The joys of bamb lyriani - the limerick comes of age

[Nick Armstrong]

Love this story!

And the limericks...

A lion was learning to ski
In the Alps just outside Chamonix.
But he ruined his hopes
Of mastering the slopes
When he had his instructor for tea.

[vinteuil]

... me, I prefer anti-limericks

There was a young man from Dundee
Who was horribly stung by a wasp
When they said 'Does it hurt?'
He replied 'No it doesn't -
I'm so glad it wasn't a hornet!'

There was a young man from Japan
Whose verses never would scan
When asked why this was
He replied 'It's because
I always try to fit as many syllables into the last line as I possibly can."


A limerick fan from Australia
Regarded his work as a failure:
His verses were fine
Until the fourth line.

There was a man from Timbuctoo
Whose verses stopped at line two...

There was young man from Verdun....

- and let us not forget :

Y avait un jeune homme de Dijon
Qui se foutait de toute religion.
Il a dit, "Quant à moi,
Je déteste les trois:
Le Père, et le Fils, et le Pigeon."

and of course

Sit vitiorum meorum evacuatio
Concupiscentae et libidinis exterminatio,
Caritatis et patientiae,
Humilitatis et obedientiae,
Omniumque virtutum augmentatio

[Padraig]

Love this story!

And the limericks...

A lion was learning to ski
In the Alps just outside Chamonix.
But he ruined his hopes
Of mastering the slopes
When he had his instructor for tea.

Glad you mentioned this, Caliban. I've just been reading the Observer article and while there is a lot of depressing material this Sunday I had a quiet chuckle too.

[teamsaint]

Lovely article.

Not a limerick, but for some reason I love this.

Cousin Reggie.


Cousin Reggie
Who adores the sea
Lives in the Midlands
unfortunately
He surfs down escalators
in department stores
and swims in the High street
on all of his fours

Sunbathes on the pavement
paddles in the gutter
( I think out Reggies
a bit of a nutter)

Roger McGough

[Padraig]

I did not read the title carefully enough - I had vague impressions of 'iambic' and 'lyric' - near enough for jazz, eh?...... so, what is bamb lyriani?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I did not read the title carefully enough - I had vague impressions of 'iambic' and 'lyric' - near enough for jazz, eh?...... so, what is bamb lyriani?

What Dr Spooner ordered in an Indian Restaurant, Padraig - the article's well worth a read :gribbin:

[Padraig]

[QUOTE=ferneyhoughgeliebte;520588]What Dr Spooner ordered in an Indian Restaurant, Padraig QUOTE]

Gah! I et it.

[Nick Armstrong]

Padraig - the article's well worth a read :gribbin:

Gah! I et it.

[Jonathan]

My favourite limerick:

There was an old man called Frank,
Who invented a new kind of tank,
He said it would float,
Just like a boat,
But the first time he tried it, it sank.

[teamsaint]

My favourite limerick:

There was an old man called Frank,
Who invented a new kind of tank,
He said it would float,
Just like a boat,
But the first time he tried it, it sank.

ideed.

Was he involved with this sturdy vessel at all, I wonder?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship)

[EdgeleyRob]

There was a young girl from Rabat
Who had triplets: Nan, Pat, and Tat.
It was fun in the breeding,
but hell in the feeding,
as she found she had no tit for Tat

[gurnemanz]

What amazes me is that Ranjit Bolt can now apparently be described as "struggling" since I have always seen him as one of the greatest translators of our time. We saw his marvellous version of Corneille's The Liar at the Old Vic with Alex Jennings, (directed by Jonathan Miller.) The text was described by the Telegraph critic as "the best translation of a French play into English ever done." + his hilarious Tartuffe with Martin Clunes and David Threlfall at the National a few years later ... and many more.

[Dave2002]

What amazes me is that Ranjit Bolt can now apparently be described as "struggling" since I have always seen him as one of the greatest translators of our time. We saw his marvellous version of Corneille's The Liar at the Old Vic with Alex Jennings, (directed by Jonathan Miller.) The text was described by the Telegraph critic as "the best translation of a French play into English ever done." + his hilarious Tartuffe with Martin Clunes and David Threlfall at the National a few years later ... and many more.

He would have been struggling - perhaps - if he'd gambled away £250k. Currently 56 I reckon, though this may be questionable - wiki probably gets it wrong - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranjit_Bolt - elsewhere he's said to have been born in 1959. He may have spent some time as a stockbroker. Perhaps at some time he got rich enough to get into gambling, and then blew most of it away. If that was over a 30 year period, then that would have been about £8k per year, which could be more or less painful, depending .... Of course he could have lost it all in just a very short time.

I doubt that working as a translator would have generated a lot of income, so the experience probably was quite a hard one. I wish him luck with the limericks, and the book may go on the Christmas present list.

[gurnemanz]

He would have been struggling - perhaps - if he'd gambled away £250k. Currently 56 I reckon, though this may be questionable - wiki probably gets it wrong - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranjit_Bolt - elsewhere he's said to have been born in 1959. He may have spent some time as a stockbroker. Perhaps at some time he got rich enough to get into gambling, and then blew most of it away. If that was over a 30 year period, then that would have been about £8k per year, which could be more or less painful, depending .... Of course he could have lost it all in just a very short time.

I doubt that working as a translator would have generated a lot of income, so the experience probably was quite a hard one. I wish him luck with the limericks, and the book may go on the Christmas present list.

I now realise I made my comments without actually reading the Guardian story linked to above and am now more in the picture.

[umslopogaas]

Here's one written by my friend Keith when we were both undergraduates at Cambridge. It formed part of his 'Cambridge Book of Dirty Punting Songs, of which I alas know not the fate:

Some eminent fellows of Downing
Went punting in thick gravy browning
A fellow fell over
Abjuring Jehovah
Oh Lord! Bloody hell! I am drowning!

But the rude ones are the funniest. At the risk of attracting the wrath of our hosts:

There was a young man of Madras
Whose b**ls were made out of brass
In windy weather
They rubbed together
And sparks flew out of his a*se.