Double vision | 28 June 2018

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.