The Special Category

Anagrammy Awards > Voting Page - Special Category


An optional explanation about the anagram in green, the subject is in black, the anagram is in red.

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901

BRIGHT STAR

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever-or else swoon to death.

DEATH STAR

Skulls of peril, mean tongues of steel,
The deft Dark Side shall engulf that land.
A broken zone is our neat appeal;
Relentless our stout reign shall stand!
War to inherit every affirmative planet,
Assault a target: a damned Rebel bloke.
Raise a bold weapon, it's one towering threat,
Star to fight a powerful, instant stroke!
Men of swiftness and of rich strengths:
Oh, Palpatine resolves our finest rules
Vader will work through to his brilliant lengths,
Intent to swallow the unworthy mutineer fools!
Each inventive point and witting means
Should power the Rebels to smithereens!


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902

WARNING
By
Jenny Joseph

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

SHREDDED PLANS
By
Anon.

When I was a lad, I had such plans. Endless plans!
I'd be a rock star and appear on stage to wild applause.
And dispense autographs and largesse with a benign smile
And not let success change me or turn my head;
I'd have splendid mansions and bevies of beauties
To pamper me and indulge my every whim.
And, as if this were not enough, I'd be a sportsman;
Not any old sportsman but a proper Olympian,
A champion runner, boxer and bobsledder;
I'd pen the odd novel, sponsor schemes;
And leave my mark on history...! What happened?
I joined a bank.

Naturally, the job was only short-term;
A precursor to the intended endless plans,
It was a case of when, not if, I'd trek
Across the world. Next year perhaps?

I got married in my twenties. Still time to
Do the trek; but how about the mortgage?
We could rent the house and simply push off, I suppose.
But now dinner's ready. We'll talk later.

Thirty-four years, and two grown up children later...
No fame. No world trekking. No running.
And now they won't happen.
Oh, well...
At least I found anagrams.


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903

This is the menu for the Ark (children's charity) fundraising gala dinner, held in London recently. The event was attended by William and Katherine, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, who were making their social debut. Actors, socialites and hedge fund managers all jostled to catch a glimpse of the Royal couple at the ten-thousand-pounds-a-head function. The menu shown is exactly as it was written:

Carpaccio of Maldivian long line caught yellow fin tuna
Fanning an island of Rio Grande Valley avocado crème fraiche, topped with young coconut, with a splash of Goan lime, coriander and sprinkled with toasted organic sesame seeds.
*

Pacific Ocean black cod fillet
Hand-glazed with a Japanese tamari and manuka honey reduction. Delicately balanced on a sumptuous organic pearl barley risotto, hand in hand with a delightful English courgette flower beignet, teriyaki jus.

Or

Roasted fillet of Australian Kobe beef
Nestling in a Kent garden pea puree, temptingly accompanied by a succulent spinach and onion compote, to die for triple-cooked Maris Piper chips and Indonesian long pepper sauce.
*

Hereford organic blackcurrant soufflé
Snuggled up with a swirl of Kentish apple and sorrel sorbet, Kentish apple blossoms perched on top, with crunchy Turkish hazelnut crumble.
*

The menu for a Saturday night dinner at a home in Knockholt, England, at which the author, his wife and their younger daughter and husband were all present.

Pre-meal drinks:
A glass of tongue-tingling Tesco's tonic water, a chilled Pinot Grigio spritzer and two cans of Australia's finest Fosters lager, followed by a phone call to a local Indian takeaway restaurant.

Starters:
Succulent Chicken Tikka marinated in oriental spices, baked in a tandoori oven, accompanied by pappadoms, presented piping-hot in their own brown paper bag, with a choice of sauces, all in cute plastic pots.
Onion Bhaji balls deep-fried in artery-clogging ghee made from congealed Indian buffalo milk. And salad for health.

Main Courses:
(All packed in helpful, handy-to-keep, foil cartons)
Chicken Jalfrezi cooked with chilli peppers, capsicum and onions.
Lamb Passanda, finely sliced and marinated in yoghurt, with sun-drenched herbs and fresh cream.
Red Chicken Curry: a succulent hodgepodge accentuated with jungle-fresh coconut milk.
Meat Vindaloo: a succulent and unusually hot hodgepodge of whatever.

Side dishes:
Pilau Rice and wedges of bowel-loosening Bombay Aloo.

The End:
Petit Fours (Four complimentary After Eight Mints are included).

Excellent value at twenty three pounds-ninety in total (cash).


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904

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

Got Shard?

