I bought my dad (http://benbatten.blogspot.com/) an anthology of Basho's haiku for Christmas, not previously knowing who Basho was. I thought it might keep him busy whilst mum completed her 3000-piece jigsaw. I followed that present up with a 'how to write haiku' guide for his birthday. Will Le Vieux Baton's first magnum opus be complete before the jigsaw? Could Haiku-Scryfer be Chesham's answer to Herman Van Rompuy?

"Please shut the door when you take a bath. Because hot air of the bathroom makes a fire alarm ring."

Taking you back to the nailbiting conclusion of my first post, it was only having filled the bath full of steaming hot (citrus aroma soda - infused) water that the jetlagged author noticed this warning on the inside of the open door, which he promptly closed. Fortunately, no alarm went off.

Returning to the scene of this near-miss during a night spent wide awake, I wondered how Basho might have written the advice. Or Herman Van Rompuy? Or Le Vieux? This is my 5-7-5 effort:

Room of rising heat,
No wake-up call, please. (Instead,
visit an onsen.)

According to Wikipedia, "while traditional Japanese haiku has focused on nature and the place of humans in it, some modern haiku poets, both in Japan and the West, consider a broader range of subject matter suitable, including urban contexts. While pre-modern haiku avoided certain topics such as sex and overt violence, contemporary haiku sometimes deal with such themes".

Well, at least there's no sex or overt violence. (After all, my parents might be reading.....)