NIGHT& DAYGRANDPOETRYPRIZE

To be or not to be? To be, of course. That not to bejust closes off all choice. No chance for second thoughts, no turning back. And if it’s meant to prick your mum’s remorse, You won’t be here. Ignore that ghostly voice, Be rational and take the cautious tack. Defer, delay, Keep all your options free. That’s how You live to fight (or not) another day. Feel better now?

PRESIDENTIAL (BEG)PARDON by Peter Butler It’s clear to me now (said the President), The signs have become all too evident. We screwed the attack in Iraq And it’s me who’s been getting the flak. There’s a murmur in Burma of chaos in Laos, Hail in Sahara, snow in Barbados. The change in the climate, they say, is my fault, Emissions I did too little to halt. Now Putin is rooting to cut off my gas, While someone has stolen the chair from my ass. Regime change, I reckon, is now overdue. Gentlemen, I quit – it’s over to you.

PRIX FIXE by Iain Colley At midday when, as is my wont (I live my life by rote), I settle in a restaurant I choose the table d’hôôte

If feeling spruce and debonair, Or even cock -a -hoop, I’ll start with huitres fines et claires, Which means I miss the soup.

And if I then proceed to eat Cassoulet (what a dish!) I must forgo the bisteck frites, And equally the fish.

The same dilemma haunts dessert: To opt for crèème brûûléée Entails that I can only flirt With dreams of a sorbet.

I know that I could scoff the lot. Sometimes I get the blues. But Sartre says that we have not The freedom not to choose.

THE PICK OF THE BUNCHby J M Harvey If Tom had married Josephine and Sue had gone with Jim instead of choosing Cederic

(what did she see in him?) then Harry might have dated Pam so Richard would be free to dally where his fancy leads and take the plunge with me.

As things turned out, our stars were crossed and fate had other plans I sense it when our glances meet and each time we brush hands – wishing we could pick again undo the choices made – but rules are broken easier the more the game is played.

So Richard flirts behind Pam’s back and Josephine’s turned gay since Harry had a fling with Sue who’s set to move away now she’s divorcing Cederic while – typical of him – Tom’s come up with one last bid but I’ve said yes to Jim.

AUDIOBOOK

THECASEBOOKOFSHERLOCKHOLMES, VOLUMEI

★

By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Read by David Timson) (Naxos Audiobooks 4 CDs Unabridged £16.99)

SIRARTHURCONANDOYLE’s commitment to spiritualism led him to abandon fiction. Yet in the 1920s he published twelve final Sherlock Holmes adventures. These are the first six. In Thor Bridge, Maria is the past-her-prime wife of the Gold King, whom she adores. Wildly jealous of their delightful English governess, she is prepared to kill herself in order to incriminate the innocent girl. Lloyd George’s favourite story was The Mazarin Stone, in which a page called Billy is in attendance. ‘How far am I justified in putting that boy in danger of sudden death?’ Holmes asks himself, closing the curtain across the bow window in which resides a facsimile of himself. He awaits the villainous Count Negretto Sylvius, who has stolen the great Mazarin stone, a Crown diamond worth £100,000. Holmes is at his most manic and impish. Even leaner and paler, he directs the cook to serve dinner ‘the day after tomorrow’. ‘The faculties become refined when you starve them,’ he explains. ‘I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me a mere appendage.’ David Timson is a flawless reader. Susan Crosland

63

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LITERARY REVIEW August 2007