Happy Birthday, Brucie!

The importance of light entertainment at time of war

Cannot be overstated. Historians say blandly—

As if it doesn't need saying at all—that Churchill saw

Us through the last lot. No! It was Tommy Handley.

It’s That Man Again, known as ITMA,

Sustained morale on the home front much more

Crucially than Churchill, with his inextinguishable cigar

And interminable speeches.  What a bore!

“I don’t mind if I do”, purred Jack Train’s amusing Colonel                     Chinstrap,

And made us smile as the bombs dropped around us.

“I go, I come back”, said Horace Percival’s Ali Oop—

Using another catchphrase that continues to astound us.

Ali, thou shouldst be living at this hour!

Where art thou, Mrs. Mopp? Where art thou, Funf?

We won’t forget the diver, sir, though cowards cower,

Nor that harassed civil servant up to his ears in bumf.

Bruce Forsyth is also famous for his catchphrases. Who can                     forget

“Nice to see you; to see you, nice”, or “Just for a lark”?

His “Give us a twirl!” as the lovely Anthea tripped on to the set,

Gave solace and inspiration to those serving in Iraq.

Conducting The No. 6 With Dave Curme At The Wheel

The Number 6 bus

Used to run from Brighton Station to Fishersgate.

Morning came in on the rising tide,

Bringing to some a yearning for the sea,

To others promising the Number 6 bus.

The Number 6 bus pulled into the lay-by

Beside the deserted tunnel that ran

Under the disused railway line;

The driver turned the engine off and yawned.

I changed the blind and leaned in to the driver,

As one would lean in to The Time Traveller,

If the bus were the Time Machine,

And he at the wheel of the bus,

And I said, “Dave, there's never anyone here.

There are no houses, there is no village church,

No local pub, no animals in the fields.

Dave, there's no such place as Fishersgate.”

Iron Chef French: Dominique Strauss-Kahn

As I grow old, I like things sweet.

My appetite for good fresh meat

Is quickened when I sense the fear

In ladies sweet when I draw near.

These days I have no time to poach

My eggs. I’m frank in my approach.

Life’s much too short to wait and smile,

Too short for all that craft and guile

I learned when I had time to wait

For thighs and breasts to marinate.

These days I turn the gas up high

And when the skillet’s hot I fry

What I need just when I need

It—And sweet ladies, it’s not greed

That’s made me abandon those seductive

Games. One learns that more productive

And less time-consuming ways

Present themselves as precious days

Become more precious by the hour:

Art yields to exercise of power.

I’ve ceased to care if you desire

Me or detest me. While the fire

Burns under the spit, I’ll be true

To my appetite, and so will you.

The Lumpy Men

Out of the glen they came,

The lumpy men:

William, Arthur and Dirk

And Ben,

With their trumpets blaring

And their trousers rolled;

Hatless, although

It were devilish cold

And they made for the home

Of Sergeant McQueen,

Who’d run them out

Of Aberdeen,

With their trumpets blaring

And their trousers rolled,

Although by then

It weren’t so cold.

Rat-a-tat-tat they knocked

On McQueen’s oak door;

“Wit tha fuck

“Are ye knocking for?”

Shouted Mrs McQueen

But the lumpy men

Just knocked and knocked

And knocked again.

“Are ye tha lumpy men?”

Mrs McQueen cried.

“Aye, we’re tha lumpy men!”

The lumpy men replied.

“Wit d’ye want wi’ me?”

She asked the lumpy men.

“It’s no a cup o’ tea!”

Wryly answered Ben.

Sergeant McQueen stood up

To face the lumpy men;

As they knocked and knocked, he said,

“I’ll get it, hen.”

Out of the glen they’d come,

The lumpy men,

Leaving the glen just after

Half past ten.

As McQueen opened the door,

The lumpy men

Blew the trumpets they’d brought

From the glen

And blew and blew and blew

Until McQueen

Regretted what he’d done

In Aberdeen.

“Let that be a lesson tae ye!”

Said the lumpy men

And they took their trumpets

Back to the glen,

Leaving Sergeant McQueen

At his door –

And reaching the glen

At quarter past four.

Captain Shand & His Dog Albemarle

The snarling dog that bit your hand

Once belonged to Captain Shand,

Who scandalised the neighbourhood

By doing things you really should

Not do with sheep and paid the price

For being caught not once, but twice

And went down for a fair old stretch

(And well deserved, the filthy wretch!)

And then came back from stir all smiles

And lounged about on gates and stiles,

As if we’d all forgot the harm

He’d done to creatures of the farm,

Singing and playing on his uke

(Oh Lordy, how it makes me puke

To even think of him, the creep!)

