h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A good giro donnerkebab
Brings tasty grilled meat to the mob,
With lamb that is tender,
Great veggies [what splendor!],
With tastes that are fit for a nob.

It looks much as if we are stranded
So little happening - hootoo disbanded?
I'll post and I'll write
if it takes me all night
to save this dear site single-handed

Use 'lim'ricks for saving the world?
A capital plan now unfurled!
At "Ask h2G2,"
It's just you and me, too,
With our world-class verses we've hurled.

The Borg I would like to avoid.
Perhaps I should contact Sig Freud.
It's safely assumed
I must *not* be consumed.
I shall hide on this next asteroid!

The site going through diminution?
Pitch in, that's the only solution.
It takes little time
To assemble a rhyme
So here is today's contribution.

I'm trying as hard as I can
Like you I'm a years-long fan
Rhymes should trip off the tongue
Whether spoken or sung
Keep on limericking - Sounds like a plan.

I write limericks on the spot,
Not knowing the next line or plot.
Can I make this rhyme,
In next to no time?
I guess so. It's all that I've got.

C'mon then, all hands to the pumps,
Don't sit there like you've got the grumps.
Any subject, a classic?
From slugs to Jurassic,
(you're excused if you're suffering mumps).

Just like tennis, keep the balls cool

Why this savage attack on poor Bjorn,
He's a Borg but he don't deserve scorn.
He plays wonderful tennis,
He sure ain't a menace.
'less your playing him, 'nother set gorn.

At tennis, I have to confess
I'm not a beginner, I'm less.
It's a purer expression
Of naked aggression
Than any sport other than chess.

I used to play chess with a net.
I never won even one set.
My pawns double-faulted.
My Queens all got halted.
My kingdom was always in debt!

I made an occasional foray
When sport opened ways to amore;
But they soon saw the way
My priorities lay:
"Seems like love is your favourite score, eh?"

That last post is brilliant and witty,
Much better than mine, more's the pity!
My serves aren't much good.
I get lost in the wood
Chasing balls, even in the big city.

Go East, young man go East
And kiss a young wildebeest.
You know you want to.
You've been very blue.
Well, you should shake paws, at least!

Dionysos invaded the city
And drove the girls wild with his ditty.
The princess came round
From her raving and found
She'd dismembered her dad. What a pity.


(This is the plot of Euripides' 'The Bacchae')

Greek playwrights made gold out of gore,
With blood washing far from the shore.
With time, civilization
Gave scandal new station,
And now we're much worse than before.

Poor Antigone mourned for her brother,
But as her father had married his mother
She could not decide
If it was her uncle who'd died?
And Oedipus was related somehow or other.

<BB< - a version of Sophocles' Euripedes, only missing out the dramatic bits.

You're right; I know just what you mean.
No improvement has happened between.
In the old days, the stage
Was kept free of rampage--
All violence was kept off the scene.

(In fact the word 'obscene' meant 'off-stage')