUT so is Dennis"...

On to scansion and metre. The line "And, when England is playing host" is just clumsy and would flow better, for example, by being re-cast as "And, when England plays the host". Understand?

In the line "It is the rest-of-the-world's good wish", the final emphasis is on the word WISH. Followed by "To sense culture that is English - where the natural emphasis is on the first syllable of ENGlish. So the whole couplet ends with a leaden clunk.

Now - why the bloody hyphens in "rest-of-the-world"? It's just unnecessary and thoughtless. Any why their "good" wish - and why use the word "sense" as a transitive verb with "culture" as its object? Why not use "see"? Much plainer and straightforward.

As to the sentiment, it's as puerile as ever. Tai Chi and curry and line dancing are just as much part of modern England as anything else. I personally don't care for line dancing, for example - but Tai Chi is, for me, much more preferable to tennis. Most popular English dish? Chicken Tikka Masala. Whether you like it or not. The point is, old cock, that there's just as much room in this country for curry as there is for roast dinners - and for hundreds of other things.

Final point: the language that you mangle with your crap so-called verse is a wonderful mixture of Brythonic, Roman, Saxon, Norman French, German, Scandinavian, Indian, Arabic, etc. - and it's called ENGLISH. The English language changes more than any other language and is able to assimilate words of foreign origin more than any other language and still remain ENGLISH. Got it? Got the metaphor?

I somehow doubt it.