Shall sing now the ballad of Strider
Also know that he's called Aragorn
(To begin tho, the label was Trotter
Not a title worthy to high born)

He relates the passing of Narsil
Broke when The Tall one possessed
Wrecked sealing Morhdorh's downfall, til
She's remade as the Blade of the West


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905

[THE SIGN OF THE '400': Being a continuation of the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes]



THE SIGN OF THE '400': Being a continuation of the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, per R.K.M.
(Pseudonym for R.K. Munkittrick)

For the nonce, Holmes was slighting his cocaine and jabbing himself with morphine, his favourite seventy per cent solution, when there came a knock at the door; it was our landlady, Mrs Hudson, with a telegram. Holmes opened it.

'H'm! So what do you think of this, Watson?'

I picked it up and read it: 'COME AT ONCE. WE NEED YOU. SEVENTY-TWO CHINCHBUGGE PLACE, S.W.'

'It's from Athelney Jones.'

'Just so, said Holmes, 'call a cab.'

We soon arrived at Seventy-Two Chinchbugge Place, being the town house of the Dowager Countess of Coldslaw. It was an old-fashioned mansion, and somewhat weather-beaten. The old hat stuffed in the broken window pane in the drawing room gave the place an air of unstudied, artistic negligence, which we both remarked upon at the time.

Jones met us. He wore a troubled expression. 'Here's a pretty go, gentlemen! A forcible entrance has been made to Lady Coldslaw's boudoir, and the famous Coldslaw Diamonds have been stolen.'

Mr. Holmes drew out a pocket lens and examined the atmosphere intently. 'The whole thing wears an air of mystery,' he said, quietly.

We then entered the mansion. Lady Coldslaw was completely prostrated and could not be seen. We went to the scene of the robbery. There was no sign of anything unusual in the boudoir, except that the windows and the furniture had been smashed and enormous pictures had been removed from the walls. An attempt had been made by the thief to steal the wallpaper, also. However, he had not succeeded. It had rained the night before and some muddy footprints could clearly be seen leading up to the escritoire from which the jewels had been taken. A smell of stale cigar smoke hung over the room. Aside from these hardly noticeable details, the despoiler had left no trace of his presence.

In an instant, Sherlock Holmes was on his knees, closely examining the footprints.

'So, you can make nothing out of this, Jones?'

'No, sir,' answered the detective, 'but I hope to. There is a big reward.'

'It is all very simple, my good fellow,' said Holmes. 'The robbery was committed at three o'clock this morning by a short, stout, middle-aged and hen-pecked man with a cast in his eye. His name is Smythe, and he currently lives at 239 Toff Terrace.'

Jones fairly gasped. 'What! Smythe? Major Smythe, one of the highest thought-of and richest men in town?'

'The same.'

In no more than half an hour we were at Smythe's bedside. Despite his protestations, he was pinioned and driven to prison.

'For heaven's sake, Holmes,' I said later, when we returned to our rooms, 'how did you solve that tricky problem so quickly?'

'That was dead easy!' said he. 'As soon as we entered the room, I noticed a haze of cigar smoke. It was cigar smoke from a cigar that had been given to a husband by his wife. I could tell that, for I have made a detailed study of cigar smoke. Any other man but a hen-pecked man throws such cigars away. Then I could tell by the footprints that the man had had appendicitis fairly recently. Now, no one but members of the '400' have that. Who then, was hen-pecked in the '400', and had had appendicitis recently? Why, the Major, Major Smythe, of course! He's middle-aged, terribly stout, and has a cast in his left eye.'

I could not help but admire my companion's very fertile enquiring mind and expert reasoning, and I told him so. 'Well,' he said, 'it is really very simple if you know how.'

Thus ended the Coldslaw robbery, at least so far as we were concerned.

Of course Jones, as usual, got all the credit in the accounts in the newspapers. Sherlock Holmes merely laughed, and said: 'But Watson, Scotland Yard always gets the glory.'

As I perceived he was getting ready to play 'Sweet Marie' on his trusty violin, I immediately reached for the morphine myself.


'ELEMENTAL, MY DEAR WATSON'

Having followed the stories of the disputes between the wealthy Murdoch and the hot-headed print unions, Holmes suggested a solution to the problem of many bogus news stories telephoned weekly in to the Times.

A ONE PIPE PROBLEM'

Two miners forced their way into Holmes's rooms and asked him to investigate the theft of the entire haul of jewels from their mine. The chief suspect, a crooked Belgian, had a watertight alibi: he was engaged at a weekend boys-only party; attended by many leading Jews, 400 or thereabouts, witnessed and recorded. Holmes set out to prove that the man at the party was indeed essentially an android double.

