What’s the attraction?

I'd never given this much thought until now Robert, but since you posed the question I've had a little think and here's my view for whatever it's worth. Firstly, I have to admit I haven't read the poem you mention so I can only discuss your quote out of context, which brings me to point out that you have quoted out of context too, and maybe that's the problem. Placed back in context it probably doesn't appear quite so predictable and hackneyed, perhaps the overall feeling it conveys appeals on a different level to yours, by the majority that you seem to be at odds with. You say it seems to be a minority of people who have trouble with this stuff but I don't find that surprising at all. You see you are in a minority because you write and most people don't, they just read, and to run the risk of accusations of arrogance or worse, most of them don't analyse styles, composition or poetic forms, they just read them and get a general feeling of like or dislike. Plain rhyme is something they can accept along with imagery that doesn't tax the mind too much, and 'stars' along with all the other motifs I can imagine you detest are all part of the rather shallow literary images shared by the non-writing masses. The problem with the 'nations favourite poems' type lists is that they are chosen by the masses and not writers. I suspect that one of the reasons writers despise this stuff is because they like to think they are on a higher plateau of literary understanding, and to some extent, when they write they know it's going to be scrutinised and judged by their peers. So perhaps they write for themselves and their peers, not for the hordes of 'illiterates' that pick the lists!

I don't know - I think most writers would say that "I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree" was excellent writing, even though it is simple, containing very simple words and an obvious rhyme. If a stream has stars reflected in it, to say it looks like the stars in the sky is somewhat pointless. Rather like saying, when I look in the mirror, the face reminds me of my own. But from the same poem , "What world is this if full of care / we have no time to stop and stare " , is in my view a magnificent line. The poem doesn't sustain this quality throughout, but is still an important poem. Maybe the problem occurs more in poem than prose. In prose, a few dull sentences are just unremarkable, whereas in poetry, they can marr the whole piece. (Another reason I don't write poetry - it makes you work too hard) Speaking personally, my own loathing is for overwritten rather than underwritten stuff. But I do regularly rage at every lazy episode of Eastenders and Casualty when you can decant the line the second the character opens their mouth "I'm HIS muvver ! " There's something in what Missi says, in that writing works on both the immediate personal level as well as the meta level of technical worth. Plenty of very stylish writers leave me feeling empty, as if they don't much care for their characters.

Agree with Andrew 100% except think prose is much harder than poetry to write, as it involves so many strands. Also (as a person who spends a lot of time gormlessly staring) I find that poem comforting. I thought it was about everyone being a poet, if not in words, in thought, inside, if they just have time to appreciate what's around them. Never read anything recommended by Publisher's Weekly

Are we confined to the written word? If not, as someone who's always believed that he has a reasonably-developed sense of humour, can anyone of sound mind explain why French and Saunders - collectively or separate - have ever been credited with even the faintest whiff of any comic talent whatsoever? I'd rather watch Norman Wisdom, and you can't get much lower than that. Or paint dry, that's even funnier. PS.. I don't think that very many people have ever got beyond the first two lines of that wretched Davies doggerel. Centre Parcs didn't, for a start..

not even that sketch where they dress up as men and discuss sex around the bar Roy? given the current tales of male sexploits in the threads I would say it's a brilliant and extremely funny parody. mind you, the new ab fab isn't exactly living up to the hype. Robert, I flicked through that book in WHS a while ago. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

So that's where you go for your holiday is it Roy?

French and Saunders are cataclysmically unfunny - principally because they've been allowed to be. As far as I can see, French mugs to camera and fools about like an updated Jimmy Krankie. But they do spoofs of tv shows, so they're popular with tv folk. Likewise ab-fab. First series was quite funny, because it had an element of savageness - there was a sense in which the programme hated the people it was showing. But then, once it got popular, they fell in love with the characters and wanted the audience to love them, not loathe them. And the new series - the whole point of it was 'cutting edge', but it just looked really off the times. Saffie wanting to work for Tony Blair ? Edina on a scooter ? How 99/2000. (Ab-fab was always out-audienced by Blankety-Blank for God's sake, but because it is about the media, the press write it up as if it was hugely popular) I think they're both actually quite funny and talented people, who have been allowed to get away with being very very lazy, because "It'll do" and the money still comes in.

it’s a good idea roy...we should all perhaps have our own dungeon where we can chuck all the people and things that get on our nerves cos we’re fed up of being told how good they are as far as comedy goes, into my Dungeon of the Unfathomably Acclaimed i would gleefully lob Friends and Charlie Chaplin...[wouldn’t put jennifer saunders in cos i quite like to watch her with the sound turned off...]

