I could easily fill this review with Trump and Brexit, but there’s too much other good stuff around, so let me briefly summarise those twin horrors.
TRUMP
It was a year when one man bestrode the world of news like an unusually small-handed colossus. Things were not easy for Donald Trump right from his January inauguration, as aides came and went, amid FBI investigations into collusion with Russia. Johnson said of Hoover that it was better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in – but Trump’s advisers were too busy practising autofellatio to be able to piss anywhere, while Trump prefers a hotel to a tent when it comes to recreational urination. Here are a few selected highlights of his limerick year.
TRUMPELSTILTSKIN
A fellow of riches untold
Who frolicks in showers of gold
Talked plain on the stump.
Hail President Trump
The Man Whom the World was Missold.
***
The President wants a big wall
Gigantic and massive and tall
Along a vast border
But signed his huge order
With hands inexplicably small.
***
The POTUS’s press team reacts
To unwelcome truth that detracts
From his greater glories
With fictional stories,
Rebranded ‘alternative facts’.
***
When Comey was given the push
Sean Spicer hid out in a bush
So now he’s on leave
And many believe
Will shortly be out on his tush.
***
Scaramucci provoked a fandango,
Denying it takes two to tango
For strategist Bannon,
A fellow loose cannon;
I ask you – how low can a mango?
***
Paul Manafort getting indicted
Has many Trump-watchers excited
They cannot but notice
It’s leaving the POTUS
Increasingly thickly beshited.
***
Events in the UK were dominated by the continuing shambles that is the Brexit process, with Article 50 triggered in March, and Theresa May’s spectacular miscalculation in calling an election to increase her majority (spoiler: she didn’t). At Tory conference, things became still more more shambolic as even the letters in the slogan behind her quit.
MAYHEM
As Prime Minister of the UK
I’m writing this letter to say
I want to break free
It’s not EU, it’s me.
Sincerely, Theresa M. May.
***
There once was a woman named May
Who threw an election away
She lost her majority
And has no authority
How long can she honestly stay?
***
Theresa May’s fight to survive
Was broadcast from conference live;
She had a bad cough
The wall said F off
And May got a P45.
***
BREXITSHAMBLES
Meanwhile the Brexit talks themselves went nowhere slowly. Britain loudly established firm red lines – on the final bill, the order of play and the Irish border – then crossed them all. All the Brexiteers could proffer as progress was a return to blue passports – but a) they were really black anyway, and b) we could do that without leaving the EU!
The EU draft programme for Brexit
Once every member state chexit
Is do it in stages
Don’t let it take ages
And hope that no bugger rejexit.
***
A Eurocrat known as Michel
Said Brexit talks aren’t going well
Though May tries to mask it
We’re in a handbasket
Whose end destination is hell.
***
Said EU head honcho Jean-Claude
The UK must pay what is aude
So settle your tab
We’ll call you a cab –
But first let’s have one for the raude.
***
As Britain negotiates Brexit
The border continues to vexit
With May’s coalition
In fragile condition
This could be the issue that fexit.
***
When Britain has left the EU
Our passports once more will be blue;
As blue as the holder,
Abandoned to moulder
For hours in a non-EU queue.
***
Elsewhere in the world, 2017 confusingly saw a man with an (almost) unrhymable name take over in Harare, and Hariri briefly quitting in Beirut, Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif coming to grief because off a forgery involving the wrong MS typeface, Catalonia attempting to go it alonia, and more nuclear willy-waving from North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un – among other things.
ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE
Ex-Gambian President Jammeh
A despot and medical shammeh
Who claimed to cure AIDS
Has gone, but evades
A much-deserved spell in the slammeh.
***
A fellow named Kim from Pyongyang
Was badly in need of a bang
He fired his Rodong,
A missile that’s long
And has to stand in for his whang.
***
The Panama leaks brought to grief
The man who was Pakistan’s chief
And so for the want
Of a credible font
The country is now sans Sharif.
***
The laureate Aung San Suu Kyi
Who wanted Myanmar to be free
Now watches in silence
As state-sponsored violence
Compels the Rohingya to flee.
***
There once was a man from Girona
A Catalan go-it-aloner
Who ran off to Brussels
When Spain flexed its muscles
And made him a wanted persona.
***
Has Lebanese PM Hariri
Lost interest in power, grown wiri?
Or is he a victim
Of Saudis who trictim?
Perhaps a more plausible thiri.
***
Mugabe’s barbed wire piragua*
Is stuck up that old stretch of agua
That’s known as Shit Creek
Sans paddle, this week,
Outwitted by old Mnangagwa.
*a type of canoe
***
In the world of stage and screen, it was the year Hollywood discovered things could get a whole lot worse than merely reading out the wrong winner for the Best Picture Oscar. Harvey Weinstein was left in disgrace with only his plant pots for company, and more and more women came out to say #metoo. As the scandal of sexual abuse and harassment spread, it was left to Doctor Who to strike a blow for sexual equality in showbiz, by regenerating as Jodie Whittaker. That limerick, incidentally is now my all-time most-retweeted.
