The Big Zoo Census or How many geckos?

(version one - for lockdown challenge)

They're having a census at my local zoo
They're asking for volunteers
I love the idea of an animal count
I've wanted to do it for years

They've chosen me, I'm happy to say
They asked: "What would you like to do?"
I said: "Count the lizards, if I may.
If that's ok with you."

It’s easy to imagine
That I’ll see a bearded dragon
Chameleon and iguana too
I’ll have to count all those
As well as the geckos
I’m monitoring the lizards in the zoo

I shall hurtle past the turtle
And go flying past the lion
I won't stop for the rhinoceros or gnu
I don't want elephant or mouse
I'll be in the reptile house
When I'm monitoring the lizards in the zoo

I can’t even stop and gander
At four types of salamander
I’m not interested in skunk or kangaroo
The sea-lions and the otters
You can keep them I'm not bothered
Because I'm monitoring the lizards in the zoo

I've got my clipboard out
And now it's time to start the count…

I think
I saw all the skink
But there is a risk
That I might have missed a basilisk
As for how many geckos?
Heck knows!

(version two - for Searchlight competition)

They're counting the creatures at my local zoo

They're asking for volunteers

I’d love a chance of joining in 

I've wanted to do it for years

Some animals struggle to live in the wild

Their land is dry and burned

They’re looked after in our zoo

Until it’s safe to be returned

They've chosen me, I'm happy to say

They asked: "What would you like to do?"

I said: "Count the lizards, if I may

If that's alright with you"

I shall hurtle past the turtle

And go flying past the lion

I’ll have to skip the skunk and kangaroo

I won’t count elephant or mouse

I'll be in the reptile house

I’m monitoring the lizards in the zoo

I won’t have time to stop and gander

At four types of salamander

I’ll wave at the rhinoceros and gnu

They’ll need a different spotter

For the sea-lions and the otters

Because I'm monitoring the lizards in the zoo

It’s easy to imagine

That I’ll see a bearded dragon

Chameleon and iguana too

I’ll have to count all those

As well as the geckos

When I’m monitoring the lizards in the zoo

I've got my clipboard out

And now it's time to start the count…

I think

I saw all the skink

But there is a risk

I might have missed a basilisk

How many geckos?

I’ll need you to check those

Go back and see

If you get the same number as me

Games Without Frontiers

Make money in London or solve a crime?
Why not do them both at the same time?
Choose which token you want to be
And let’s all play Cluenopoly!

Professor Plum walks down the Strand
Is that a dagger I see in his hand?
He’d go to jail if it was up to me
It’s fun to play Cluenopoly.

Do I always get £200
Every time I pass the lounge?
I’ve won a beauty contest in the conservatory
It’s confusing, this Cluenopoly.

I don’t know whodunnit, I admit I’m at a loss
Was that Mrs Peacock that I saw at King’s Cross?
Is it Rev. Green, top hat, Electric company?
Nope, I haven’t won Cluenopoly.

Don’t roll the dice, there’s some money I’m owed
I own the Billiard Room, Miss Scarlett and the Old Kent Road
That cash will stave off bankruptcy
I’ve still got a chance in Cluenopoly.

I understand the game has got its quirks
But could the killer really be the Water Works?
It seems a little bit odd to me
Are you sure you know the rules to Cluenopoly?

How are you allowed to take out a loan
To build a railway from the kitchen to Marylebone?
I don’t care if it’s called HS3
I hope you’re not cheating at Cluenopoly?

Hold on a minute, it’s definitely not right
You’ve built two houses on Mrs White
I've got free parking down the hidden stairs
A rope’s been arrested in Leicester Square
There must be something that we can watch on tv
Anything but play Cluenopoly!

The Village Centre

A stained satellite dish looks down

On a shorts day, mustard trousers join a queue
The blind Westie in a red collar hesitates at the sound of traffic
The 'g' and 'e' are missing
A Maserati looks out of place
I don't know the names of trees.

Russell Hobbs: My Secret History

The storm reaches fever pitch
Blink
Wild flowers, rocks and minerals

Let's make a plan
Play I-Spy
Sing a soviet song

Touch me, Sparklebright
Drink chai with me you happy egg
While I'm basking in your six perfections

I'm sorry, I love you.

The Microscope

One Christmas, many years ago
(I think that I was nine or so)
my biggest Christmas present hope
came true. I had a microscope!

We set it up. My dad and I'd
put a hair under the slide
I focused in and what was there?
It was a slightly bigger hair.

I looked again and I could see
the microscope was not for me.

Have I been good?

I've brushed my teeth, the way I should
For the last six months. Have I been good?