'A NOSTALGIC COUNTRY OF THE MIND'

A robot replica of Moriarty was created from Peel's imagination on the Amusement Park Planet. It obtained a Starfleet 9 Computer manual, stole his phaser, and launched an intergalactic criminal empire. Spock then constructed a robotic Holmes and John Watson to track it down.

'THE ADVENTURES OF THE TWO COLLABORATORS'

Holmes deduced that the two men John Watson had seen walking along Baker Street were collaborators on an unsuccessful new comic opera. The showmen (Doyle and J M Barrie) had come to ask Holmes to find out the reason why their comic show was not enjoying any success. Holmes refused to go to see the show, a decision which ultimately led to his disappearance in a cloud of smoke.

'FROM THE DIARY OF SHERLOCK HOLMES'

Holmes's diary told of the case of the widowed Lady Dorothy's cherished stolen ring, which was recovered by Lestrade, despite Holmes's seemingly accurate deductions; of an odd incident where his deductions once went astray because his client was deliberately wearing someone else's clothes; and of Mrs. Turner's cheeky and obnoxious nephew Billy's part in the appearance of a carbuncle in her Xmas pudding.

'SHYLOCK HOMES: HIS POSTHUMOUS MEMOIRS'

Homes was hired by Lucretia Borgia, Mme. Du Barry and Portia, the representatives of the Cimmerian Branch of Sorosis, to find out who had written Shakespeare's dramas. After visiting both Bacon and Shakespeare, Homes finally learned the truth with a Martini containing a powder obtained from Dr Jekyll.

'THE ADVENTURE OF THE CONK-SINGLETON PAPERS'

The exceedingly wealthy Lord Cosmo Conk-Singleton had visited Baker Street with letters between the Queen and the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister had seemingly been poisoned by a noxious whiskey laced with prussic acid, a Christmas present cheekily sent by the Queen. Holmes himself, who had refused to investigate, eventually revealed that one of the letters, and his shadowy client too, were fakes, and he hinted that was part of a foolish, shameful plot to steal unique jewels, the Scarborough Emeralds.

'HOLMES EX MACHINA'

John Watson was working for Vid-Tech, transforming some 400 of old 2-D movies to 3-D. Anyway, when a surviving copy of 'Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster', the only one they had, went astray, he then programmed an eerie double, a holographic Holmes to assist in finding it.

'THE CRIME'

Having collected a new red silk dressing-gown, violin, cocaine, and a keen, though half-witted assistant, Hubert felt he now had enough to be an amateur detective, but a worthy one. He announced he'd find the clues, and then he'd deduce any crime. His first case began with a Japanese knife missing from the hideaway in the study, an open window, and ended with a telephone call from his wife.

'HUMPTY DUMPTY: WHY DID HE FALL? WAS HE PUSHED?'

Holmes sought discreetly to interview most, maybe 400 or over, of the fairy tale and nursery rhyme characters. But why? Being keen to discover the truth about the shabby deed, he had to analyse the case and go ahead in a new hunt. Anyway, eventually jammy fingerprints led him to the killer.


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906

Puns and Groaners
(I. M. Apologetic)

I used to be a tailor, but I found the stitch work was just so-so.

What did the sign on a toy store say? "Don't feed the animals. They're already stuffed."

This duck walks into the bar and orders a beer. "Four bucks," says the bartender. "Put it on my bill."

What is the difference between a frog and a cat? A frog croaks all the time, a cat only nine times.

What would you get if you crossed a parrot with a centipede? A walkie-talkie.

What planned Disney movie is about a stupid boyfriend? Dumb Beau.

I used to be a shoe salesman, and then they gave me the boot.

Recently, they arrested the Chrysler salesman, and he couldn't a-Ford the bail.

What do you get if you cross a bullet with a tree with no leaves? A cartridge in a bare tree.

What is the difference between an ornithologist and a stutterer? One is a bird watcher, and the other is a word botcher.

What is the difference between a crazy rabbit and a counterfeit coin? One is bad money, and the other is a mad bunny.

Doctors tell us there are over seven million people who are overweight. These, of course, are round figures.

I used to be a baker, but I didn't make enough dough.

I used to work for Budweiser, but then I was canned.

I used to be a tennis instructor, but it just wasn't my racket.

Which president was the least guilty? Abraham Lincoln. He is in a cent.

News: They arrested the barber for running a clip joint.

