Comp. 3468 took as its jumping-off point Trump’s renaming of Lake Ontario and invited you to submit a poem proposing alternative names for other places, people or things. There were lots of entries and a few of the proposals (not all) made quite good sense. David Harris, Helene Parry, Martin Brown, Rachel Hardisty Vincent, Nicholas Hodgson, Nick Syrett and Elizabeth Kay were just some of the runners-up. The £25 vouchers go to those below.

Historical toponymy

Is a very serious game –

It means that several countries

Require a change of name.

The Franks, a German nation, left

Their name behind by chance

In Gaul, but by rights Germany

Should now be renamed ‘France’.

Gaul, Gallia, we can rename ‘Wales’

which is sort of OK,

Since the country should be ‘Cumbria’

Where our Cymric neighbours stay.

Scotti were Irish. ‘Pictland’ then!

The tribes who crossed the sea

Were not all Angles, so let’s change

England to ‘Saxony’.

Brian Murdoch

Mancunia is the bright new light

That four old nations huddle round;

So for Britannia now it’s right

That a modern name be found.

‘Outer Mancunia’ will make plain

How wide the city’s net is cast:

The Northern King deploys his reign

To fix the future, damn the past.

Nor’wester is the wind of change

That sweeps gale-force across the land:

No postcode is beyond its range,

No bastion can its power withstand.

Mancunia’s best will be rolled out,

A concept touching the sublime:

‘All hail the King!’ the world will shout;

‘He made the buses run on time!’

W.J. Webster

Call Birmingham Rummidge and Nottingham Beechnal

And Coventry Middlemarch. See?

It feels less distressing that they’re so depressing

When dressed up all Literary.

Name Salisbury Barchester, Laugharne Llareggub,

Convert Stoke-on-Trent to Five Towns.

Liveried by writers, they’ll brush up the brighter:

So say I and their councils, the clowns.

Adrian Fry

It’s time to rebrand famous places:

For Westminster Abbey, Georgina,

More feminine, modern and youthful,

The Sphinx renamed Tihjddles or Tina,

Stonehenge could be Stony McStoneface,

Mt Etna The Massive Kapow,

The Silicon Valley, Nerd Heaven,

The White House, Oh Blimey, What Now?

Ms Liberty, That Chick with Ice Cream,

The Grand Canyon, Ginormous Gap,

Those Four Dudes instead of Mount Rushmore,

The Eiffel Tower, That Phallic Chap,

For Vatican City, Pope Central,

For London, It’s Chucking It Down,

For Venice I give you Gelato,

The moon, of course, Elon Musk Town.

Janine Beacham

O how I’d like to change the names of all my local stations

By rearranging letters into better permutations!

The ride from Wimbledon to Dorking isn’t that inviting,

But ‘Mindblowe’ to ‘King Rod’ would sound a great deal more exciting.

First stop along the way is ‘Spanky Rear’, then ‘Popstar Murk’ –

Two dull Parks, Raynes and Motspur, before I got to work.

After that it’s ‘Carpet Workers’, a favourite of mine,

Originally Worcester Park, the third Park on this line.

Next, Stoneleigh can be ‘Eelhosting’. No fish farm’s to be found,

But people won’t now come who want the National Showground.

Rebranding Ewell West as ‘Sweetwell’ might be thought satirical,

But calling Epsom ‘Poems’ is appropriately lyrical.

Ashtead we’ll christen ‘Hadseat’ – for you’ll get one, have no fears!

While Leatherhead is ‘Deathhealer’, last word in panaceas.

Then comes the final stop, which may bring joy unparalleled,

For Boxhill and Westhumble yields ‘Sex Bomb, All Unwithheld’.

Bob Newman

Let’s abnegate nouns stale and weak,

fill those sad gaps with names that speak

volumes: a flirty tale’s a Wilde;

a Dickens is a hungry child;

a Havisham’s a jilted bride;

Austen defines unwonted pride.

A servant we should call a Jeeves,

name Christies for the plots she weaves.

A Blake’s a dark, satanic mill,

Wordsworth, a golden daffodil,

Bronte, a bleak and windswept fell,

a Dante – that’s a fiery Hell,

a teenage crush, a Romeo,

a mystery must be a Poe.

All conjure graphic worlds, so please

ditch the dull nouns and switch to these.

Shirley Curran

If Constantinople can be Istanbul,

if Madras can be renamed Chennai,

if all that it takes to rename a great lake

is the stroke of a Sharpie, then why

should the French get away with their claim

to that cloth? Let’s have no more avoidery!

It was never the tapisserie de Bayeux

so let’s call it the Old Kent Embroidery.

Nicholas Whitehead

No. 3471: Bayeux mania

You are invited to submit a poem about the Bayeux Tapestry and its visit to London (16 lines maximum). Please email entries to competition@spectator.co.uk by 7 October.