Bristow' literary output mainly takes a prose form - searing novels, gripping short stories and invaluable works of reference. But poetry is also important to him and he likes to declaim the occasional stanza. He is particularly moved by the great symbolic changes encapsulated in the New Year and likes to give full vent to his deepest hopes and fears.

Ring out the old ring in the new
Another year of hopes and fears
Another year of ups and downs another year of thrills and spills
Another mad round of pleasure
Another one thousand nine hundred and ninety six more working hours!!

Unnumbered strip, published in the Evening Standard December 1962

Not much has changed by 1972, certainly not his opening line.

Ring out the old, ring in the new Farewell to 1972 I hate the thought of '73 What does it have in store for me? Not of lot, of that I'm sure and even less in '74 A plague on 1975 I'll still be here more dead than live and dreading 1976 anticipating knocks and kicks in '77,8 and 9 I'll still be waiting for a sign The years roll by you cannot fight 'em so it's feet up - ad infinitum

Strip 3670 was published in the Evening Standard in December 1972 and in More Bristow

And in 1980 we hear a familiar refrain

Don't suppose we'll have much fun
In nineteen hundred and eighty one
There's only one thing left to do
say "roll on nineteen eighty two"

from strip 5809, published in the Evening Standard in January 1980

The odes continue but the quality remains toward the lower end of the spectrum. In 2007 his standard "Ring out the old, ring in the new" induces a chorus of boos and catcalls from assembled clerks. Bereft of inspiration he tries to use Miss Sunman as his muse but she has nothing else to offer. In 2009 Jones tries his luck and achieves a resounding zero.

Aside from the strange influence of the New Year, he is often inspired to use the inferior efforts of others, viz:

I must go down to the stores again to the basement far below. And all I ask is a new pen and the ink to make it go. And my knees knock and my toes curl and my voice is breaking and a grey mist on the storeman's face and a great fist shaking

Strip 3479 was published in the Evening Standard in May 1972 and in Bristow (1972) and Bristow's Guide to Living

And here is an ode to a window box

I wandered lonely as a cloud, that floats on high o'er vales and hills
When all at once I saw a crowd of boxes on their window sills
And sneaky management, not so green, employ the foliage as a screen

strip 3476, published in Bristow (1972), not clear if published in the Evening Standard but would have been in May 1972.

This one made it into a slender volume of Office Verse (unpubl.)

I had a little desk top, nothing would it bear
But a single elbow with some time to spare
(Fudge: Bristow stop daydreaming and get on with your work)
The head of our department flew into a flap
And all for the sake of my little cat nap

strip 3615 was published in the Evening Standard in October 1972, in More Bristow and in Bristow's Guide to Living

This might have joined it

Departmental bosses, prowling up and down
Upstairs and downstairs, always with a frown
Peering through the windows,Peeping through the lock
Are all my workers at their desks? It's past nine o'clock

strip 4541a was published in Living Death in the Buying Department. Probably drawn for Saturday 3 January 1976 and therefore not published in the Evening Standard.

Overtime has always been a major inspiration to Bristow. Here's an extract from quite a long bit of doggerel

Twinkle Twinkle Milky way
You've never worked a ten hour day
Bet you wish that you were me
I've earned four pounds two and three

strip 3027 was published in the Evening Standard in December 1970, in Bristow (1972) and in Bristow's Guide to Living

Perhaps it was not such a good idea to use poetry to try to influence the cleaners

Cleaners working to a plan
Leave the office spick and span
Cleaning ladies running late
Leave it in a helluva state

because it provoked this response

Now listen here you little snide
We cleaning ladies have our pride
We're warning you, just one more note
We'll come and stuff it down your throat

Strip 5495 was published in the Evening Standard in October 1979 and in The Penguin Bristow

David Elliot Day

We first meet Mr. Elliot in 1983, as Head of Publicity (and naturally nobody in the firm has ever heard of him) but we soon learn of his heroism in the Great Tea Trolley Disaster of '67 and then of "David Elliot Day", celebrated on 31st May, a day in which buying clerks do no work in his honour and for which Bristow always has a handy rhyme to quote to justify his inactivity:

Beware the thirty-first of May
For this be David Elliot Day
To welcome work would be a blunder
For forty days you'll be snowed under

Strip 6412 was published in the Evening Standard in May 1983

And now in Merrie England
The buying clerks do cheer
Today be David Elliot Day
Let's go out for a beer

Strip 6924 was published in the Evening Standard in May 1985

All hail the thirty-first of May
For this be David Elliot Day
The buying clerk's own patron saint
An eager beaver's what he ain't
So rise up early, greet the dawn
Decorations will be worn

Strip 7175 was published in the Evening Standard in May 1986

Mr. Elliot is now spoken of as having been a Chief Buyer and never having done a stroke of work.

Today the thirty-first of May
is known as David Elliot Day
So have a ball
No work at all
and play! play! play! play !play!

Strip 7684 was published in the Evening Standard in May 1988

With his feet upon the desk
The scene was almost picturesque
Quite the stubbornest of men
Refused point blank to raise a pen
Seemingly carved out of stone
Impervious to threat or phone
He never stood but he walked tall
An object lesson to us all

Strip 7935 was published in the Evening Standard in May 1989

Buying Clerk, lay down your pen
Tis meet to do so now and then
Leave your worries and your cares
Forget those everyday affairs
Tis time to put on dancing shoes
and tiptoe off in ones and twos
No need to ask the reason why
For plain it is as apple pie
Today the thirty-first of May
Today be David Elliot Day

Strip 8448 was published in the Evening Standard in May 1991

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