Do I need a filling or extraction
which would provoke a sad reaction

The dentist prods, there is no pain
Have I managed to escape again?

But then she finally says, with gravity
"Upper left six, occlusal cavity."

And When the Sky Was Opened

I shot an arrow into the air
The monsters are due on Maple Street
A penny for your thoughts

Spur of the moment
A short drink from a certain fountain
I shot an arrow into the air

No time like the past
On Thursday we leave for home
The monsters are due on Maple Street

Black leather jackets
The changing of the guard
A penny for your thoughts



(The title and every line are episode titles from the original run of US sci-fi series The Twilight Zone 1959-1964.)

Abstract

'Make them more abstract'
That's my lesson from last time
Horse pain lightbulb coal

Brazil 2014 facts

(Copied across from another blog I'm closing down)

(None of these are true - but they were posted on Twitter in 2014)

In the 1966 World Cup the Soviet Union took their own dugout to matches believing that the ones at the grounds were bugged.

Brazil boss Felipe Scolari is fascinated by the statues on Easter Island. He visits every year & is writing a book about them.

The pennants exchanged before World Cup games are given to FIFA's Museum of Pennants in Zurich which is not open to the public

Just Fontaine's prize for being the top goalscorer at the 1958 tournament was six chickens and a static caravan in Gothenburg.

When a teenager, Belgium's Axel Witsel was caught making a crop circle in a field near Antwerp. He was let off with a caution.

Martin Keown is such a fan of Desperate Dan that He's copied his beard and only eats cow pies.

The sand on copacabana beach is flown in from Ramsgate, Kent. It is GB's third biggest export after Top Gear and Doctor Who.

In 1994 a fast food chain spent $12m developing the McSoccerburger. They were unable to develop a bun to sit on the spherical meat patty and the idea was scrapped. (via @efmyoung)

USA midfielder Brad Davis is such a fan of Scooby-Doo that he has a van painted exactly like the Mystery Machine. In his spare time he drives it to old houses, derelict mines and abandoned amusement parks.

1978 World Cup hero Mario Kempes hosted a TV show called 'In the kitchen with Kempes' but it was cancelled after two series.

Adam Lallana won a fancy dress competition when on holiday at Camber Sands at the age of four. He dressed as Captain Birdseye.

Until their loss to the Dutch, Spain had completed 10,142 consecutive, uninterrupted passes in world cups. (via @freekymunky)

Former USA defender Alexei Lalas now writes romantic fiction for Mills & Boon under the pen-name Valerie Fairfax.

The most expensive Panini sticker is a 1970 Wolfgang Overath which sold for £650 (plus fees) at Sotheby's in 2011.

France boss Didier Deschamps collects astronaut memorabilia. His top item? A pair of Buzz Aldrin's shoes.

Uruguay striker Edinson Cavani is an accomplished bassoon player and turned down a place with the Montevideo Concert Orchestra

Chile keeper Claudio Bravo funds a goat sanctuary in his home town of Viluco.

The 1930 tournament only had three quarter-finals due to an administrative mix-up.

UEFA bigwig Michel Platini is a self-made millionaire thanks to his dental hygiene invention, the flossing harp.

The statue of Christ the Redeemer is hollow apart from the left arm which holds frozen local foodstuffs in case of shortages.

Sepp Blatter keeps the World Cup trophy with him and flakes bits off onto his breakfast. He believes it helps with his long-life and virility.

Rio Ferdinand was named after the Duran Duran song, not the place.

Candy Shrimps - a potted history

(Copied across from another blog I'm closing down - originally posted 18 January 2015)

The Candy Shrimp (squilla spuma) is a small sea creature that is now eaten as a confectionery item but played a bigger part in the British diet and history up until the late 19th century.

The shrimp lives mainly as every other shrimp but emits a foam as a defence mechanism when challenged by a predator. This foam is unpleasant to other marine creatures but has a delightful fruit flavour for humans. The foam dissolves in water after a few hours and the shrimp continues its life but if taken from water in its foamy state it will solidify and die.

Records show that it was first fished off the east coast of Britain in the early 1500s. Poor coastal dwellers would go to the beach at low tide and find the shrimps that had been caught out by the receding waters and left on the beach. As travel links improved so did the commercial reach of the shrimp.

The first known literary reference to candy shrimps is from the great Scottish bard Robert Burns (1759-1796) in his 'Ode to Things that Live in the Sea':
"Oooh, shrimpy.
Yur wee, pink, foamy body tastes guid to me."

