I have friends who are mechanics and I have heard them use the phrase street car or street-legal car to distinguish a vehicle that is still legal to drive on the streets (lights, license plates, catalytic converter, muffler, etc still in place) from one that has been so heavily modified that it can only be used on race tracks. But I don't think it is an entity like a steetcar in the "named desire" sense. It is simply a descriptive term. No one would say "I'm going to go get in my street car."

Poor Coffeebean
Thought it obscene
That, try as she might,
No one would bite...

I once owned a Mercury Montego, pumpkin yellow, which after a few years came to be called "Uriah", it was such a heap.

Three hundred pound King Faroukh
Exhausted his cordon bleu cook.
This kleptomaniacal royal
Kept pornography and an obligingly flexible goil.

Elvis Presley
Must confess he
Raised quite a conflagration
With a little gyration.

Harry S. Truman
Denied that atom bombs were inhuman.
He said: "We must stop Japan's bravado –
This is no laughing matter like The Mikado".

Sir Francis Drake
Said: "Fighting the Armada's a piece of cake".
He vanquished the Duke of Medina Sidonia;
Some Spanish sailors probably died of pneumonia.

King Charles the Second
Is generally reckoned
To have signed official papers
While having indiscreet sexual capers.

The younger William Pitt
Was a highly precocious Brit.
Prime Minister at twenty-four,
He was driven to drink by the Napoleonic War.

Professor Stephen Hawking
Had an artificial way of talking.
But his knowledge about black holes
Greatly exceeded that of ordinary souls.

Friedrich Nietzsche's writing
Is pernicious, although exciting.
His style has more muscle
Than that of sane philosophers like Bertrand Russell.

Donald Trump
Is widely considered a chump.
In Europe he provokes much animus,
But many Americans are more magnanimous.

Some musical clerihews:

George Frederick Handel
Exclaimed: "It's an absolute scandal!"
When one of his orchestral suites
Was performed with irregular beats.

Robert Schumann
Found Liszt's flamboyance scarcely human.
He and Clara both opined
That Chopin's playing was more refined.

Girolamo Frescobaldi
Is not as famous as Vivaldi.
One of the likely reasons
Is his lack of a smash hit like The Four Seasons.

William Byrd
Was artistically stirred
By Catholic rituals, which he kept hidden,
For in England popery was strictly forbidden.

The French composer Maurice Ravel
Cried "Merde!" (which is stronger than "Hell!"),
"If you don't play this tune cantabile,
You'll ruin my opus mirabile!"

Benjamin Britten
Explained how his music was written.
The thing that inspired him most
Was the spirit of the wild Suffolk coast.

Christoph Willibald Gluck
Wrote several operas that are worth a look.
He made no apology
For his constant use of classical mythology.

Gioachino Rossini
Was succeeded by Verdi, then Puccini.
Opera underwent a schism
When younger composers turned to realism.

The music of Sir Hubert Parry
Can be played in church when people marry.
In the hands of a skilled musician,
It lifts one's heart to an elevated position.

Muzio Clementi
Was in great demand around 1820
For recitals, compositions, and pianos that he made.
His easy sonatinas are still often played.

Carl Maria von Weber
Remarked to a neighbour:
"My operas are all the rage.
It's a pity they're so expensive to stage".

Frédéric Chopin asked George Sand
As he sat at the keyboard: "Vite ou lent?"
She answered: "As music's your profession,
I'll leave the speed to your discretion".

Moritz Moszkowski
Had nothing in common with Tchaikovsky
Except (as was then the fashion)
His music's frequent Romantic passion.

Mendelssohn's overture The Hebrides
Masterfully evokes Caledonian seas.
Could any native Scot
Have written it? I think not.

Erik Satie
Was endearingly batty.
Much that he wrote has a sense of fun,
But not his Gymnopédie No 1.

Hector Berlioz was very proud.
He said: "I want my orchestras big and loud.
For in this noisy steam-powered age,
Art should resound with joy, grief or rage!"

Richard Strauss
Asked his spouse:
"What do you think of Der Rosenkavalier?"
She said: "I don't know it, my dear".

The piano works of Liszt
Can put a strain on the wrist.
The best way to preserve your joints
Is to slow down at the difficult points.

Johannes Brahms
Told a man begging for alms:
"I'm not giving money to an idle hobo!
Why don't you learn to play the oboe?"

King Louis XIV of France
Summoned his nobles to a dance.
He said: "Those who ignore my wishes
Will be marched to the kitchen to wash the dishes".