Songs about his love of sheep!

While Shand would have his violent way,

That dog would hold the shepherd at bay

With yellow teeth and horrid snarl.

His master called him “Albermarle”,

After the private members’ club

In London’s Mayfair where this grub-

-by scion of a diseased tree

Disgraced his dying family

With escapades too gross to mention

Here. With just his army pension

Left, having completely frittered

His fortune, and leaving London littered

With the casualties of his appetite,

This loathsome endoparasite

Came back home to our peaceful village

And put us all to rape and pillage—

Species, sex and generation

Notwithstanding. The ovine population

Walked in fear and dread of meeting

The captain and his dog. The bleating

At all hours of the day and night

Was piteous to hear. Their plight

Was desperate—no hope, none at all,

When the Captain came to call.

Why, you ask, do we put up

With the captain’s dog? E’en as a pup

He was a nasty piece of work.

Why let the slavering monster smirk

And bark at common decency,

When only very recently

He was aiding and abetting Shand’s

Filth with other men, whose stands

When sheep were near indicated

A vileness never vindicated

By nobility of birth, or death

Heroic?  
                 No, Shand’s dying breath

Was not a holy martyr’s sigh,

Nor did he repent, express

Remorse for his abominable excess,

And never once apologised

To animals whose compromised

Innocence made angels weep

—And I wept too for all those sheep.

This brings us back to Albemarle,

Who the captain taught to bite and snarl.

He taught him other things as well,

For which he’ll no doubt burn in hell.

Watching Shand among the fleeces,

The dog learned a taste for other species,

—But not for sheep. His pulse throbbed faster

When he gazed on his rampant master.

As well as giving him protection,

He longed to show his rough affection,

And watching Shand about his fun,

Thought this must be how it was done.

I should explain that Albemarle was

A Great Dane and a Pit Bull cross.

He had ferocity and size,

And much admired his master’s thighs.

One night, in a God-forsaken byre,

Infected by the captain’s fire,

And devoted to his master dear,

He set upon him from the rear—

Aye, entered the captain from behind!

His canine lust was unrefined

By human intercourse, and so—

But that was seven years ago.

The man had lived in mortal sin:

An access of love—yes!—did him in.

His final words expressed no fear

Of hell—but they were hell to hear.

According to his batman, Carl,

They were: “That’s it! Good dog, Albemarle!”

The sheep beheld those canine shanks

And leapt on him to give him thanks,

The only way they knew now, and

All that they’d absorbed from Shand

They gave back, ah! a hundred times

To Albemarle. The captain’s crimes

Came home to roost upon the person

Of his dog! Bring the hearse on

For the captain! But for his hound

Let the grateful hills resound!

And that's why Albemarle is seen

Lounging on the Village Green,

Snarling at the passers-by.

He’s licensed to be horrid by

The Parish Clerk, a man called Hillage,

Who, speaking for a grateful village,

Made Albemarle a Freeman and,

For getting rid of Captain Shand,

Proclaimed that he was free to run,

Free to have whatever fun

Where’er he wished, and he was free

To be whate’er he chose to be:

Free to snarl and free to bite,

Free to fart and free to fight

Whomso’er he chose to light

Into—fright old ladies into fits—

And free to take his monstrous shits

Where’er he liked. What’s obscenity,

When he had brought serenity

Of mind to damaged hearts,

Of heart to damaged minds?

The damaged sheep and their behinds

Resumed their gambolling—joy to see!—

And safely grazed upon the lea.

One night this Hillage had told the vet

To “stand by while the vicar and I get

Ablemarle drunk on vodkatinis

(Which he had learned to drink with blinis)

In the Lamb & Flag. Hide by the pump—

That’s where he likes to take a dump—

And when he does, you take this club

To his head. We’ll be in the pub.

And while he’s sleeping where he falls,

Take out your blade. Remove his balls—

That’ll teach him to get blootered!”

And that’s how Albemarle got neutered.

A little nip from Albermarle,

A pile of shit, a yellow snarl,

Inspire no fear. He makes us laugh,

Now that he’s much less than half

The dog he was. He still has rages

But we all grin at his rampages.

Oh, he still loves to drink and brawl,

But doesn’t have the wherewithal

To do the things he used to do—

His life is sad, his pleasures few.

If he gets nasty on the booze,

We just call in some rams and ewes.

They sort him out—he can’t abide

These woolly creatures by his side.

Our happy village safe may sleep—

Bless Albemarle! God bless our sheep!

