Schadenfreude

In Competition No. 2481 you were invited to supply a poem or a piece of prose ending with Gore Vidal’s nasty gnome, ‘It’s not enough to succeed. Others must fail.’ I’m not an especially nice person, but I’ve never experienced the pleasant frisson of schadenfreude; in fact, Rochefoucauld’s remark to the effect that there is something not unpleasing in the misfortunes of our friends strikes me as a bum maxim. This week, verse outshone prose so brightly that the prose writers, led by Frank Mc Donald, are not among the prizewinners. These are rewarded with £25 each, while the bonus fiver goes to the loony Hugh King.

I’ve conclusively proved that pigs fly,
The Earth is quite flat,
Stars are just holes in the sky,
And Einstein’s a prat.
My unique understanding of science
Made my jealous and vain
Competitors form an alliance
To declare me insane.

This asylum seems perfect to me.
The staff, although kind,
Are, to truths which I readily see,
Entirely blind.
So I smile as I faultlessly read
While they fumble with Braille.
It’s not enough to succeed.
Others must fail.
Hugh King

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Brendan O’Neill

The moment in the ‘grooming gangs’ debate that shamed Jess Phillips

The self-made man who buys his first Rolls-Royce
And contemplates the joy he will derive
Can hardly be expected to rejoice
To see another on his neighbour’s drive.

And if a costly watch adorns his wrist,
A just reward for his tenacious climb,
Its efficacy surely should consist
Of more than just a means to tell the time.

The value of these objects is abstruse,
For time and transport are not what they grant;
They may be neither ornament nor use
But he can have them and we scrubbers can’t.

This is the credo of the alpha male:
It’s not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
Noel Petty

With the fear that time’s jaws
Would do for his books
What the gouge of its claws
Had done to his looks,
He needed something he wrote
To appeal to the crowd
As a gnome they could quote
And not feel high-browed.
So he worked on a mot
To win him some fame
As an ordinary Joe
Not a Henry James name.
These are words we still read,
Though now they seem stale:
It’s not enough to succeed.
Others must fail.’
W.J.