I used to be a Velcro salesman, but I couldn't stick to it.

What is the difference between a knight and Santa's reindeer? One slays a dragon, yet the other is draggin' a sleigh.

I used to work at Starbucks, but I got tired of the daily grind.

I used to be a doctor, but I lost all my patients.

I fired my masseuse today. She just rubbed me the wrong way.

I used to be a train driver, but I got sidetracked.

I tried working in a bakery, but was told I wasn't "bread" for it.

I used to be a hotel clerk, but then I had my reservations.

A termite walks into a bar and says, "Is the bar tender here?"

My first job was working in an orange juice factory, but I got canned because I couldn't concentrate.

What is the purpose of reindeer? It makes the grass grow, Sweetie.

I used to be a carpenter, but then I got bored.

What is the difference between a miser and a canary? The miser is a little cheap and the canary is a little cheeper.

They arrested the Rhesus monkey for throwing his own feces at zoo attendants. His charge? Turd debris assault.

I used to be a marathon runner, but couldn't stand the agony of de feet.

What would you get if you crossed bats with a lonely hearts club? Lots of blind dates.

What is the breed of canine that easily forgets his place on the trail? A wherewolf.

Corduroy pillows are making headlines again.

What did the coach say to his losing team of snakes? You can't venom all.

I used to be a banker, but lost interest in the work.

I used to be a teacher, but found I didn't have enough class.

I used to be a railroad conductor, but my boss found out I wasn't trained.

What is the difference between a unicorn and lettuce? One is a funny beast and the other is a bunny feast.

I used to work in a blanket factory, but it folded.

What Disney movie is about the tall-tale-telling champ? The Lyin' King.

I used to be a road digger, but I got re-trenched.

There were two ships. One had red paint, one had blue paint. They collided. At last report, the survivors were marooned.


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907

THE SEVENTH MONTH
by Monty Gilmer


July:
ThUnderclouds
and Lightning
bugs flY.

MY EVENTFUL MONTH

Just
Undo my bright banners;
Lights held gently,
Young child.


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908

[This Fulke Greville sonnet below, has been anagrammed three times into different sonnets which contain a constraint: in all three anagrams, highlighting a certain letter will create a relevant sketch.]

Love is the Peace, whereto all thoughts do strive,
Done and begun with all our powers in one:
The first and last in us that is alive,
End of the good, and therewith pleased alone.
Perfection's spirit, Goddess of the Mind,
Pass'ed through hope, desire, grief and fear,
A simple Goodness in the flesh refined,
Which of the joys to come doth witness bear.
Constant, because it sees no cause to vary,
A Quintessence of Passions overthrown,
Raised above all that change of objects carry,
A Nature by no other nature known:
For Glory's of eternity a frame,
That by all bodies else obscures her name.


The Hebrew Wit

The suffering of beaten Hebrew masses
Hands every honored Jew that ever lived
That right to sport a feeble sneer and glasses
And to forgo no sorrow once perceived:
Each "oy" our legions of deep "bubbies" sigh
Is a profound yet colorful refrain;
Eight thousand stereos shan't quite defy
The echo of that riotous disdain.
Each boss or landlord our tribe serves sees "kvetches",
Yet no commotion or opposing stands;
A wise team of polite and patient "mensches"
Can weather holocausts in any land.
The tyrannies of hated gits all fall;
A Jew shan't panic - he endures it all.


The Pieta of St. Peter's Basilica

Some well-known artists who are pure of heart
May also, in an awe-filled state of fear,
Design an unconvincing bit of art
Within an inconvenient atmosphere.
However, can one doubt that valued grace
Preserved in an effective elegy
That's shown in that reputed godly place,
A solid boon unwrapped, for all to see?
The holy Son and Mother are at rest,
His face benign; Hers gray, but so adored,
As Jesus, on one's rosy chest, dies blessed:
The sober ending of the highest Lord.
Those quiet tears shed here did come across:
Our joy is but the offshoot of her loss.

Of Iraq

A boor, who's ignorant of Arab lands,
With Yankee eyes blind as a common bat,
Would see these epic spans of scorching sand
And feel deep hate toward our habitat.
A free breed shouldn't cherish vanity:
I see green colors, not dead plants or roots;
I see steep cliffs' serene eternity;
I see sweet fruits, and even jam, to boot.
A deer seems valid on these thriving crops;
A sheep feeds on thin heathers growing tall...
I'd feel deep love for that, which cannot stop;
That cheery element that bonds us all.
You can see everlasting things for hours,
If you just show good faith - but honor ours.