PEST PICTURE
The best film award in LA,
Presented by Warren and Faye,
Won top prize for bloopers,
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Creating complete disarray.
***
Dear Harvey, I have a scenario
Concerning a would-be lothario
Who’s sacked when accused
By those he’s abused:
The Fall of a Film Impresario.
***
There once was an old Doctor who
On dying, became someone new;
One day she awoke,
No longer a bloke,
Cos women can be Doctors too.
***
Not much to report on the sports front. Wayne Rooney was done for drunk-driving the car of a woman he’d met in a club. Cricketer Ben Duckett was suspended for pouring beer on Jimmy Anderson, while the best the overpaid milksops of Manchester City could muster by way of liquid assault was to chuck milk. Or was it (anagram alert) synthetic cream?
SPRAYING THE FIELD
An Everton striker named Wayne
When asked by his wife to explain
Said when I am drinking
My organ for thinking
Regrettably isn’t the brain.
***
While holding a drink, young Ben Duckett
Unwisely decided to chuckett
He said though I should
Take care and be good
I’ve had a few pints now, so Fuckett.
***
Mourinho was letting off steam
At members of Man City’s team
When one of that ilk
Threw semi-skimmed milk
Or possibly synthetic cream.
***
Lots of memorable names checked out this year – here are a few of my tributes.
Chuck Berry (1926-2017)
Roll over Beethoven and tell
Tchaikovsky the news it’s farewell
To rock and roll’s Chuck
Who walked like a duck
And played just like ringing a bell.
***
Colin Dexter (1930-2017)
The late great creator of Morse
Was also a crosswording force
Most clues’d pale nexter
A belter by Dexter
Who’s fondly remembered, of course.
***
Helmut Kohl (1930-2017)
Farewell German Chancellor Kohl
Who played a significant rohl
In fusing the nation,
Reunification –
I guess it worked out on the whohl.
***
Michael Bond (1926-2017)
Old Michael Bond’s best-loved creation
Was Paddington, found in a station
Although Michael’s gone
His bear will live on,
A tale of successful migration.
***
Hugh Hefner (1926-2017)
A fellow who made lots of money
Said come and sit next to me honey
It’s not exploitation,
I preach liberation
Now strip off and dress as a bunny.
***
Christine Keeler (1942-2017)
There was a young model, Christine,
Who when she was only 19
By having affairs
And sitting on chairs
Shook up the political scene.
***
Fats Domino (1928-2017)
Farewell to an artist whose name
Is in rock n roll’s hall of fame
Who once found a thrill
On Blueberry Hill
Fats Domino: Ain’t That a Shame.
***
And let us not forget the other kind of news that keeps the limericker in rhymes – the weird shit. Some you may remember, like the poo-out-the-window woman, others perhaps not. In all cases, the limerick pretty much explains the story.
The Dulwich Defecator
Police in East Dulwich admit
They have a big job to outwit
The serial pooer,
A wanted wrongdoer
Who roams around having a shit.
***
How to Get Ahead in Fertilising
For sperm in a race to succeed
The secret is not simply speed
Some spermatazoa
Go fast and some slower
But rhythm’s what makes a top seed.
***
Tunnel Vision
Consumers beware of the fact
A wifi sex toy can be hacked
To livestream your cavity
So those of depravity
Can watch your most intimate act.
***
Joystick Fiend
There was a lascivious copper
Whose conduct was rather improper
When women got bare
He’d film from the air
With one hand controlling his chopper.
***
Good Shit!
A dealer who swallowed his wraps
Held out for 12 days with no craps,
Surrounded by cops
Awaiting the plops
That marked his eventual lapse.
***
Privates Abused
The PLA’s saying no thanks
To would-be recruits to its ranks;
They’re fat, it explains,
With spermatic veins
Enlarged after too many wanks.
***
Shit Date
A woman pursuing a poo
She just couldn’t flush down the loo
While out on a Tinder
Got stuck in the winder
Till freed by a firefighting crew.
***
The Golden Behind
Police caught a smuggler so bold
Whose arse hid a kilo of gold
Asked why such a sum
Was stuffed up his bum
He answered “that’s all it’ll hold!”
***
Susejd Rol
A baker got some people riled
Exhibiting what they reviled
As insensitivity,
For in Greggs’ nativity
A sausage roll played the Christ Child.
***
Massive Cock-up
The navy expresses its shock
That one of its pilots, ad hoc,
Used vapour to draw
What those below saw
Was two giant balls and a cock.
And finally, let us remember one important development this year that affects the very nature of the Twitmerick – Twitter’s decision to double the character limit from 140 to 280. Six years of writing limericks in under 140 has instilled such discipline in me that I suspect I rarely break the limit anyway. What I can use the extra characters for is including hashtags and story links with the limerick, which is handy. But I can’t help feeling something’s been lost. This one’s old-style.
A 140-character tweet
Is brief, to the point, short and sweet
280
May make them more w80
But not quite so damnably neat.
***
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE – LET THE GOOD RHYMES ROLL!
Looking forward to more chuckle-of-the-day reading from twitmericks in 2018.
Thanks, Stoneyfish.