In Competition No. 3054 you were invited to compose double dactyls about double acts. I didn’t include the rules about double dactyls as it takes up space and I’ve done it before — and in any case they are easily Googled. Most of you seemed thoroughly at home with the form, and in a large, lively and accomplished entry double dactylic duos from time present (Trump and Melania, Declan and Anthony) and time past (Boney and Josephine) rubbed shoulders with the literary (Regan and Goneril), the musical (Gilbert and Sullivan, Simon and Garfunkel) and the comical (Stanley and Oliver). George Simmers and Mae Scanlan are highly commended. The winners, printed below, earn £15 each.
 

Hackety, rackety,
Donald and Vladimir
Sneer at collusion. ‘It’s
Fake News!’ they say.
 
That’s what they tell us, but
Megalomaniac
Donald’s now ruling the
USSA.
Brian Allgar
 
Bardily, hardily,
Gertrude and Claudius
Killed Hamlet’s father so
‘Vengeance!’ he cried!
 
Yet in the end the boy
Oversoliloquized,
Dithered and dallied till
Everyone died.
Robert Schechter
 
Sneakily, cheekily,
Crabtree & Evelyn,
named to sound British, a
Yankee pretence,
 
under the guise of its
nomenclatorial
bid for distinction, made
dollars from scents.
Susan McLean
 
Avidly-Ovidly,
Thisbe and Pyramus,
Badly confused by a
Leonine brute,
 
Die at the hands of two
Post-Babylonian
Amateur thespians,
Bottom and Flute.
Chris O’Carroll
 
Flobadob, flobadob,
William and Benjamin
Lived for their pot, and on
That they agreed.
 
Most of their street slang was
Incomprehensible,
Though you could sense they were
Both fond of Weed.
Bill Greenwell 
 
Schmaltzily-waltzily
Rodgers and Hammerstein
Money-spun musicals —
Think Carousel;
 
Iffy, improbable
Counterintuitive
Lap-’em-up love stories,
Corny as hell.
Mike Morrison
 
Lakey-post-Blakery,
William and Dorothy
Saw what they saw and they
Knew what they knew.
 
Those two go walking — gold
Flowers do dance moves, then
Prodaffodilian
Legions ensue
Francis Harry 
 
Tumpity-Tompity,
Stanley and Livingstone
Met as a pair in the
African gloom.
 
Proof of their meeting was,
Unsatisfyingly,
Something that Stanley could
Only presume.
Alan Millard 
 
Bridery-hidery
Trump and Melania
Seem rather odd as their
Nation’s First Pair:
 
He’s the quintessence of
Megalomania;
She looks her happiest
When she’s not there.
Max Gutmann
 
Rollicky, frolicky,
Popeye and Olive Oyl,
Spinach for breakfast the
Day they were wed.
 
Battled all rivals till
Unwatchability,
Not lethal jealousy,
Beat them instead.
Orel Protopopescu
 
Dinafore-pinafore
Gilbert and Sullivan
Musical masters of
Upside-down fun.
 
Quarrelled on matters pure
Flibbertigibberty,
Making the lawyers’ lot
A happy one.
Joseph Conlon

No. 3057: net effect

You are invited to submit a short story entitled ‘The day the internet died’. Email entries of up to 150 words (providing word count) to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 11 July.