Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)

Subject: Mthe GM. How about?
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 04:55 PM

Mthe GM. Mike, I'm sure Mudcatters would enjoy your clerihews. How about posting a few? Roy

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about?
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 05:04 PM

yes, indeed

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 05:11 PM

'Mthe GM. Mike, I'm sure Mudcatters would enjoy your clerihews'

as long as he rinses them afterwards.....

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 05:22 PM

Wow, Roy ~~that's going back a bit. They appeared in Folk Review nearly 40 years ago when Fred had a competition for folk clerihews. The only one that jumps to mind now is the one that was only 5 words long ~~

Spinners'
Dinners -
Scouse
Or grouse?

Was there one about you?

Oh: I do recall one about the Critics, and what all those people can have

Thought they were doin'
Trying to sound as if their names were Peggy and You-Know-Whoen.

I must have them all somewhere. If anyone would really like it, I'll see what others I can find again or dredge up from memory.

But as for any new ones, I'm not really enough in touch with the scene any more.

But thanks again for the kind thought, Roy. Nice to know one is remembered a bit by some of the older ones around. & Al ~ if there was one thing: they were all ever so clean!

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: Joe_F
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 07:48 PM

P. A. M. Dirac
Refused to call it a brac.
Like many Brits,
He had a thing about tits.

[For the physically deprived, he invented a notation in which a bracket (< | >) consists of a bra (< |) followed by a ket (| >).]

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Dec 11 - 03:46 AM

No good trying to find a merry few
People to recollect a particular set of Clerihew.
Some officious egotistical booby is bound to come along and shift
The whole thing on to a "let's·all·make·up·our·own·new·clerihews'" drift.

All part no doubt of what the docs call the Mudcatters' Complaint
The fact that self-respecting Mudcatters ain't
Capable of sticking to the point of any thread
And any attempt to make them do so is liable to cause them to keel over dead

☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Dec 11 - 08:15 AM

quite mcgonaglish the last one, mike, all we need now is walsabout verse, your first 2 are v good

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Dec 11 - 08:18 AM

The great point about the clerihew in fact, Dick, is the flexibility of the length of line...

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 09 Dec 11 - 06:17 PM

One I remember from those days Mike, was it one of yours?

Peggy Seeger plays tunes on her dulcimer, guitar, banjo and concertina,
Ewan Macoll plays facoll.

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Dec 11 - 08:11 PM

ok mike, so is this ok,
demon barbers, sweeney todd, on his jack jones, damien scoffed the lot mutton pies and bogie snot.

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Dec 11 - 11:40 PM

No, Dick. It is supposed to have a comprehensible meaning; and indeed to make a cogent comment.

WIKI: A clerihew is a whimsical, four-line biographical poem invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley. One of his best known is this (1905):
    Sir Christopher Wren
    Said, "I am going to dine with some men.
    If anyone calls
    Say I am designing St. Paul's."

A clerihew has the following properties:

    It is biographical and usually whimsical, showing the subject from an unusual point of view; it pokes fun at mostly famous people
    It has four lines of irregular length and metre (for comic effect)
    The rhyme structure is AABB; the subject matter and wording are often humorously contrived in order to achieve a rhyme, including the use of phrases in Latin, French and other non-English Languages
    The first line contains, and may consist solely of, the subject's name.{MGM disputes this ~ see below*}

Clerihews are not satirical or abusive, but they target famous individuals and reposition them in an absurd, anachronistic or commonplace setting, often giving them an over-simplified and slightly garbled description (similar to the schoolboy style of 1066 and All That).

*The name need not, tho, appear in the first line, tho should appear somewhere ~~ and then this is not an invariable IMO.

~M~

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Dec 11 - 11:58 PM

Dave ~~No, that wasn't one of mine, tho part of same Folk Review series. Nice one tho.

Have found all mine now. Here are a few --

If Ross
Is at a loss
Gilfellon
Will fill in

Peter Bellamy
Bound a full set of Kipling in vellum. He
Just thought
He ought

It's not true that Pentangle's
Bert Jansch suffers from the strangles
The origin of such a fiction
Must be his peculiar diction

If you should hear
Of the famous Morris of Oxfordshire
The dancers would thimk themselves slandered foully
If you mistake them for the products of that large works at Cowley

I wish I had time
To think of a rhyme
For Little Sir Hugh
Other then Jew

One has to applaud
The way the Son of God
Got Joseph over a barrel
In the Cherry Tree Carol

But even to an atheist like me it is a little scary
To think of the Virgin Mary
Administering the birch
To the posterior of the founder of The Church

I've always felt sorry
That Eppie Morrie
Was reduced to the use of force
To tease the Cock of the North

Pentangle's rendering of Jack Orion
Was a terrible try-on
And their calling the tune Traditional must have annoyed
Bert Lloyd

That's enuff grotty old clerihews - Ed

~M~

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Dec 11 - 12:02 AM

And one other reader's comment:

From the voluminous clerihews
That forth he spews
Mike Grosvenor Myer
Must suffer from verbal dihryer

Bob Foyle

Don't know who Bob was ~~ never met him. He just sent it in & Fred printed it.

Grrrrr!