Debussy's textures vary,
But they are often light and airy.
They can depict immensity
Without Germanic force and density.

Johann Pachelbel
Wrote many other works as well
As his Canon; it would be a blunder
To write him off as a one-hit wonder.

...the assignment was to write a limerick containing "Toulouse":

Louis XIV and XVI of France
Tried their wives' private lives to enhance
When they ditched the two Lous
In two loos in Toulouse
To avoid being looked at askance

King Louis XVI of France
Observed his opponents' advance.
He rejected the ruse
Of a trip to Toulouse,
But his flight to Varennes had no chance.

Napoleon Bonaparte
Said: "Europe is just the start.
I've defeated Austria and Prussia;
Now I'm going to invade Russia".

James Gillray
Is still famous today
For his scurrilous cartoons
Depicting George III and his ministers as buffoons.

If Chairman Mao
Were still in power now,
He'd say: "Stay home – for if you do not,
You are a bourgeois troublemaker, and will be shot".

Donald Trump
Is (as I said) a chump,
But it won't be totally unexpected
If he somehow gets re-elected.

We Brits find it merciful
That Spencer Perceval
Is the only Prime Minister assassinated to date;
Four US Presidents have met such a fate.

Clement Attlee
In 1945 said flatly:
"Winston, we all think you're great,
But it's time to make way for the welfare state".

George Washington achieved transcendence
During the War of Independence.
He showed great skill and bravery;
It's a shame he didn't abolish slavery.

Ernö Rubik
Invented a toy that was cubic.
This lucky rhyme, I guess,
Was one of the keys to its success.

Jesus claimed to be a divine prophet,
But many Romans said "Come off it!"
The emperor Tiberius
Said "He cannot be serious!"

Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton
Have surely never been beaten
In their genre of comic audacity
Which filled cinemas to their capacity.

Barack Obama
Did not have a sense of drama,
But there's no necessary correlation
Between excitement and good administration.

The Garden of Eden
Was an agreeable place, like Sweden,
But Adam found it a little bland,
So his quest for more knowledge is easy to understand.

Thomas Edison
Did not patent medicine,
But he did bring many an invention
To the Patent Office's attention.

Some philosophical clerihews:

René Descartes
Was undoubtedly very smart.
He is famous for his insistence
That we can prove our own existence.

Willard Van Orman Quine
Had something in common with Wittgenstein.
Both wrote about words and names
And meanings, logic, and language games.

Immanuel Kant,
Unlike Nietzsche, did not rant.
He wrote such dense Critiques
That reading just one chapter can take weeks.

Martin Heidegger was far worse;
His love of obscurity was quite perverse.
He used many a German word
That no other German had ever heard.

David Hume believed in empiricism;
Though a Scot, he spurned Celtic lyricism.
He found no evidence for God –
A view which his contemporaries found most odd.

Arthur Schopenhauer
Was a pessimist who would sit and glower.
He wrote a lot about the Will,
And thought everything was going rapidly downhill.

Plato's 'Forms'
May not accord with modern scientific norms,
But his originality in conceiving them
Can be admired without actually believing them.

Thomas Hobbes insisted
That no innate virtue existed,
And that societies would go wrong
Unless their rulers were strong.

Benjamin Disraeli
Charmed Queen Victoria daily.
Gladstone was much more strait-laced,
And she viewed his gravitas with distaste.

Sir Henry Wood
Thought music would do the public good.
His Proms were eclectic salads
Of old and new classics and lighter ballads.

Paul Revere
Is not very well known here,
But across the Atlantic
His patriotic legend is very romantic.

Gaetano Donizetti
Produced music like confetti.
He wrote half a dozen operas a year;
His rivals groaned when they saw a new one appear.

Edward Heath had a permanent glower
After Mrs Thatcher took over power.
She, in turn, called everyone a traitor
When she was ousted fifteen years later.

Nineteen Eighty-Four
Has worldwide fame in political lore.
But in Britain the year is recalled with dislike
Because of the miners' strike.

Dr W G Grace
Was an early cricketing ace.
Among his peers he was in top position –
Ask any statistician.

The American Civil War
Was on a scale not seen before.
The English version in Charles I's reign
Saw far fewer soldiers slain.

Bomber Harris said with relish:
"I'm going to make all Germans' lives hellish!"
That controversial fellow
Had clearly never heard of jus in bello.

Just so you know. I am not a poet.
But I do read yours. You have a knack,keep it up.

Joseph Haydn
Was calm and sober, like Joe Biden.
But Franz Liszt
Like Trump, was an exhibitionist.

