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

[venta.livejournal.com]

This doesn't quite fit your rules, but seems worth sharing (I heard it years ago):

There once was a Dean of Divinity,
Whose daughter retained her virginity.
The Fellows of Magdalen
Must have been dawdlin'
- It would never have happened at Trinity.

I shall now attempt to think up some proper submissions.

[emperor]

Selwyn rhymes with very little :-s

[j4.livejournal.com]

This is the best I can do at short notice (slightly too many syllables and the inner rhyme isn't quite)...

A second-year student at Selwyn
Found her zest for indecency melwyn
She was only found knickerless
Three times in Michaelmas
And one night her bed had no felwyn.

[emperor]

:-)

You've got to admit those rhymes are a bit of a stretch...

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

[applause]

[htfb.livejournal.com]

Three of these are in the New Oxford Book of Light Verse, ed. Kingsley Amis:

There was a young Fellow of Wadham
Who asked for a ticket to Sodom.
When they said "We prefer
Not to issue them, sir,"
He said "Don't call me sir, call me modom."

And two Cambridge ones:

There was a young Fellow of Caius
Who sat with a girl on his knees.
He said to her, "Miss---
Take more trouble with this,
And pay less attention to these."

There was a young Fellow of King's
Who cared not for whores and such things:
His height of desire
Was a boy in the choir
With a bum like a jelly on springs.

And unaccountably not collected by Amis, my favourite limerick of all:

There was a young man of St John's
Who attempted to bugger the swans:
But the loyal head porter
Said "Sir, take my daughter.
The Swans is reserved for the Dons."

[khalinche.livejournal.com]

Oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear. I think we left just in time!

[j4.livejournal.com]

Be brutal to the English language, it loves it. :-D

[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

I bet no-one else can 'do' THIS college...

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

A virginal student of Somerville
Insisted on sex up the Bomerville
Keep clear of my muff
Or I'll get up the duff
And be sure to wipe off any Cum-a-spill.

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

The Warden and Fellows of Queens
Ate nothing but cabbage and beans
Their querulous quacking
Got financial backing
From specialist sex magazines

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

The crusty old gents of All Souls
Played nothing more risky than bowls
And that, with constraints
On receiving complaints
In writing (in Greek!) from the moles

[j4.livejournal.com]

Excellent! :-)

Though surely, "... sat with a girl on his knaius" etc.? (Not an Oxbridge limerick but I have always liked this one: "A girl who weighed many an oz. / Used language I dare not pronoz. / When a fellow unkind / Pulled her chair from behind / Just to see (so he said) if she'd boz.")

By the way, you're not obliged to write limericks about your alma mater, but if one were, you'd at least be blessed with a productive rhyme (whereas Pembroke is as deficient in limericabilitudinity as in most other things).

[j4.livejournal.com]

Bravo!

Re: I bet no-one else can 'do' THIS college...

[j4.livejournal.com]

Nrrrghhhh.

You are a veritable bard of filth. Now please pass the mental floss.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Aww! That's sweet.

(All filthed out, are you? :-)

[hilarityallen.livejournal.com]

There once was a Fellow of Christ's
Who performed quite a number of heists.
When arrested (oh golly)
He admitted his folly:
"I wanted to spend on the nicest..."

(I found rhyming Christ's really really hard. I shall now have a go at my other alma mater.)

[hilarityallen.livejournal.com]

Dining one day at St Cross
A student rode by on a hoss.
I exclaimed at his daring;
He said, nothing caring,
"The Fellows were gathering moss!"

the unrhymes are deliberate

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

A physicist's mistress at Worcester
Discovered her man had revercester,
But his temporal tricks
Left her aged only six!
If only he could have divorcester.

(Please not to be sacked kthxbye.)

[hilarityallen.livejournal.com]

There was a young girl at Christ's College
Who sought out increased carnal knowledge.
She ran into the Dean
Who did something obscene;
His skill she quite quickly acknowledged.

(Only because Christ's College *is* the official name of the college.)

[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!

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

No.

A lady in distant St. Hugh's
Is a lonely, frustrated recluse
A man in the bar
Who has travelled so far
Will be mobbed for a shag in the loos

[covertmusic.livejournal.com]

Here's one I was quite proud of. Clean, too;

The assorted fellows of Jesus
Kept a herd of macaques (was it rhesus?)
Sent them over to Sidney
where they climbed down the chimneys
and committed all kinds of malfeasance.

[covertmusic.livejournal.com]

Actually, no, it's not that good. But at least it rhymes.

There's a reason I don't write lyrics. :)

[covertmusic.livejournal.com]

There once was a girl at St. Anne's
Her treasured, nefarious plan
To poison the Senate
Was foiled by St. Benet's
Monks have no taste for her flans!