A shocking young punster from Enfield

[j4]

At some point during the mildly-hungover post-fryup party-recovery session on Sunday morning, a new game was invented (or perhaps I should say perpetrated) by hairyears and aardvark179 (I can't remember precisely where to lay the blame, which is probably for the best), ably aided and abetted by covertmusic, fivemack, taimatsu, addedentry and me. What is this new jeu du jour?

Oxbridge limericks.

It's not an aimless or endless meme: unusually, it's a meme with a publishable goal. The aim is to come up with limericks for each of the Oxford and Cambridge colleges. Most of the examples so far have been scurrilous in the extreme; I offer this most recent contribution phoned in (well, txted in) by hairyears as an exemplar:

The delicate dons of St Hilda's
Were shocked by the bill from the builda's
They charged for the water,
The bricks and the mortar,
And labour, replacing the dilda's.

The only rule over and above those dictated by the form is that the limerick must use the name of the college as the primary rhyme (commonly used shortened forms are acceptable, e.g. "Catz" for St Catherine's).

The ultimate aim is to create two full sets of limericks for each university's colleges: one 'clean' (if you could tell it to your mum -- no, not Your Mum -- then it's probably fine) and one, er, not (see e.g. above). We'll collect the best ones (all entries will be subjected to rigorous peer-review through the media of LJ polls and shouting) and hopefully put them together into something on paper that people can keep (think of this as the Viz to Pocketful of Lies' LRB).

For the time being, just post your limericks as comments here or in your own journal with the tag 'oxbridgelimericks'; in time I may be able to find a better home for them, but I don't want to delay the fun because of boring information management issues. Examples have already been sighted in the wild; it's possible that we may be seeing the start of a limerick pandemic (popularly known as 'rhyme flu').

Go forth and versify!

Comments

[truecatachresis.livejournal.com]

A quick one for my Alma Mater, then. I tried for a clean one as well, but my mind just wasn't able.

There was a young fellow from Oriel
Who made much of his outings arboreal
He was found up to no good
When instead of a wood
He was traced to an infamous gloryhole

[j4.livejournal.com]

Bravo!

[covertmusic.livejournal.com]

There was once a young man from Oriel,
With a taste for all matters pictorial -
When he found a girl fetching,
he'd show her his etchings
at their own very private tutorial!

In honour of the House of St.Mary the Blessed Virgin in the Fields of Oriel

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

The gentleman scholars of Oriel
Are dunces in weekly tutorial
They know little Greek
And their Latin is weak
But they're master of matters sartorial

And now, with a mild zest of Filth

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

The gentlemen scholars of Oriel
Are inbred since time immemorial
Our fine public school
Produce braying fools
For the pleasure of Dons in tutorial

I decided not to use the mildly-filthy version:

The gentleman scholars of Oriel
Have sore arses from time immemorial
Our fine public schools
Turn young men into fools
To be caned by the Dons in Tutorial

There is, of course, an explicitly-filthy version:

The gentleman scholars of Oriel
Have a tender distended raw glory-hole
Their mark of their class
Is securing a Pass
By fellating the dons in tutorial