Zattere Agli Incurabili

This is a new kind of poem: a cross between a haiku and a limerick. Think too hard about each one and you may wish you hadn’t. Pass merrily over them and you might have a good laugh or feel slightly sick.

Some are specific to today’s interesting times. Others delve into eternal unpleasantness. Or seek to answer the unanswerable.

Menacing, fun, obscure or chilling – read them in any order. It’s your choice.

Try your hand at writing one and you might find it difficult without a lifetime addiction to doggerel verse.

The author was born after the Second World War into a large Bristol family; with its own cricket team, drinking habits and Edwardian values of optimism, patriotism and hard work.

A lifetime fascination with sport, money, food and travel dictated a career in newspaper marketing with a half-time segue into international media agency management.

Burnout inevitably followed her record-breaking business travel to 27 countries in five years.

Throughout this period in her life, she wrote for trade magazines; some of them are fact, some fiction.

Now, she is happily residing in North London in sight of the Emirates. Within easy reach of swimming pools, restaurants, watering holes and airports, she trucks on, clutching her passport in one hand and her Arsenal Membership Card in the other.