function PopUpWin (Location, XLength, YLength) {
window.open(Location, "Pop", "menubar=no,toolbar=no,location=no,scrollbars=yes,directories=no,status=no,resizable=no,width=" + XLength + ",height=" + YLength);
}
function NewWin (here) {
window.open(here, "new", "menubar=no,toolbar=no,location=no,scrollbars=yes,directories=no,status=no,resizable=yes,width=800,height=180");
}
var windowPoem;
str80= "Mr. Donne's Secret
What on earth is the matter with Mr. McConn - he used to look so neat and cool but now he staggers into school with a crumpled suit and odd socks on.
His carefree boyish charm has gone, his wornout baggy eyes are bloodshot, he's become a raggedy, mumbling clot who's nodding off all day long.
His aftershave smells more milk than lemon and on the shoulder of his jacket is a sticky off-white smear that has a slightly sickly pong ...
what on earth is wrong with Mr. McConn? ";
str81= "Moment
In a moment I'll do my homework in a moment I'll take the look off my face in a moment in just a moment when this programme finishes in a moment when I've found a pencil in a moment when you stop nagging me in a moment in just a moment when pigs float past the window any moment now what's that? my friends are at the door and want to play out? I'm there already ";
str82= "Mosie
Don't ya mess wi me, pal, my aim is true; stiletto in the shadows looking for you
Nip ya on the finger armpit, neck or knee; Jag ya anywhur ah like, ya cant stop me
See them mobbing midgies, gang a mugging fleas; Na style, na class, jus numbers, there's none as brave as me.
Wasps are dumb an clumsy, one strike an they're dud, they're just easily upset but I'm out for your blood.
Sandflies are sneaky nippers - I'm elegant and proud; Hear me coming, human, I'll be singing clear and loud.
I like to boast and dance around before I get stuck in an when you can't hear me then fear cos I'll be sucking skin
Float like a butterfly, Sting like a bee - man, I can do all that an more, you've no chance against me! ";
str83= "The mouse wheel
In a corner of the classroom the mouse was running round and round inside a wheel. I bent to look. it worried me, that wheel, that mouse - there was a wild glint in its sharp red eyes, like those of a mad inventor gripped by a big idea and as the tinny wheel clattered round I could see the dreams of power spiralling the mouse factories mice working ten hour days in treadmills for fat mouse manufacturers mouse motorways blocked by mice in mousemobiles rolling off on mini-mouse-breaks to Wensleydale or the Gorge at Cheddar mouse mafia, the feared Mozzarella di Napoli, making a quick getaway with sackfuls of ecus, European Cheese Units, from a hole in the wall raid on the Swiss Cheese Bank and worst, the unstoppable rise of a mouse military the swift scurrying of the four-footed infantry soon replaced by armoured columns, tanks, and then .. and then I saw the mouse had stopped to look at me and with one gesture of contempt like some imprisoned scientist who both knows his greatness and that his discovery will never reach the world it lifted its tail rudely and rolled into the straw. ";
str84= "My Grandfather Gavin
My Grandfather Gavin kept his Morris Minor in a wooden boathouse miles from the seashore,
but he drove it like you'd steer a boat: it bounced, bobbed and bellied, only just afloat;
and up the rolling waves of hills and down the other side we sailed, as fast and thrilling as a roller-coaster ride.
My Grandfather Gavin was known near and far: I think people stayed indoors when he drove his car.
My Grandfather Gavin had a round bald head - it was rounder and shinier than his Morris Minor and he parked it in his bed. ";
str85= "My kind of villain
My kind of villain is tall and thin with a droopy moustache that he strokes when vexed or when considering what kind of bad business to get into next. My kind of villain in his hooded black cloak plots wicked deeds in a voice that's halfway between cackle and croak, dreams up fantastic schemes and fiendish machines but never succeeds: though ruthless and strong he's a bit of a joke - something always goes wrong. Dashing but dim, doomed never to win - that's my kind of villain
Someday, Mum's day, Choose day, Wooden day, Thought day, Fry day, Slacker day
Such fun day, Monster bun day, To snooze day, Wet nose sneeze day Furry purrs day, Fly away day, Sit and natter day
Short run day, Maths begun day, True news day, Red knees day, Thirsty day, Fish-pie day, Scatter day
Every day's different, never repeated, unique: What names would would you give the days this week? ";
str87= "Nasty Nursery Rhymes
Three biker mice not very nice see how they run all mouth and gun they crashed into a canal on mars and splintered their skulls on their handlebars the ambulancemen scraped them into jars three biker mice
Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard to get her pet tiger some meat but all she had got was beans and carrots so the tiger bit off both her feet
Little Jill Horner although we warned her picked her nose with a spear she poked in too high, snot shot from her eye and brains dribbled out of her ear.
Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet eating old worms and hay along came a spider and sat down beside her and she gobbled it up straight away.
See-saw, Marjorie Daw, banged her bottom, very sore, I jumped off, she came down hard and spat her teeth across the yard.
Georgie Porgie, cool and mean, Kissed the girls and made them scream Go away, you slobbering creep, your breath smells like a mouldy sheep
Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water- Jack was drowned Jill can't be found; the police still haven't caught her.
Baa, baa, cloned sheep have you any wool? No sir, just hair, my dad was a bull.
Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet eating her butties with Bert: a spider crawled on her hand: she picked it up and shoved it straight down the back of his shirt
Scary Mary big and hairy, how does your garden grow? with rotting smells and hideous yells and dead bodies buried below.
Mary Mary, airy-fairy, How does your garden grow? With water features and media creatures, on my terrible TV show. ";
str88= "New
What will it be? Don't ask me. Thin or fat? I don't know that. Short or tall? I can't say at all. Brown eyes or blue? Haven't a clue. A dreamer, a screamer? I've no idea, dear. I can only tell you that it will be new and that certainly nothing will be quite the same again ";
str89= "Nothing
I've got a present for you - here it is. Yes, it's a big load of nothing. I'd have wrapped it in shiny paper but I couldn't find the time.
As you can see it's flat on top with smooth round sides and when you put your hand into it there's nothing there at all - that's how full it is of nothing.
What do you mean - what use is it? Nothing can do anything, it's up to you: you can eat it, you can drink it, you can kick it, or stroke it, you can put it on your head, you can take it for a walk or talk to it when you're alone, and best of all you can think about it.
Here you are then - catch! Now where's it gone? Who's got nothing? ";
str90= "On the thirteenth day of Christmas my true love phoned me up...
Well, I suppose I should be grateful, you've obviously gone to a lot of trouble and expense - or maybe off your head. Yes, I did like the birds - the small ones anyway were fun if rather messy, but now the hens have roosted on my bed and the rest are nested on the wardrobe. It's hard to sleep with all that cooing, let alone the cackling of the geese whose eggs are everywhere, but mostly in a broken smelly heap on the sofa. No, why should I mind?, I can't get any peace anywhere - the lounge is full of drummers thumping tom-toms and sprawling lords crashed out from manic leaping. The kitchen is crammed with cows and milkmaids and smells of a million stink-bombs and enough sour milk to last a year. The pipers? I'd forgotten them - they were no trouble, I paid them and they went. But I can't get rid of these young ladies. They won't stop dancing or turn the music down and they're always in the bathroom, squealing as they skid across the flooded floor. No, I don't need a plumber round, it's just the swans - where else can they swim? Poor things, I think they're going mad, like me. When I went to wash my hands one ate the soap, another swallowed the gold rings. And the pear tree died. Too dry. So thanks for nothing, love. Goodbye. ";
str91= "Oranges
which came first the colour or the fruit
***
through the archway a tarnished moon. in the wicker basket green oranges huddle in unweeping melencholy
***
in the long grass a ripe orange. its heart secretly stolen by ants
***
in the tree a young boy & the oranges. both will come down together
***
when they are ready to be picked the oranges stop pretending to be leaves
***
the orange on the table drew all the light in the room into it & still it did not shine
***
even in the hand the orange maintains an air of resolute inviolability
***
her fingers pressed just so hard into the orange flesh into flesh her mind was elsewhere
***
the torn skin shards of a broken pot
***
nothing is shared as simply as an orange ";
str92= "Out at lunch
All morning the rain had gobbed on the windows and going over to lunch we all got soaked so that you could hardly see the room for the steam rising from wet clothes and wide tins of food and what with the dank overpowering smells and the 'flu coming on my head was swimming and as we're standing in this mist, in line with our trays, JJ behind me says `Look worms in blood again' and though I knew he meant the spaghetti I got this uneasy sensation that the white mass was twitching but I felt so unsteady I said nothing. It was like being inside a cloud, not floating although my legs no longer felt sure they were part of me and JJ's face seemed to swell and his voice was at once far away and very loud `Look cat stew, you can see bits of fur, cat spew stew, look green sheep droppings, and is that maggots in rice or rice in the maggots...' There was no stopping him when he'd started this game, I tell you, one time he'd put string in his curry and insisted it was a rat's tail long after it was funny. `Hey, I'd like some baked bugs please with mashed brains and a giant slug.' My knees were wobbly, I took a cheese roll and an orange juice and even they seemed too much. When we sat down I felt worse, I couldn't touch the food, I stared at the table, at the usual crumbs, stains and slops, at JJ's plate opposite. most of all at his plate for it seemed like the beans were squirming and one or two slid off, over the rim, and scuttled away. It was a bit odd but I was past caring, I felt like I was hanging over a huge pit, head spinning so everything around was distant and dim except for JJ's blether, now a meaningless babble of surging waves through the blurring mist and his left fist gripping a fork he'd just jabbed into the mound of pale mashed potato that looked strangely like I thought my brain felt inside my head and when with a slow slither the sausage twisted sideways and bit into his wrist I fainted ";
str93= "Palmtrees
A long time ago they grew to love the sun so much they simply stood & dreamed until their claws turned roots & they could no longer fly
& then small mammals learnt to climb up into their crutches to steal their eggs before they laid them
Great flocks of them flutter by the shore they do not notice the small mammals the sun shines on them & they are still dreaming
***
In the enormous room of the dusky plain worn by their efforts against the cobwebs of dust & haze, like tattered feather dusters the palmtrees are propped up against an horizon glowing red raw with the ageless domed lamps of cane fires ";
str94= "Penny and Kathryn
Penny and Kathryn that year they seemed older though we were all ten. I'd watch then in class, they didn't chatter or laugh, were so calm at their work it made me feel nervous. Gawky Penny seemed now to be slim and clever, her new glasses made her eyes large and dreamy above the small pout of her mouth. Kathryn was stocky, strong, her thick hair shook as she moved always as if sure where she was going: I liked that energy, almost feared it.
