Next year, in case you didn’t notice, will be Edward Lear’s bicentenary as well as the year of the Olympics, so I was not surprised to find a square volume entitled The Nonsense Olympics. A Tribute to Edward Lear by Matt Black, with illustrations by Jackie Prachek (Upside Down Books, 2011).

The wonderful booklet, which you can have for just £5.00, consists of several limericks and some other poems, Ano Lympi Calphabet and some nicely illustrated puns: ideal reading if you intend to celebrate, or if, like “the old woman from Goring,” you think “sports are tiring and boring, / Except ones I invent.”