Baudelaire's Liver (translated by Jarvis Belchard)

When the bellowing sky lowers herself, a sick cow 
On my tedious heart (prisoner in a house of dying men)
And gathering her skirts, the circumference of the flat earth,
Evacuates her gloomy bowels on a world of gloomy men;

When earth is a condemned lavatory by a deserted dock, 

In which Hope, like a poisoned bat over a dying fen,
Flies blind and drunk and breaks her stinking black wings
And smashes her rotten head against the damp ceiling;

When the rain hangs like ragged curtains from a nasty sky,
Or like the rusty bars of a plague-infested prison,
And a gibbering army of loathsome, hopeless spiders
Comes to build black webs inside our empty skulls,


All at once the church-bells roar with pain and anger  
And fling long-unpealed curses at deaf heaven,
Like refugees who, starving far from home
Burst into one last despairing chorus of a native ditty.

Rationing In Wartime

The tea is warm: surprising.

The cup is full, the spoon lies here
Upon the saucer; on the French toast the icing
Clings as on a bun; the marmalade jar stands,
Sticky and blue, there, on the tranquil tray.
Come to the table, you take the nice chair!
Behind that dark ring of browny-grey
Left on the white linen by the teapot-stand,
Look! you see the grated raw
Dry carrots which the nurse brought in, and flung,
On a ghastly whim, in with the canned
Pilchards. Biscuits and cheese begin
Our tremulous moonlit supper, and bring
The eternal taste of madness in.

Sophocles long ago
Ate pilchards on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid chubb and roe
Of inland fisheries; we
Find also in the can a thought,
Eating pilchards with a cup of tea.

This pickled egg
Was once, too, seen by Aristotle, what’s more,
Or one very like it: white, and softer than a pearl.
But now only I hear
His melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Suffering half to death
With the wind, after a night on Greek beer,
And all the baked potatoes in the world.

Ah, love, let us tea brew
For one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a sea of breams,
And salmon, halibut, and crabs of blue,
Hath really neither lobsters, nor delight,

Nor mackerel, nor cod, nor Dover sole;
And we shall have canned pilchards in a bowl
Topped with grated carrots. Though there is no delight,
Let’s eat, drink tea, and fuck. I’m much too tired to fight.

The Messiah

What’s this, what’s this ye’re sayin’ tae me—

Young Archibald Robertson’s coming tae tea?

Weel, get oot tha scones and dinna stint on tha relish,

A reckon his hunger’ll be mighty hellish

By the time he arrives

Frae St Ives.

Och, dinna fret, seid tha auld wife o’ Muchtie,

He’ll be comin’ wi’ Hannah an’ Dorothy Huchtie—

And they ne’er let a man gae frae Glasgee tae Rummach

Wi’out making shooer there’s good food in his stomach.

But he arrives

Frae St Ives,

Ye daft auld bat!

     Seid Willie McPhee.

A canna be responsible

For that,

Michty me!

     Replied tha auld wife o’ Muchtie.

Wee Archibald Robertson duly arrived,

His entrance wa’ grandiloquent, a trifle contrived.

What’s it like in St Ives?—they asked him wi’ a leer.

Fair to middlin’—he seid—A cuid murder a beer.

Blake And Convenience

William Blake had no idea that a rude Tesco

Would be erected near where he wrote London; indeed,

Few people appear to have predicted the growth –

Nay, the sprawl – of these inconvenient stores

(None of Hogarth’s paintings feature them and they are never

Mentioned in any volume of Scott’s not inconsiderable                             body of work). 

But Sir William Siggins (1782-1839), in a poignant                                     piece of pastoral

Entitled Asda, My Asda, conceived “A cavernous hall

“In which the populace quailed in thrall”,

A frightening foretaste of what (given half a chance) man                           will  do to man,

Which he penned after reading Kubla Khan.

Valleys turned into funnels, dales hardening into car parks

In Siggins’s horrific vision, presaged the death

Of the cottage industry – wherein the world spun

On leisurely looms and old men smiled in peace.

And so it is with weapons.  The reluctant soldier

Sheathed his cutlass when picking his nose; Alexander

Would never have dreamt of taking his sword to bed with him

(His boys being allergic to sharp metal) and conquered

A goodly swathe of the known world with elegance,

Always appearing in person.  Not so in this age

Of digital destruction.  Men with unseeing eyes

Can raze communities with the appliance

Of software.  And so peace must too embrace

The new technology.  The movement is a broad church,

All faiths and races and every known

Peccadillo are catered for.  Simply download

Details of the war you want brought to an end,

Double click on the dove icon, type in “No more

“Brown trousers, please” and click OK.

