'Amid Laughter And Merriment'

 In 1962 or so, aged 13, I first heard 'Poisoning The Pigeons In The Park' on an LP belonging to the older brother of a schoolfriend. It was love at first hearing; not since listening to my grandfather's 78 rpm records of Gilbert and Sullivan had I heard such witty wordplay. The 'quickenin'/strychnine' rhyme was a delight for a start. Soon there was a little Lehrer fan club at school, a group which also relished the rather amateurishly printed early copies of 'Private Eye.' A year or so later another American giant of wordplay swam into my ken, introduced to me by R. M. Melville, my English teacher: S. J. Perelman. Anyone who could write of his determination to avoid painful visits to the dentist as 'cuspid's last stand' appealed strongly [and he still does after all these years.] I'm sad to hear of Lehrer's death but enormously grateful for the keen delight he gave me by his logodaedalism. May his memory be a blessing.