(Although some scholars believe William Shakespeare's famous tragedy Macbeth is based on the battle for control of the lucrative candy shrimp market from Scotland into England in the late 1500's.*)

The industrial revolution brought the candy shrimp to the masses and the price fell dramatically as a result. Improved fishing techniques dredging the shrimp beds off of the east coast and the introduction of the railways meant that the shrimps were moving across Britain in their tons.

Author Henry Mayhew wrote about it in his seminal work on life on the margins in Victorian times 'London Labour and the London Poor'. Costermongers in the 1850s were complaining about the fall in price while it was thought that candy shrimps were making up 40% of some of the poorest Londoners' diets.

The Government's Poor Law Board passed an amendment in 1864 stating that candy shrimps were no longer to be used in the gruel served in workhouses as it was too flavoursome and not enough of a deterrent to keep people out.

The collapse of the candy shrimp price ultimately led to its decline. The fishing fleets found that it was no longer worth their while dredging for the shrimp with profit margins so small and turned their attention to supplying the new craze for fish and chips.

This sudden rarity and price increase moved the shrimp back into the dining rooms of the middle classes but the fatal blow to its popularity came in 1885. British hero General Charles Gordon had been under siege in Khartoum for several months and messages sent out of the city had simply said: 'Send reinforcements - and candy shrimps'.

The relieving party (and shrimps) arrived too late. Gordon had been killed by the army of the Mahdi two days before. Gordon was feted as a hero but the shrimps were tainted as a symbol of defeat. Tourists to Khartoum have been known to leave candy shrimps on the steps where Gordon is believed to have fallen.

That would have been the end of the story but for the 'candy shrimp wars' between Britain and Iceland in the 1970s. The television news brought pictures of fishing boats and battleships clashing in the disputed candy shrimp fishing grounds into the UK's living rooms.

During the conflict the candy shrimp and the eating of it became a symbol of British patriotism and support for our fishermen. Although the 'candy shrimp wars, were ultimately lost they reinvigorated an interest in the creature that lives into the pick and mix jars of today.

*But they are generally accepted to be mad.

Spring 2

Spring is the months from March to May
(At least that’s what meteorologists say
It doesn’t work for everyone
There’s also transit of the sun
Though now it seems unorthodox
To use the vernal equinox)

There are new beginnings, things start to bloom
In the corner of our living room
I’m not talking flowers as you might have thought
No, spring’s a great time of year for sport.

In Formula One it’s ‘Go, go, go’
From Australia through to Monaco

Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix
Cycling classics of one day

Can we pick the winner of the National?
By name, a pin or something rational

Attack the flags, avoid disasters
Who’ll win the jacket at golf’s Masters?

In Sheffield’s Crucible for 16 days
We’ll watch the battles on green baize

Cricket returns, dig out your whites
Play limited overs under lights

May brings the final of the FA Cup
And the end of the leagues, who’s down? Who’s up?

But this year to see these athletes
We have to tune in to repeats
All we can do is persevere
And hope to have a spring next year.

Spring

I exert force in proportion to extension
I can be constant, torsion or compression

Cantilever, coil, flat or machined
I’m in jewellery clasps and in trampolines

Serpentine or garter, volute or leaf
(That’s enough types of spring, good grief!)

I’m in your watches, I’m in your locks
I’m in your car, I absorb your shocks

I make pens work when you give them a click
Without me there’s no pogo stick

I’m in your sofas and in your chairs
I’m a slinky going downstairs

Well, that’s my spring poem but I fear
I might have got the wrong idea

Four 'Guess the Musicals' haiku

1.

Great and Powerful
Or just a frightened old man
Behind a curtain

--
2.

A wager is struck
Flower girl becomes Duchess
Becomes unhappy

--
3.

Love in the gold rush
Two husbands, one too many
Time to go wan’drin

--
4.

A 1950s
Romeo and Juliet
In New York City

Cooking the Books

Having thought, it seems to me
That books are like a recipe
You take some words, mix them about
And then a story might fall out.

I’ve stirred up some letters, added some spaces
Put punctuation in approximate places
It’s been in the oven as if it were cake
Now is the time to see if it’s half-baked…

Food is best shared, so when we are able
We’ll ask some of our friends to sit at our table.

A cat in a hat,
A fox in his socks
And the Lorax will be invited
Plus Horton,
A Who
And Things One and Two
(If they don’t get over-excited.)

Our storybook dish will start with some fish
Shall we have
One or two? 
Will they be
Red or blue?
I’m going to leave that up to you.

(If it needs seasoning take a pinch
Of something cheeky called The Grinch.)

Our main course will be eggs and ham
And if you’re really keen
The favourite kind of eggs and ham
Is when they’re purest green.

Serve with a glass of Oobleck juice
And enjoy your taste of Dr Seuss.