I wasn't mooning over them, they were just more interesting than the other girls, somehow stronger than the boys. I would have liked to be friends with them.
But one warm evening, going home, we saw them behind us on the road, two other boys and me, we said let's hide, let's jump out, it's fun - we thought it friendly, meant no harm. And I hid behind a gate post like the others, enjoying the wait, the tension, and leapt up grinning, happy as a puppy,
but the girls didn't look surprised or laugh or run or anything: they just looked, and the looks said they were past that sort of game, that we were silly little boys, to be ignored, and they left me standing foolish by the wall feeling they were right and knowing even as I made a rude face to cover up my shame how big a gap there was between us that I couldn't cross until I learnt what different games would please them. ";
str95= "The Plot So Far
With the discovery of the elephants on the roof, the school was thrown into confusion. Drainpipes slithered from walls and wriggled away, doors became unhinged and flew off their handles. Assembly, that morning, had tasted of custand and the children, their mouths flecked with yellow flakes of skin, were having to sit hard to sop their chairs escaping. Nor could they catch the carrots dangled in front of them for the floor heaved like a sea and the teachers dropped their fishingrods and clutched at desks in seasick panic. Screams sharp as carving knives stabbed from the kitchen where the elephants, having stamped a small hole in the leaky ceiling, have lowered their trunks and are kidnapping young cabbages. The caretaker shouted at them till his back was sore but they paid no notice and he went to fetch a ladder. The building now begaan to rock more violently, the piano in the hall caught fire, a flock of gutteral parrots swooped along the corridors or perched in the thickness of twisted creepers that cascaded urgently through collapsing ceilings. The desks in the classroom have turned to huge, rough stones but the children lean on them, half-asleep, for they are warmed, as if warmed by the sun, and the teacher's voice becomes a murmur, a soft wind among many glossy leaves, and under the floorboards great fish plunge in icy darkness; and the books become trees and the chalk becomes earth and the ink becomes a muddy, sluggish river where crocodiles crawl in the whirring heat. And meanwhile, the elephants . . . ";
str96= "Roll of Dishonour
Angry Alfred the Assassin - axe, acid and 'andsaw artiste Bold Brian, Birdbrain of the Bog, bully, braggart and beast,
Charming Charlie who cheerfully chains up his chums in a cellar Dirty Dora the dangerous dung dumping dungeon dweller
Evil Eddie the egg-eating Educated Exterminator Fat Francis the Flatulent, feared from Frankfurt to Fez and further
Ghastly Gertrude, the grim garrotting gran Hideous Henry, the horrid hooded hang-gliding highwayman
Insolent Ian the Impatient Impaler who adds insult to injury Gemstone Jeremy, jewel-thief and jester to the duped Duke of Germany
Comical Ken the Crooked Circus Killer - a song, a dance, a stab in the back Loathsome Lady LardLips who looks like a lump of lead in a sack
Mad Malkie, manic mass-murderer from the mongolian mafia Nail-Up-the-Nose Norman, not no-one nastia
Oily Oliver of Aughton, awful oozing owl-disemboweller Pongy Peter the particularly unpleasant pirate, pigfarmer and fowler
Queen Queechy the Quarrelsome, as queasy as an earthquake Rude Randolf the Wretched, Rotten Robber of rubbish and ratcake
Simon the Slippery, second son of Septimus the Savage and Sarah the SlySoandSo Twitchy Thomas the Tired Thief of Thurso
Ugly Ulric the Undertaker, he's got a living to urn, Vengeful Violent Vera the Vurst Villains' Villain
Windy Walter the Warty, waif- whacker and wobbly blob Xerxes the extremely expert executioner and excitable slob Yucky Yolanda the Yabbering Yob and at the very end Zog the Zend ";
str97= "The room
The baby's happy, the room is giggling rattling, jiggling in wide-eyed surprise as everything in it is made new, amazing, never been seen before
The baby's grumpy, the room aches torn by hopeless howls, filled with a worn-out cloud drizzling cold rain and a smell of sick
The baby's sleeping, the room is drowsy, purrs like a comfortable cat, smells warm and milky, falls into a dream where everyone sleepwalks softly . ";
str98= "Roundabout
arguing with your parents is like being on a roundabout
not one of the razz and jazz fun of the fair sort one of grey tarmac grim with grinding traffic one you're going round and round shut in the car with the windows closed going round and round past all the exit roads and no-one can agree which one to take