Bertrand Russell
Could intellectually out-muscle
Any amateur logicians
Or second-rate mathematicians.

King James the First
Asked Shakespeare: "Are your plays well rehearsed?"
"Why yes", replied the Bard,
"I drive my actors very hard".

When President Joe Biden
Was asked, What are you hidin?
His reply was easily understood:
I did the best I could.

There's no simple answer
To the problems we've faced since my Administration began, Sir.
Under these circumstances
To imply otherwise is to indulge in romances.

(an Exercise for the Reader: write a Clerihew based on George Stephanopoulos... ;-)

Hmm...we'll see! Some years ago I accepted your challenge of writing a double dactyl including 'antimetabole' (see page 6 of the Double Dactyl thread). So there's always hope!


Here are two sporting clerihews:

Jurgen Klopp
Wants Liverpool to be top,
And accordingly devises
Ways to win football's greatest prizes.

Joe Root,
Star batsman, and captain to boot,
Must doubt that England will win at cricket
While the rest of the team keep losing their wicket.

None of this is true, as far as I know, but it fits the form and rhyme criteria for a Clerihew.

News Analyst and interviewer George Stephanopoulos
Spends much of his time playing Parcheesi and Sorry and other such games Monopoulos.
Politicians for him to skewer
Are much fewer.

Former Democratic advisor George Stephanopoulos
(Not to be confused with Trump's George Papadopoulos)
Continued to present impartial TV news
Though he hoped the Republicans would lose.

The Three Musketeers
Stood no insults or jeers.
If they were obstructed by a peasant,
Their reaction would not be very pleasant.

If Charlotte Bronte
Had married an Italian conte,
She could have basked in literary glory
In a villa by Lake Maggiore.

Herbert Lom
Was the actor's pseudo-nom.
His real name was Herbert Charles Angelo Kuchacevic ze Schluderpacheru.
Phew!

Thomas Bowdler's expurgations
Spoiled Shakespeare's literary creations.
He should have stuck to chess,
At which he had considerable success.

Mark Twain
Had a style which was plain.
His personality was unsuited
To writing that was convoluted.

Titian
Was not a physician.
He reckoned art was sublime
While medicine was quite primitive at that time.

Attila the Hun
Said "I don't wage war for fun.
I just want a little more space
For the Teutonic race".

Stan Laurel
Was involved in a quarrel
With a movie director
Who got mad and smashed a projector.

Neat.

Cinderella
Arrived at the ball with an umbrella,
Which, like her slipper, she forgot
When she left at midnight on the dot.

Jesus's miraculous acts
Conflict with many scientific facts
Such as physical causation
And mass-energy conservation.

Liz Truss
Would rate her performance A+.
Barring something sinister,
She will be Britain's next prime minister.

Rishi Sunak has lost ground
Because many Conservatives think him unsound.
Not, I hope, on grounds of race,
For that would be an utter disgrace.

Now nemesis is nigh for Boris,
Who may be tempted to quote Horace:
Dulce et decorum est...
As his premiership is laid to rest.

James Joyce
Is not everyone's choice,
But reading him is effectual
In proving oneself intellectual.

President Biden
Hoped his popularity would widen,
But in an economic slump
Many voters may prefer the return of Trump.

Clement Attlee
Was sharp, but spoke flatly.
Liz Truss, by contrast, tries to orate,
But her acuity is not all that great.

Sir Keir Starmer
Wants to make British politics calmer.
Away with all this frenzy and mania,
And uncontrolled migration from Albania.

Only a madman
Would deny that Don Bradman
Was Australia's greatest batter,
Or the world's, for that matter.

Kylian Mbappe
Was no doubt very happy
When France spoiled England's fun
By beating them by two goals to one.

The Croatians
Exceeded expectations
When the favourites, Brazil,
Displayed inferior penalty-kicking skill.

Morocco also prevailed
When the Lusitanians failed.
It's a time of unease
For those who speak Portuguese.

Well done, Sir !

I'll piggy-back on that. Bravo.
It's been decades since I've seen Lusitania in print.

The victory of Argentina
In Doha's opulent arena
Concluded the World Cup in Qatar
With Lionel Messi its greatest star.

The French équipe
Seemed at first to be half asleep.
They improved greatly in the second half,
But Argentina had the last laugh.

For Germany and Spain
The tournament was a bit of a pain,
Though their chagrin was perhaps mollified
By the fact that Italy hadn't even qualified.

