PM Newsletter

Hello.

If you know what Festivus is, you should tune our way tonight. Also in the programme, the most previous Previously on PM we've done. Plus another short story inspired by a listener and...brace yourself for Monday's programme when our famous political panel of Lord Parkinson, Baroness Prosser and Lord Steel will hold forth on the year gone and the year ahead.

But look you haven't come here for that. This is the moment we've all been waiting for - the final line for our Christmas limerick.

We've already had:

"A CHRISTMASSY ELF NICKNAMED PESTO
HAD A FEW THINGS TO GET OFF HIS CHEST-O"
HE WHIPPED OFF HIS VEST
ON WHICH HE'D WRITTEN IN JEST"

Among the suggestions:

"I love Eddie Mair, he's the Best-O" (Sarah Urmson)
"The 'Eddie for Mayor' manifesto" (Stephen Salter)
"His banking reform manifesto." (Lynwen Davison)
"Ladies - it's time to come play with the Bizzo" (Rupert Allman...hello Rupert!)
"Your money has all gone a-Westo" (Jane Johnson)
"When it's warm you can't beat alfresco" (Stephen John Ashmore and Carole Day)
"'Tis my job to make you depressedo!" (Nicholas Hely-Hutchinson)
"Add an R to my name and - Hey Presto!" (Ivan Laybourne)

But the winner - and thank goodness there's no prize because we can't face the BBC paperwork - is Clive Osborne. Here is the limerick in full:

"A CHRISTMASSY ELF NICKNAMED PESTO
HAD A FEW THINGS TO GET OFF HIS CHEST-O"
HE WHIPPED OFF HIS VEST
ON WHICH HE'D WRITTEN IN JEST
LET IT SNOW OR I'LL TAKE OFF THE REST-O"

Thanks to everyone who took part and our congratulations to Clive who can expect a magnum of Champagne any day now. Not from us, however, but because someone he knows may have sent him one. I have no idea.

If you're looking for a Christmas Eve treat, why not swing iPM's way tomorrow at 0545 or 17.30 on Radio 4 when we'll bring our listeners' sentences to life.

And if you are looking to feel a bit down on Christmas Night, can I warmly recommend the News Review of the Year at 22.00 on Radio 4 in which I'll be reflecting on twelve months of death, despair and misery.

Ebenezer Muir

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