Most (if not all) American sitcoms would go in my wheelie, if I had one.

Wow.. it's NOT just me and the missus (That's not missis!) who reckon that F and R are vastly over-rated. I'll certainly agree that they had one real moment of glory, along with the whole Comic Strip crew. "The Strike", for me, was one of the all-time greats of British TV comedy - hilarious and extremely clever from start to finish. One to rank alongside Norbert Smith and The Rutles. It must be said that Saunders was cast superbly, though, doing the only thing she CAN do: playing the equally expressionless Meryl Streep. Strange how the blokes from that went on to be even funnier - but maybe blokes are intrinsically funnier than women? Please, that's not a mysogenistic jibe. It just seems to be a fact that even women, at least when surveyed, find men funnier. Can't imagine why, can you, chaps? (Oh, I've never laughed at "Smack The Pony", either, though the participants have all been mildly funny elsewhere.)

I don't find men particularly funny... *ducks hastily*

ah ... but isn't it sweet that they THINK they are andrea?

Ah, but do you find them all ridiculous? Andrea, you reminded me.. I was going to add, to my last rant, that I totally agree with you on the subject of American "sitcoms". Despite the fact that virtually every single "British" comedy has been aping the US product for years - looking, sounding the same and being made on identical-looking sets with identical lighting - I wouldn't count them as sitcoms at all. They're simply sets where large ensemble casts throw one-liners around, churned out in vast quantities. That's why they all use ten or more writers, every one named on the credits but disguised as Executive Producers and such-like. Sitcoms are what we do best, or used to. Hancock, Steptoe; those were genuine sitcoms with humour and pathos that didn't go all gooey and cloying like the US variants. Even the supposedly subversive Simpsons, much as I love it, won't insult the good old Stars n' Stripes. We English, Scots, Irish, Aussies, French, Germans, Japanese, Mexicans.. they'll hammer everyone else, but the humour stops short at the good ol' USA! Fools and Horses, One Foot in the Grave, anything by my writing Gods Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais - that's the real stuff. Sometimes the Americans manage it.. early series of Mash, Taxi, WKRP in Cincinnati, even Happy Days - but the need for quantity soon overwhelms everything else. I'll just allow one current exception: Futurama. Brilliant. And, if there's an official Bender fan club out there, count me in.

Yes, I find them all ridiculous.

...American sitcoms, natch...

Hurrah!! I too loathe American sitcoms, always have done and lord knows I've tried after friends (no pun intended), whose taste I generally agree with, seem to love some of them. It is the constant one liners and the dreadful message and pathos at the end (and l know they don't all do this) but they are all dreadful. I don't find men to be more amusing than women or women to be more amusing than men, rather what they have to say or how they present it that separates it out from the dearth of the usual offerings. I, perhaps alone on this thread, do find the comic writing and abilities of French and Saunders to be excellent.

Dave, I adored the early F&S stuff and all previous series of Ab Fab. F&S seemed to become bogged down in their later output though and, as I said above, I was extremely disappointed with the new AF. Five go mad in dorset (the original that launched them all was the best) Roy, Clement and Frenais ...... writing gods! I was surprised recently to find my children (11 & 12 going on 15) laughing heartily at dads army repeats and allo allo. Just shows that well written humour can carry through the generations. Even more surprising was my eldest telling me on holiday this year that some of "the old rock" is much better than the current output! Turns out he has discovered some Deep Purple stuff. When we got back home I dusted off my collection of DP albums and I appear to have gained some, no doubt temporary, status as rock god/air guitarist extraordinaire. won't be long before I can embarrass them at weddings hahahahahah.

That's 'cos, in our day, Stormy, they played propah music... (as I never tire of telling the sprog)