round and round the map's no use will you go to Give In or Get Your Own Way? is there a decent road to Compromise? some are clearly marked Dead End, others may end in hopeless confusion or lead to endless detours that will bring you back just where you started
going round and round and no-one really knows the way out and the baby's been sick and everyone's shouting and the car's swerving this way and that because everyone wants to turn the wheel, press the accelerator, stamp on the brakes all at the same time arms and legs and voices flailing wildly
round and round with the rain battering down till you finally lurch off down one road or another with nobody sure that you've gone the right way ";
str99= "Rubbish
It starts with dropping paper it ends with nuclear waste O we'll drop anything anywhere there's a scrapyard out in space
We're living in a hurry it's buy sell use and dump Whole towns in poisoned agony kids born with armless stumps
The sea's an open sewer there's poison on the breeze The world is turning into waste more chip-paper than trees
Just dump it round the corner in some poorer cheaper place Don't the human race look stupid with its slops smeared on its face? ";
str100= "Rules of the game
Our school has no field so we can only play football in the yard - and it's small, so Thursday is when we're allowed to bring in our balls - and that's the first rule. I've noticed that all games need rules, and in each game there are some you can't play without - like if you throw one when you play snakes and ladders, that's how far you must move, but you could agree to start at the top and go down ladders and up the snakes and still have a good game. So it doesn't make much difference to us if there's five on one side and six on the other, or if we all run together after the ball and don't have a goalie - you understand - rules are just what you agree among yourselves - over the wire fence is definately off the pitch and getting in the big boys way is asking for trouble. Being rude to the janitor will get you sent inside and kicking spectators or their lunch-boxes is not allowed - you have to tolerate the crowd and you might start a fight that stops the game. Most of the simple rules we keep the same, no hands or fists, no deliberate tripping, no pulling shirts until they tear, no sitting on the ball unless you're really in goal. That's about it. But playing after the bell's gone could mean suspension. And you'd be a total nit-wit to pick up the ball and run away with it. That's not playing the same game any more. That's rugby, or a declaration of war. ";
str101= "Safe at castle
Portcullis down, drawbridge up, safe against attacks. The serfs have all been soundly whipped and shiver in their shacks. Good, sighs Sir Percy Time to relax
A kitchen-boy turns the heavy spit, the cook hurls pots at mice. Before the great hall's roaring fire the dogs scratch at their lice. Mm, hums Sir Percy isn't this nice.
An owl hoots on the battlements the winter wind makes moan and in the pit beneath his keep the starving prisoners groan. Ah, sighs Sir Percy, There's no place like home. ";
str102= "Smoke
They tossed the cigarette-butts carelessly away mimicing wealth or world-weariness, but they'd eyed each other closely, measuring each drag, each face, for signs of weakening. And now they all felt slightly sick and nervous of showing it they talked too hard, too loud. They kicked the air, the litter. They jostled, circling and shoving as they left the alleyway. They moved round each other like dancers on the same small stage. When they saw the girls they whistled for attention, shouted suggestions. But they were still watching each other. ";
str103= "Snake's Dance
Sensuous slither slinkiest slide the slip in the silence the hiss and glide steadily sweeping shuddering squirm quivering question conquering worm
I start sliding this side, certain and sure. I spiral all scaley, coiling a tower, twisting and toiling, spellbound by stealth, I slip through the circle and surprise myself.
Head is for seeing, tail is for squeezing, tongue is for telling and fangs are for seizing; stretching and spinning I sway to the song - I go as I must, as I must I go on
Sudden is speed like a wave of the sea, swift is the sense as wind in tall trees, strong is as subtle as wise is indeed, they kneel to no-one who're born without knees
(and back to the beginning ... ";
str104= "A spell
What have you got there? A spell Is it as strong as a wishing well? Will it make you very wealthy, does it stop you becoming unhealthy or turn you at midnight into a cat? No, this spell is not like that
Does it save you from drowning at sea, will it take you wherever you want to be, stop you from getting a runny nose or black warts from growing on your toes or make you invisible, except for your clothes? No, this spell isn't one of those.