A special site for the use of the deaf

Is under construction.

March 19, 2003 (translated from the English by Rod McKuen)

Eleven a.m. arrives

On Fifty-seventh Street.

Uneaten marmalade

Is hissing on the fire,

With a dentist’s bill unpaid.

My second glass of beer

Froths over the white

Tablecloth of the earth,

Saturating our private lives

With the yeasty smell of death:

Oh God, I’m already a bit tight.

Alcoholism can

Often cause offence—

From Luther's time until now

It has driven vicars mad,

And also a good few women.

From what bottle sprayed

This unwholesome geyser, God?

I’m in a low dive now

With a lowlife called Burn,

I'll have another one

And then we might adjourn.

Thucydides liked a brew—

That’s all I’m prepared to say

About Democracy.

I’m going to the loo

When I’ve finished this piece of pork.

While I'm in the lav

I’ll try, my love, to read your book—

And oh, while I’m away,

I’ll have the same again.

This pork tastes like beef.

I think someone’s pulling my chain.

In the front bar

They don’t tolerate my abuse.

I suppose I can’t complain;

It’s a reasonable ban.

My life is down the drain

And I have no excuse.

Have I told you how I long

For a nice piece of bream?

From behind the bar they stare.

I have an awful face;

I think I’ll sing a song.

Ah, here comes Jack Tar—

He’ll be here all day:

His trousers make men pout,

But I always have to pay.

I’m starting to perspire;

I’ll put on some perfume;

I might take him home,

Or we might go to another bar—

It depends on his mood.

He also looks a bit tight

I’m going to say something lewd.

I’ve got a nasty rash—

I’ll have a glass of stout

And perhaps some fried fish

(And as for what mad Nijinsky wrote

About Diaghilev

I don’t give a flying fart).

My words, you say, are too close to the bone.

Each woman and each man

Craves what I cannot have:

Not universal love,

But to be left alone.

I’m in the bloody dark.

I've kissed goodbye to life.

I’ve got polyps up my arse,

And a face like a dying cow;

“I will take my fork and knife

And do justice to some pork.”

My helpless bowels quake;

They cry justice for well-practiced fouls:

Who dares release them now?

I’m going slightly deaf—

Will anyone hear my clamorous bowels?

That is now my voice.

I’ll have a slice of pie.

I met a man on the D-Train

Who had the most remarkable feet.

We walked to the Port Authority

And he began to cry.

I had a piece of skate;

He preferred to eat alone;

Hunger allows no choice;

He threatened to call the police;

I must have bream or die.

I rarely go out at night,

I rarely wear socks or ties—

And never underwear.

I still need that shite—

I’ve unleashed another gust:

These are messages.

May I, composed like them

Of Thanatos and rust,

Beleaguered by new shame,

Denial and despair,

Have another glass of the same?

Waving The Cosmos Goodbye

“The telescope tells us so little,”
He said, applying a gobbet of unhealthily viscous spittle

To a grubby rag and wiping it vigorously into the eyepiece,

“But every jot and tittle

“Contributes something, however nugatory, to my peace

“Of mind. Now, hand me my veal-and-ham pie please.”

Remember, this was fifty years ago and more.

That day, I walked out through the observatory door

A sadder and a more stupid man

Than I had ever been before.

The great astronomer seemed determined to scupper my plan

And paid me less attention than his flan.

That day I burned my research papers and resolved

To buy a farm. With my hopes dashed and dissolved

What greater comfort could I find

Than to be alone with a few sheep? My mind revolved

No more with the cosmos. I felt my terrors unwind

As I walked among lambs. I left the stars behind.

And yet, as I walk under the clear skies of Devon,

I feel something far more deeply interfused begin to leaven

My contentment. The lambs are white

On the dark tor, like snowflakes on the back of a sleeping raven,

Or intimations of a better heaven in the long night

That once robbed me, thanks to the great astronomer, of all my           delight.

It Seems So Long Since An Old Partisan Called Me Nancy

I was cautioned to rise up by the guards,

So I took my gun and vanished across the water.

They said, “The shade is wont to be baneful to singers

Who smoke cigarettes as they sing of the slaughter.”

All I can say to you, Marianne,

Is the shade cast by the juniper is baneful

And your body is open like a prayer

And the nightingale is tuneful.

They are harvesting in darkness

The wheat that was drowned by the blood of poets.

Now let us kneel together naked while the Evening Star is rising,

So go now, go, my she-goats. Go now, go, my she-goats.