Do I get a cake or something ...

[Guest]

... to celebrate my 1000th?

Maybe just a telegram from ff.

[hackneyvi]

You can buy yourself a coffee or a soft drink in the cafe but you can't have a fag there (it's ILLEGAL!) and don't let us hear you slurping.

Congratulation or something on your thousandth post.

Here's a special poem I've written for the occasion (Andrew Motion put in a couple of lines for the middle but Carol Ann Duffy said, "Go away, can't you see I'm busy?!" when I asked for her autograph. There's just no need for that is there?).

So
You've written your post number 'One thousand'
Which I suppose is all well and good and
that
But for all I know
Like many posts though
They might all be small ones
That make up your first ton's
And don't merit show-
ing
But need a good hoe-
ing

And the actual thousandth post
Presumes to celebrate the fact
(Of being your thousandth post)
Without having first the tact
To give our thirst
With which we were almost burst-
ing
To congratulate
Your immaculate
Cardinal count

Which is very bad manners
For a thousand posting man as
You

Now go and sit in the corner
And think about what you've done.

By hackneyvi, poesy's son,
And so, a poet bor-
n.

[french frank]

... to celebrate my 1000th?

Maybe just a telegram from ff.

from me from everyone .

Please note that all messages from now on must be checked for speling misstakes. If you make the site look illiterate you could be costing us £££££££££££££s (BBC has had millions wiped from its shares overnight!)

[hackneyvi]

from me from everyone

Can we use the cakes to do a Laurel and Hardy on him, ff? In the face and down the trousers? Empty the pint jug of pouring cream into his hat and so on (does Don wear a hat?).

Alot of people like that on their birthday.

[amateur51]

Bravo Don!

And bravo hackney for an eggsellent pome!

And sorry to ff for my spelling back there - GBS would approve, I'm sure

[tom_960]

...Andrew Motion put in a couple of lines for the middle

I remember Dame Edna Everage being interviewed once about Australian culture. She said that the former Poet Laureate had good reason to thank her for the advice she gave him when he was a struggling young writer called Andrew Turd: <<Andrew, you'll never get anywhere until you change your surname>>

I'll get my coat.

[french frank]

I think Don likes being on 1,000

[hackneyvi]

Though 1,000 is handily near to another significant number, '1,001'.

But I can understand not wanting to throw the moment away. You'll only be '1,000' once, won't you?

Mind you! - Don could craftily edit a sequence of responses into the original post and remain on '1,000' for as long as he likes.

PS: If Don didn't get a cake, did somebody at least send him a recipe?

[Don Petter]

I must admit, it had occurred to me that with my next post the significance of the thread might be lost on the casual reader, and perhaps I have been savouring the moment just a bit.

1001 has its uses. After all, with it, you can clean a big, big carpet, for less than half a crown! (Anyone who understands that will also open themselves to a charge of incipient decrepitude, as well as the original sin of watching commercial TV.)

I thank you all for your various responses. I haven't smoked for forty years now, and I don't think I slurp, but that is better decided by my fellow diners, and I've never dared to ask them.

I appreciated the poem, though some of the implications may have gone over my head, probably because I was lying low to avoid the flying cakes - face and trousers still unsullied, so far, I'm happy to report. I do sometimes wear a hat, now I feel I have the years to carry it (ditto my pocket watch, for which I've always yearned), but I'm hiding it until that jug of cream has been emptied elsewhere.

As they (probably) say - The first thousand are the worst.

[french frank]

Well, hearty congratulations on your 1,001st! Now you can get back to posting ...