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Dec 11 - 10:41 AM

Dick Miles, Said I shall play my tina, if anyone rings and asks me to sing, tell them I am squeezing the buttons with my good friend Serena

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Dec 11 - 10:50 AM

dick miles played his Tina with his good friend Serena,they squeezed with such verve, it shattered his nerves, he eloped with tone deaf Regina.

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Dec 11 - 11:56 AM

Good, Dick: but not strict clerihews, which must have exactly 4 lines of any length, which must rhyme AABB, & in no other rhyme scheme. Best to set them out, thus; as, e.g., another of my oldies ~~

"I can mak muckle siller,"
Said Jimmie Miller,
"By looking earnest and sincere
Wi' my finger in my ear."

Sometimes one includes punctuation, as here; sometimes not, as above. But the format cannot vary; so your efforts above, which, if set out, would rhyme AABBA, won't do. Your two, in fact, are in a-rhythmic limerick form, & not clerihew at all.

~M~

Richard Miles
Is all smiles
When he hears anyone say how much they like
The posts on Mudcat attributed to someone calling himself Good Soldier Schweik

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Dec 11 - 12:42 PM

I feel serener
when playing my tina.
by squeezing his bellows
dick miles feels mellow

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Dec 11 - 12:47 PM

m the g m,
continues to send
witty four liners,
about past folkscene reminders

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Dec 11 - 12:50 PM

dear uncle ROY
set a cunning ploy,
to write clerihews
to stimulate the muse

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Dec 11 - 01:19 PM

My, how you
Do,
When you set your mind to it, make things happen,
Cap'n!

☺☻〠☻☺

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Dec 11 - 01:21 PM

Suggestion ~~ in your last "Dear Uncle ROY" one, try reversing lines 3 & 4

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: Gda Music
Date: 10 Dec 11 - 01:38 PM

The Russians fight with Timoshenko
The British with a tin of blanco
"Tommy" learnt that when he trains
Bulls..t baffles brains

GJ

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Dec 11 - 02:27 PM

There is nothing that Max
Lacks
To make him the ne plus ultra in running the best site dedicated to traditional verse
In the entire history of the Universe

❧❧❧❧ ★★★ ❦❦❦

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Dec 11 - 05:50 AM

a mudcatter by the name of max
in praise of his forum we wax
this clerihew I compose
in his honour,I pen this humble prose

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Dec 11 - 06:21 AM

And now to let you know
What we think of Joe ~
A cap we will doff, a
Humble praise to Offer

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Dec 11 - 12:21 PM

I think that I shall never see
    An offer as lovely as thee.
    Indeed, unless I go to the catters ball
    I doubt if i will see Joe Offer at all.

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: Joe_F
Date: 11 Dec 11 - 09:24 PM

Not itself a clerihew:

Said a shade in Westminster Abbey:
Most critics are cruel and crabby,
But Auden and Clerihew Bentley
Have treated us justly and gently.

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Dec 11 - 03:00 PM

A man who has a certain style
Is a character named Old Dick Miles
He plays a wicked concertina
He's not really chubby, but he used to be leaner...

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Dec 11 - 03:04 PM

re

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: theleveller
Date: 15 Dec 11 - 04:22 AM

Just seen this thread and coudln't reists this - sorry!

Michael, AKA MtheGM,
Pokes at lefties with a vitriol pen
And they, with pithy retorts to his quips,
Try to pith on his chips

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: theleveller
Date: 15 Dec 11 - 04:34 AM

And to our three-legged friend from Croydon:

Bo
Zo,
Oh
No!

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Dec 11 - 05:11 AM

I should like to believe that the leveller
Has perhaps been a bit too much of a pre-Xmas reveller.
On the other hand, it must be admitted be that there may be nothing unduly
Disputable in what he has to say of Yrs Truly.

❧☺〠M〠☻❦

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Dec 11 - 05:22 AM

So then lev
Go on 'n' have a bev
Or even ☕♨ 2
Only too happy to ☝ over the best of it ☛ U

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: theleveller
Date: 15 Dec 11 - 06:48 AM

LOL - love it!

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: GUEST,Dáithí
Date: 15 Dec 11 - 07:16 AM

A recent one of mine, entitled Breakfast ...

I like toast the most,
But have muesli, uesli.


Technically a Clerihew?
D

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: theleveller
Date: 15 Dec 11 - 07:20 AM

MtheGM, full of good Xmas cheer,
Urged theleveller to have one more beer
To which theleveller with reformed-Scrooge-like glee
Replied, "Have one yourself – as it's Christmas, the drinks are on me!"

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: GUEST,SteveG
Date: 15 Dec 11 - 01:10 PM

Of Francis James Child,
Whose ballads drove him wild
When he found out even the scary uns,
Were mostly written by antiquarians. (allegedly!)

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: GUEST,SteveG
Date: 15 Dec 11 - 05:01 PM

Though his songs are very good
And to sing 'em, yes, we should,
Scholars should best avoid
The works of Albert Lloyd.


I'll get me coat.

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Dec 11 - 05:37 PM

The revival owes a lot to Bert Lloyd.
There is nothing of his we should avoid.
Folk song in England is rightly acclaimed.
Scholastically superior to some I could name

Subject: RE: Mthe GM. How about? (your clerihews)
From: GUEST,raymond greenoaken
Date: 16 Dec 11 - 06:24 AM

doesn't quite fit the approved structure, but for what it's worth –

Sir Walter Scott
Wrote quite a lot
Some was good
But most was not.