Will it keep you from growing old or make everything you touch turn gold? Will it make somebody loving, will it stop the bullies shoving or save you from a vampire's bite? No, this spell would not be right.
I fear this spell won't stop you snoring or make teachers vanish when they're boring. This spell changes children who're calm and quiet into wild-eyed monsters who want to riot and scream and yell and fight ad shout
I'd be silly to read it out ";
str105= "Starship Blues
It's hard out on a spaceship, couldn't get much worse, All we get to see is the same old universe
The food tastes like rubber and looks like concrete tiles We only change our spacesuits every million million miles The captain's going crazy, he thinks we're crocodiles The doctor's seeing double, the atomic drive's got piles
We've been light years in a rocket-jam on the Milky Way It's 'Watch that star!' and 'Mind that sun!' all day We never get back home, we never see our pay The ones we left behind have all turned old and grey
Our ship's computer's happy, it thinks it's made of cheese It only answers questions put in ancient Japanese Something with no face and a horrible disease is doing something nasty down in the deep-freeze.
They told us we'd be heroes, go where none had gone before but we sit and stare at starscreens till our eyes are red and sore Sirius or Saturn, I don't care any more, if it wasn't for the black holes life would be a bore.
There's a jelly in my cabin, it's eaten up my berth Beam me up, beam me down, beam me back to earth ";
str106= "Stocking
The old long stockings - every year their thick brown weave was stuffed into stiffness, stretched like a cartoon ostrich neck with knobbly shapes - the parcels to be teased out one by one with that intense all-involving mix of hope and dread - for who thinks on the past or future in the moment of unwrapping the present?
So, every year, starting with the largest lumps stuck in the stocking's throat, we'd work our way down, tunnelling to find if fate matched our desires - so difficult at seven in the morning to praise the unwanted or expected, to mask disappointment at the not quite right:
but life itself is a gift, even if it's not just what we wanted, and from gifts we learn to accept, to understand at last that the real gift was the stocking itself, year after year, and the hands that filled it, and the certainty that after everything or anything, however hollow our fantasies proved, we would always find, tucked in the toe a tangerine, an apple, and a sixpence. ";
str107= "Stop me if you've heard it already
Once upon a time in a kingdom far away there lived an old old woman in a gingerbread cafe. She had three strapping sons, two ugly daughters who told lies and a beautiful sad stepdaughter who was a giant in disguise. Now, one day a knight passed by clanking off to sea with a kipper and he dropped a golden frog that laid a talking slipper which the youngest son then sold for a magic mashed potato that first ate his elder brothers then began to grow and grow. It put the young boy on his back and flew off across the fields - his sisters pedalled after it on their spinning wheels. They crossed a shoreless river, they climbed a glass beanstalk: they caught that bad potato with a knife and fork. It turned into a princess, and so huge was their surprise the beautiful sad stepdaughter grew forty-nine feet high and the other sisters, curtseying, (for they were awful snobs) were squashed beneath her giant feet into two shapeless blobs. And when the old old woman saw this on her t.v. she sent a storm that sank the knight that very night at sea. But the storm came roaring home again and with a mighty clout it knocked the old old woman upside down and inside out. It wrapped the giant in a cloud and drowned her in despair which made the son dissolve in tears and vanish in thin air. The poor potato-faced princess was crushed by this disaster and then there was nobody left at all to live happily ever after. ";
str108= "Strange tales
1. Something caught his hand behind the clothes. Bravely he leapt in ... the wardrobe burped
2. I cracked the egg. Inside it was another egg: and this one smiled
3. He was hemmed in. He began to crawl along the low narrow tunnel hoping the machine had dropped a stitch
5. He became invisible. Everything was the same - people still bumped into him; worse, they did not even remark upon his disappearance ";
str109= "Summer afternoon
It's afternoon and here I lie with my face turned to the sky and watch the clouds that drift and run (only flowers can stare at the sun)
Some things here are acting busy they buzz and bustle and end up dizzy, but the spinach, the flowers, the trees and I we hold the ground and look at the sky.
but every plant, however slight, is pushing and shoving for water and light, each grass, lettuce, cherry, heaves, kicking its roots and flexing its leaves.
In the whole garden there is only one thing that's not doing, and that's me; I'm not looking for food or safety or home I lie on my back and dream this poem. ";
str110= "Tea
The teacher by the window is thinking about class 4b, the one reading the paper is wishing she was rich, the one chomping chocolate biscuits is dreaming of his girlfriend, the one slurping low fat yoghurt is hoping her car's been fixed.
The teacher beside the door is hoping the knocking will stop, The student in the corner is wondering where to sit; the teacher by the kettle is wishing it would boil the one staring wearily at the wall is thinking her head will split.
