But first…
Dulltown, UK: Today’s colours are: burnt burgundy, leaping lemon, reckless russet, manky mauve, bottle blue, fabulous fawn and godforsaken green.
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It was Thursday, yes, yesterday afternoon it was, in the middle of town, near the still fenced-off newly installed squirting fountains, there was a scruffy-looking man wearing an equally scruffy dirty straw hat with a bright feather in its band (it was quite a sunny hot day yesterday); he was also wearing one of those advertising ‘sandwich boards’ that people used to walk around with in days gone by. (SB)
He was striding up and down flapping his boards, presumably to generate a cooling draught, and was shouting; he was shouting out letters of the alphabet, ‘K L M N O P!… K L M N O P!…’ repeatedly.
Some passers-by had stopped, but at a safe distance, to watch the proceedings. He suddenly looked up, paused in his shouting, pointed in my direction with a wagging finger and this time shouted, ‘Hey you!… Dick-head!…’
It was of course Simon Doom, poet from the glory days of the Hull Surrealist League. I realised then that there was what appeared to be one of his ‘spoems’ (spoof poems) scrawled in red crayon on his sandwich board – half on the front and half on the back. Also written there was an invitation for people to enter a competition (fee £1.50) to fill in the missing essential lines of this unfinished spoem, using the aforementioned letters of the alphabet as a guide.
The winner, as judged by Doom, would be allowed the privilege of performing this Alphabet Puzzle Spoem with him in the middle of the square on Saturday afternoon as part of the (unofficial) celebrations of UK City of Culture 2017 – and to later to accompany him on an extensive pub crawl of the city centre taverns with the object of getting ‘horribly drunk’…
I quickly copied down Simon’s spoem to share with you dear reader, before I ran away…
Albatross zoo,
Zigzag arse.
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Booming yelps,
Yellow bogs.
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Camel xylophone,
Xenon clasps.
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Dreary whelps,
Wheel ducks.
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Evangelical viol,
Voltage envelope.
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Fouling ullage,
Ululation fridge.
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Granite trains,
Trampoline gobs.
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Horned scorch,
Simpleton hierurgy.
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Icicle rudeness,
Reticule irritation.
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Jacaranda quacking,
Quicksilver jets…
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Simon Doom. 2017.
Dave Whatt 
Oh now, Dave……you really should have joined him! Poor Simon….although I do like the “reticule irritation” I do find fancy bags a bit of a nuisance, as well!
“Poor Simon”?
He’s an idiot! I don’t know why people warm to him so readily…
So Dave, as you were passing by that busy area of town and heard the words, “Hey you! Dick-head!” – did you notice how many men turned around thinking they had been called? Surely it wasn’t just you? This is one of those words that translates well from English to American whatever we speak – who knows….but it is spelled exactly the same.
Ho ho ho!… No, it was just me…