England's Harry Kane
Kicked one penalty, but missed when he tried again.
The manager, Southgate, said: "The mind plays tricks –
It happened to me at Euro '96".

Protestors showed bravery
In alleging constructors' slavery.
"Get out!" cried the Qatari authorities,
"You have a warped sense of priorities".

One broadcaster said: "In Qatar
I can tell those sheikhs how beastly they are".
But another retorted: "That's funny –
Why go there and accept their money?"

Gary Lineker of the BBC
(A former player, well known on TV)
Is thought by some to be too woke,
But he seems quite a decent bloke.

It's all been rather mad –
A dazzling mixture of good and bad.
Great for the rich, hell for the poor,
But hey, pecunia loquitur.

Robert Falcon Scott
Said: "I tell you what –
I think Amundsen's reached the Pole first!"
Then he flung down his binoculars and cursed.

The brothers Grimm
Collected fairy tales that are full of vim.
But they spent more time on German philology
Than on cute folk mythology.

Barbara Cartland
Said: "In Britain's conservative heartland,
My readers yearn for something romantic,
Not modernist junk from across the Atlantic".

Sigmund Freud
Became really annoyed
When critics claimed that his theories
Paid no heed to scientific queries.

Stephen Foster
Said: "I'll sue any impostor
Who claims I wrote his song.
Such passing-off is just plain wrong".

Edward the First
Treated the Welsh worst.
He defeated their Prince,
And the monarch's eldest son has held that title ever since.

Uri Geller
Is an astute feller.
However often he is debunked,
He knows his career will never be defunct.

Hannibal the Carthaginian
Used elephants to expand his dominion.
His exploits were full of drama,
Until he was defeated at Zama.

Hennig Brand
Was an alchemist who tried his hand
At making gold from urine or whatever;
His discovery of phosphorus was more lucky than clever.

Said Robespierre: "The guillotine
Is a most civilized machine.
It allows the toffs to be humanely slaughtered;
In the old days they'd have been hanged, drawn and quartered".

Medieval thinker Roger Bacon
(Who is sometimes mistaken
For Sir Francis) was intellectual but pious;
He published his views in Opus Maius.

The Emperor Nero
Has a moral rating close to zero,
But his penchant for capricious killing
Is what some historians find thrilling.

Yahweh, aka Jehovah,
Said "I will erupt like a supernova
If my commandments are disrespected".
"Art Thou not merciful?" Moses objected.

In Germania's wooded regions
In AD 9 three Roman legions
Were destroyed by Arminius (or Hermann),
And that's why the folks there now speak German.

Alan Turing
Found computer science alluring.
He outshone all the smart professors
Who were his colleagues or successors.

If Garibaldi and Mazzini
Had foreseen Benito Mussolini,
They might have had some hesitation
In pursuing Italian unification.

Sir Oswald Mosley
Orated grandiosely,
But his Fascists were less of a menace
Than their counterparts in Rome and Venice.

Thomas Paine
Urged Americans not to remain
Subjects of the British Crown;
Soon the Union Jack came crashing down.

Sir Keir Starmer
Is not naturally a charmer.
His manner suggests that blood, sweat and tears
Are what Britain needs in the next few years.

The monk Dionysius Exiguus
Made dates less ambiguous:
He began counting from the birth of Christ.
For Christians, that sufficed.

King George the Third
Could behave in ways that were absurd.
Caricaturists were unsympathetic:
Their mockery of him was quite energetic.

Peter Pan
Never grew to be a man –
In reality a sad affliction,
But quite attractive in a work of fiction.

President James K. Polk
Said: "For the greatness of our folk,
Our territory must expand".
So he grabbed some of the Mexicans' land.

Luciano Pavarotti
Told a conductor that the orchestra was grotty.
The maestro, in his riposte,
Said: "Signore, it's a question of cost".

Frank Pick
Made the London Underground very slick.
He coped with millions of pre-war commuters
Without the benefit of computers.

The fact that they all begin with P is coincidental – unless I made some subconscious association.

Queen Camilla
Would have been content with a modest villa.
But now, she's at Buckingham Palace
And probably drinks from a golden chalice.

King Charles's role as Faith Defender
Was formalised with suitable splendour
By means of an oath and anointing,
But the weather was very disappointing.

Westminster Abbey
Could not be described as shabby.
But it may have been so for Charles the First,
When such occasions were poorly rehearsed.

Lewis Carroll
Wore conventional apparel
But had a taste for the bizarre
Which made him a literary star.

If Albrecht Dürer
Had painted the Führer,
His virtuosity
Would have emphasised the man's monstrosity.