The teacher reading the notices is not really thinking at all. the one with her head in a magazine is dreaming of sun and sea the one in the tie is rubbing his eyes and hoping he's not going bald but the teacher by the window is thinking about class 4b
he's the one who just spilt his tea. ";
str111= "This Autumn the Well-dressed Witch is wearing ..
The House of Horror holds a halloween show where all the dark and midnight hags gather to gawp at the new sad rags and ghouls go all gooey and drool at the latest shrouds as flimsy and pale as clouds.
A wax model stands stiff, stuck with pins, in a shocking pink pointed hat - you hear one zombie say to another " I wouldn't be seen dead in that "
Ghosts glide down the black catwalk past werewolves dressed to kill, but the see-through look's no thrill to goblins in their birthday suits feathered hats and scarlet boots
And trendy witch magazine writers who're scribbling with their quills gloat and note with fixed smiles that this year it's good news for ravers: after the long flowing merlin style the cutty sark is back in fashion essential gear for the new passion of extreme bonfire-leaping or that wild party in the woods.
But there's plenty on show for the more mature, haut coture gruesome garments, dismal dresses trimmed with bat-wings and bat-messes; the undead this season will be wearing slime green and mould grey with a hint of mud delicately flecked with blood and if you want to get admirers staring accessorise, yes, accessorise with a tasteful necklace of rabbits' eyes or handbag of newt skin.
Some vampires say it's hardly worth rising for but you can't please every old thing and it's so much fun in the graveyard, darling, how I wish you were here! ";
str112= "Three witches
Three witches met in Back Heath Street, howling this song, stamping their feet:
"Bad to worse, bad to worse, children scream and mothers curse broken bottles, lumps of brick, pools of water thick with oil-slick, sludge of drain and sick of cat, brown spittle that some thick lad spat, gunge of grease and gob of tar, odd rusted bits off burnt-out cars; across the slimy pavingstones smear curry chips and chicken bones, snotty tissues, smelly rags, torn-up slug-stained plastic bags - and to make sure the spell succeeds throw in a mattress full of fleas that smells so bad the rats won't eat it and leave all to rot - the spell's completed. Grouse and grump, grouse and grump, this street has turned into a dump." ";
str113= "To gain power over a balloon
First you must tie a string around your wrist with ribbons in spring and tinsel at christmas, tying it carefully, taking your time, breathing deeply, in and out, leaving a long length of string, as long as your arm, that you hold by its end, between thumb and forefinger.
Then hold the balloon in your lap, cupped by your hands: do not rub it, this excites it, it may squeak and try to slip away; do not pat it, it is not a kite, it expects no praise, it has nothing to prove. Hold it lightly, so the air inside does not get hot - heat bothers balloons. Be gentle, but show no real interest, a balloon has a mind like the wind.
Breathe deeply, in and out, in and out: the balloon likes to hear air moving around. Now take a full chest of air and HOLD YOUR BREATH
The balloon will now think you are a balloon.
Quickly slip the noose of sting the string you're holding in your fingers around its neck, and knot it.
The balloon will now follow you everywhere. You can breathe again.
This spell is as strong as your string. ";
str114= "Top Class
Our class isn't great at games like rounders and football but we're ace at climbing doorframes, at shuffling in the hall, running in the corridors and sliding down stairs fast; and there's one game at which we're absolutely world-class!
Our strategy is simple - attack, attack, attack! The front row pick their noses, while the chatters at the back keep up a constant gabble broken by loud roars, sudden high-pitched giggles and thunderous applause.
Yesterday, I'm proud to say, we set a new world record - as thirty soggy ink-pellets splattered on the board and every chair scraped backwards, we saw to our delight that with just a little effort our score could reach new heights.
So we all went completely quiet, then broke the eerie hush with a rattle of dropped rulers, followed by a furious rush of totally stupid questions, sniggers and rude squealing - and at the bell, we could tell our marks were through the ceiling.
Our rivals, 3b, did quite well, but we won by several feet. They came, they saw, they measured and admitted defeat, so we're still the school champions, no doubt of it at all - we're the class who drove their teacher furthest up the wall! ";
str115= "Universal Instant GloopTM
Universal Instant GloopTM Tomorrow's food today! makes everything you fancy the new convenient way!
No mess, no wait, no waste! No need to scrape or peel! Stir in a flavour cube to taste - it makes any meal!
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str116= "Villainelle
Young villains go to vile school to train for a wicked career 'cos it's hard to be cunning and cruel
and stand up to hissed ridicule while the heroes get every cheer. Young villains go to vile school
where pupils must break every rule and teachers whine: Be nastier dear 'cos it's hard to be cunning and cruel.
They practice the worst ways to drool or glare to fill victims with fear:- young villains go to vile school
to learn to be real baddies who'll improve stories when they appear 'cos it's hard to be cunning and cruel.
Will they turn out sad or super-cool, with a moustache, a snigger or sneer? Young villains go to vile school 'cos it's hard to be cunning and cruel. ";
str117= "vlad
vlad ve vampire vlies vrough voonlight velvet vat vings vlitter-vlutter vlad's very vain vith vangs vo vlong vey vite vrough vlesh vlike vutter vlad vears a vast vile violet vest villed vith vermin vrom ve vault vich vongs vorse van virty vultures - vo vonder victims vaint vand vall vicious, vulgar, vlood-vrinking, vad, violent, villainous - vot a vlad
";
str118= "We are not alone
Captain's Log. Starship Saturnalian. Earth year 2030, day 358 - The new drive worked! We've tracked the alien spacecraft that vanished from earth's orbit late
last night. We followed its fantastic leap across the galaxy and now can see its sledge-like shape dropping in steep descent to a planet. Incredibly
a single cosmonaut whose suit glows red clings to its tail and holds long ropes to steer a group of prancing creatures: from each head sprout ariels that make them look like deer.
The planet's steaming, its surface smooth and dark as Christmas pudding. Prepare to land! ";
str119= "Wee Beasties in the Wordwork
1. He was slugged from behind he never saw it coming - like an earthy whale leaving a silver wake the giant slug slid over him.
2. Look - his mum said - beautiful butterflies! And so they were, shiny black against the yellow surface. But how could he now spread his toast without disturbing them?
3. Her wig was a problem: no matter how hard she brushed it would playfully insist on waving its forky-tail over her ear. ";
str120= "Well hidden
This is where I was when searching voices were calling me. I was in places where time had no meaning; among tangled tall grass within the rough walls of the roofless ropewalks that stretched to the braehead, watching huge snails wander through broken pantiles under a sky aching with distance and the seagull's cry; am I there? or am I in the shed whose windows are dark with dust, whose warped benches and clay pots are coated with dust, that smells of this dust of dry earth and the wood's slow rot, of the green skin on the rainbarrel and oil in a rusting can, where everything has been holding its breath for a long time and vaguely stirs as I potter round and goes back to its secret dreaming when I leave. For I am not there. I am upstairs in a room squeezed into the slope of the roof, a room whose door is disguised as a cupboard, whose walls are pasted with newspapers as old as my great-aunt, only slightly yellowed where the weak light falls across the clutter of long-locked trunks and suitcases stuffed with mothballed clothes. and there I am sitting while the rain patters on the grimy skylight reading of ferocious battles, sunk fishingboats and farm shows, but do not think you can reach me there, for they are all in the past,in my mind only, and when I hide in them now, no-one can find me. ";
str121= "What's for cena?
The Romans had a varied diet I wonder if you'd like to try it?
Let's start with a simple dish of broccoli baked with rotten fish. Now try dormice stuffed with pork, a peacock brain, a roasted stork, fat milk-fed snails, frogs in mustard, boiled ox-tails, nettles in custard, flamingo tongues fried with tomatoes: I'm sure you'll like a lot of those. Some crow and cabbage; lumps of horse, jellied snake in seaweed sauce, jackdaws, thrushes, stewed cow's udder - why have you begun to shudder? If you've had too much and your tummy's sore the vomitarium's through that door. Do what the Romans did - be sick and then come back for more. Be quick! ";
str122= "A wise child knows his own nose
If you want a good spell," the magician said, "one that helps you to write words right, you must read a red book in reeds till it's read and wait at night till a knight comes in sight then weigh his weight at a way-side site and drop a pail on his pale head.
"You must meet a bear and see the sea and eat bare meat and be a bee you must hear a tale without a flaw and saw a tail that isn't sore, knead flowers to flour, flee from a flea, and stare at stairs here on the floor.
"You need to know when to say no, which week is weak, which witch is not, which rain is quick, which rein is slow, which herd is heard, which wood would rot - which tide is tied into a knot - That's it," he sighed,"I've spelled the lot." And he threw me through the window. ";
str123= "Wiz
My pal's a wizard at footie, the ball is under his spell: when he dribbles it runs at his feet like a dog, when he shoots it's a homing missile.
He flies down the pitch without effort and seems always to know where to be: it's much more than skill and practice - it's soccer sorcery.
I'm sure he could play a whole team on his own but that's not all there is to football - he may be pure magic to watch but he's no fun to play with at all. ";
str124= "Where?
where do you hide a leaf? in, if possible, a forest.
where do you hide a wind? among straw in dust.
where do you hide a horse? within cloth or sea.
where do you hide the sun? behind clouds, under horizons.
where do you hide water? below a terrible flood.
where do you hide a storm? inside a ghost or magican.
where do you hide a word? ";
str125= "Where is everybody?