Mae West
Felt somewhat depressed
When the Hays Code's definition of 'obscene'
Outlawed her innuendo on screen.

Tiger Woods
Certainly delivered the goods.
Five times he won the Masters,
Though his life has had quite a few disasters.

Konrad Adenauer
Exercised West German power
With great economic success.
(And they won the '54 World Cup – but I digress.)

Dad's Army
Was somewhat barmy,
But the British adore
A good sitcom about the Second World War.

Ben Stokes
Is one of those folks
Who can transform a game of cricket
With a spectacular knock or crucial wicket.

In last week's Test at Lord's,
England and Australia crossed swords.
Before England got beat,
Some MCC members cried "Cheat!"

Michael Vaughan said:
"That ball was not dead –
Jonny Bairstow was out.
What nonsense some commentators spout!"

The British right-wing press
Do not much love the NHS.
They also hate the BBC
For its Leftish politics and licence fee.

Donald Trump's wealth
And Joe Biden's mental health
Are criticized in some quarters
But never deter their core supporters.

Political debate
Has become increasingly irate.
There is a Left/Right dichotomy,
And the same old arguments occur with monotony.

If Jesus lived in the USA,
He wouldn't be given the time of day
Unless he said "Work, save and be sunny",
And not "Give away all your money".

Kamala Harris
Was asked "In which country is Paris?"
She replied "I'm not daft!
It's...well, it's a...European thing", and laughed.

Sabine Hossenfelder
Told some university elder:
"I reject your cosmological conjectures.
Why don't you watch my YouTube lectures?"

Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender,
Charmed supporters of the opposite gender
And stirred young men to join his force.
He was no Bonaparte, but looked good on a horse.

Lord Louis Mountbatten
Tended to flatten
Those of lesser authority
With his air of superiority.

Archbishop Cosmo Lang
Did not make much of a bang
But had to face a tricky situation
At the time of the Abdication.

The Two Ronnies, Corbett and Barker,
Disliked comedians whose humour was darker.
Their TV series were good clean fun,
In which Barker used words to garble and pun.

Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise
Were once Britain's top two comedy guys.
Their Christmas shows on the BBC
Topped the ratings in 1970s TV.

When Satan fell from grace
Into the other place,
He taunted God about Creation's state,
But God eschewed theological debate.

Mother Teresa?
Not all writers praise her.
Some say her principal goal
Was not curing the body, but saving the soul.

John Napier
Had a mind like a rapier.
He simplified the operation
Of exponentiation.

The works of Enid Blyton
Nowadays tend to frighten
Most child psychologists
And politically correct apologists.

David Bowie
Was exceptionally showy.
Had he been unobtrusive,
His appeal would have been more exclusive.

Ancient Sparta
Had no Magna Carta.
In a state geared to military fights,
There was no place for human rights.

The Romans had few checks
On extramarital sex.
But once the Christian era had begun,
It was forbidden to have such fun.

Boys at Eton
Were regularly beaten
By swaggering prefects
For the most trivial defects.

Political campaigns
Assume we have no brains.
Their targeting is clinical,
And their appeal to prejudice is cynical.

Both Presidential frontrunners are mad,
And one is also bad.
America's famed democracy
Is now a tribal gerontocracy.

Both Presidential frontrunners are mad,
And one is also bad.
America's famed democracy
Is now a tribal gerontocracy.

Marilyn Monroe
Always stole the show.
She was both funny and glamorous,
Making men amused and amorous.

Santa Claus
Does not obey Nature's laws,
But children do not find this odd
As the same applies to Jesus and God.

General Patton
Threatened to flatten
Any cowards or shirkers.
He wanted heroes and hard workers.

Field Marshal Rommel
Had an old Prussian Trommel
Which he would superstitiously beat
In order to prevent defeat.

Ho Chi Minh
Said the Viet Cong would win
Their war of attrition
If the US eschewed nuclear fission.

Clerihews on Greek philosophy

The ancient Stoics
Said "There's no need for heroics.
Clear thinking and self-control
Will best sustain your body and soul".

If Aristotle
Had seen a Klein bottle,
He might have linked its strange topology
To something sublime in theology.

Parmenides said
That change is an illusion inside our head.
When pressed to explain the illusion,
He showed considerable confusion.

The Pre-Socratics taught
That the earth was flat, as they truly thought.
But the later Greek sages
Worked out the truth in a few simple stages.

Israel's prime minister,
Whom his opponents think sinister,
Was told by Biden: "Here's some more cash,
But please don't do anything rash".