Here we are, two weeks into the summer holidays, and there's no one around. It's not like Alasdair who went to Loch Ard or Cafy who went to Iran and never came back. It's not even like Ola who went to Bearsden or Emma who changed schools and were hardly seen again. It's not even like Cassy whose mum's full of twins and moving house. I can understand them. It's life. People move. But this is strange - there's no-one. I go to the supermarket, to the park, and there's no-one I even know. I ring their bells, I ring them up - no-one answers. They can't all be away. It's as if they'd all gone on holiday together, to a party without inviting me. I play with this and that, I watch tele, read comics, sometimes go swimming or get taken places. I even play with toddlers. I go to the gardens, kick a ball, hide in trees. But there's a big hole inside me. I keep expecting my friends to jump from the bushes shouting surprise. I wonder who'll be there when school starts again. Will I be in a class of one? ";
str126= "You're new here, aren't you?
I'd better warn you - try not to go at all, or take a friend. It's not just that there are no locks and the bigger girls keep barging in, it's ... well ... the one right by the door maybe alright but there's always something inside it, grunting loudly. The second cubicle has the octopus - or giant squid - no-one's seen more than its tentacles; but don't worry it can't get you while you're sitting down - just watch out when you get up to wipe and go out backwards. The third one's covered in scribbled stories that would make a sewer rat sick. And judging by the mess some of them have been. The fourth, the furthest in, is full of spiders, fat black beasts that drop into your hair. None of them has any paper except the smelly mass blocking the bowl; and don't try to wash your hands, the soap stinks and simply writhes with maggots and worms sometimes dribble from the taps. Now, let me tell you about the boys ... ";
str127= "You're not going out dressed like that!
You're not going out dressed like that! That ring's too big for your nose and what with the zips, chains and safety pins you're wearing more metal than clothes.
You're not going out dressed like that! That T-shirt's a filthy disgrace - what did make those stains? It's so short and tight you pop out all over the place.
You're not going out dressed like that! Red hotpants don't suit you, they're sad, and those three-inch high heels just look silly -
go back upstairs and change, Grandad! ";
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function picker(sp){
if (sp==80){poem(str80,'mr donne',460);}
else if (sp==81){poem(str81,'moment',340);}
else if (sp==82){poem(str82,'mosie',380);}
else if (sp==83){poem(str83,'mousewheel',500);}
else if (sp==84){poem(str84,'my grandfather',340);}
else if (sp==85){poem(str85,'my kind of villain',340);}
else if (sp==86){poem(str86,'naming',600);}
else if (sp==87){poem(str87,'nasty nursery',420);}
else if (sp==88){poem(str88,'new',350);}
else if (sp==89){poem(str89,'nothing ',360);}
else if (sp==90){poem(str90,'13th day',630);}
else if (sp==91){poem(str91,'oranges',360);}
else if (sp==92){poem(str92,'out at lunch',560);}
else if (sp==93){poem(str93,'palmtrees',360);}
else if (sp==94){poem(str94,'penny+kath',480);}
else if (sp==95){poem(str95,'plot so far',570);}
else if (sp==96){poem(str96,'roll of dis',720);}
else if (sp==97){poem(str97,'room',400);}
else if (sp==98){poem(str98,'roundabout',520);}
else if (sp==99){poem(str99,'rubbish',380);}
else if (sp==100){poem(str100,'rules',500);}
else if (sp==101){poem(str101,'safe at castle',400);}
else if (sp==102){poem(str102,'smoke',590);}
else if (sp==103){poem(str103,'snake',460);}
else if (sp==104){poem(str104, 'spell',460);}
else if (sp==105){poem(str105,'starship blues',560);}
else if (sp==106){poem(str106,'stocking',480);}
else if (sp==107){poem(str107,'stop me',400);}
else if (sp==108){poem(str108,'strange tales',400);}
else if (sp==109){poem(str109,'summer afternoon',400);}
else if (sp==110){poem(str110,'tea',410);}
else if (sp==111){poem(str111,'this autumn',480);}
else if (sp==112){poem(str112,'three witches',420);}
else if (sp==113){poem(str113,'to gain power',510);}
else if (sp==114){poem(str114,'topclass',580);}
else if (sp==115){poem(str115,'universal',400);}
else if (sp==116){poem(str116,'villainelle',400);}
else if (sp==117){poem(str117,'vlad',400);}
else if (sp==118){poem(str118,'we are not',460);}
else if (sp==119){poem(str119,'wee beasties',460);}
else if (sp==120){poem(str120,'well hidden',640);}
else if (sp==121){poem(str121,'whats for cena',460);}
else if (sp==122){poem(str122,'a wise child',460);}
else if (sp==123){poem(str123,'wiz',460);}
else if (sp==124){poem(str124,'where',460);}
else if (sp==125){poem(str125,'where is',460);}
else if (sp==126){poem(str126,'youre new',500);}
else if (sp==127){poem(str127,'youre not',460);}
else return;
}