Friday 31 August 2012

Poetry Corner


It happened, yesterday, that a friend and I took to swapping poetic ditties, such was the slow pace of the banking and commercial worlds, it still being August and the terrors not yet back at their prep and public schools.

I started with a paraphrasing of Belloc's wonderful Lord Lundy:

The grandees of the Party bore
The shame till they could bear no more.
They rallied their collective powers,
Summoned Dave to Millbank Tower,
And bitterly addressed him thus—
“Sir! you have disappointed us!
We had imagined you to be
Prime Ministerial pedigree.
The stocks have crashed; the Press turned sceptic,
The Middle Class is apoplectic
So there it is! . . . Our language fails!
Go and run the Royal Mint in Wales!”


My correspondent, who I will call Felipe, responded thus:    

There was a boy whose name was Davy,
His cheek was pink, his hair was wavy,
And unlike all the other boys,
He didn’t much care for games and toys,
But dwelt all day on his ambition,
To be a famous politician.

To Eton and Oxford, up he went,
The perfect launch for his ascent,
To the upper reaches of our polity,
And the friendship of the quality,
So with a little help from friends and dad,
He quickly made himself a SPAD.

But he must get a job, and it must take in
Experience in the art of spin
So for seven long years of toil unseen
He spun the web for Michael Green,
Which was somewhat infra dig, in truth
For a patrician and a gilded youth.

At length, at last, his climb resumed
When, as his friends had all assumed,
He was given a seat and duly sent
To sit in Her Majesty’s parliament.
‘Now to be leader’ he said and turned his eyes
To the summit, the peak, the glittering prize.

The battle was joined, his weapon was spin,
He used it to do his opponents in;
The fools had relied on the unvarnished truth
Dave on his tongue and his charm and his youth.
The blue rinses loved him as he told them he’d win,
And the elders themselves succumbed to his spin.

But at the election the House was hung,
Had Dave’s ambition missed the last rung?
No, never, he had one more trick:
A big open offer to someone called Nick.
They carved up the jobs and then, and then,
Dave could walk straight into old number ten.

He had the top job, now what would he do?
As it turned out he hadn’t a clue
I’ve got there he thought, what more do I know?
If I had some ideas you’d have heard them by now.
I know that I’m happily married to Sam
But I’ve never really known who I am.


I think this should now be an open competition. Do your best, idle readers, try to get that old muse working and amuse yourselves and the rest of us with poetic reflections of the state we're in. The prize, as usual, will be won by Nick Drew.

15 comments:

Nick Drew said...

on condition that you excel even your Belloc, and give us the promised AA Milne

idle said...

Crikey you've got a good memory. Elephantine, Nick.

I'll get working on it between tomorrow's closing cricket match of the season, a 50th tomorrow evening, and - joy of joys - a day of driven grouse on Monday.

Where are the rest of you?

Elby the Beserk said...

Where - awaiting City v QPR on't internet at the moment, but I must try and come up with something. Maybe a little Eliot, to celebrate the football season, and/or, to bid a fond farewell to the estimable Mr. Strauss, who as well as being a fine cricketer, a fine leader, makes a certain Kevin Pieterson look a self-centred little tit. For KP, it's KP before the team. Sod that.

I do so hope we never see him play for England again, however a good a batsman he may be. When it suits him.

But yes, a cider perhaps at half-time, and some ruminating...

Not that I expect to contend with
Nick!

Dismal Dave said...

I wandered lonely as a cloud
wondering quietly, not out loud
How it comes we're in this mess.
Should be blame his Toneliness?

Dismal Dave said...

I wandered lonely as a cloud
wondering quietly, not out loud
How it comes we're in this mess.
Should be blame his Toneliness?

Sebastian Weetabix said...

Sadly, being a rude mechanical with a prosaic turn of mind, these matters are best unsullied by my hand.

Elby the Beserk said...

I wish I could come up with some bollocks,
But the words are stuck in the rollocks.
I tried shouting, but that didn't work,
Rather it made me look like a berk.

So what's to be done? Should I try another?
Or give in to fate, and just not bother,
To craft words that rhyme,
And make your soul climb,
Or rather more likely,
Head off for the pub...

Hospitable Scots Bachelor said...

Very clever, but how are you with Haikus?

idle said...

The blogger idle
Finds a Haiku challenging?
Apparently not

Tuscan Tony said...

Tres good, and now perhaps the onrushing season of mists and mellow fruitfulness should signal it's time for an idle-sponsored Haiku compo...

idle said...

Crikey! It's the Tuscan! We thought he'd fallen into a barrel of Brunello di Montalcino and drowned, with a smile on his face.

Welcome back, Tuscan. Haikus it will be. When are you headed for Strathrother?

Nick Drew said...

The Tuscan ! How the devil are you ? Not too fire-swept, we hope.

Anyhow, to business:

The Eton Prole-Baiting song

Jolly political weather
Government is a breeze
We’ll do whatever -
Whatever we jolly-well please!
And we’re in this together
Coalition’s a social disease
So they’ll string us up together
From the lamp-posts and from the trees

Osborne may be more clever
Boris may make more row
But I’ll be PM for ever
Kiss my arse and bow!
And those buggers will never
Get the job I am doing now
No, none of those buggers will ever
Get the job I am doing now

Others will fill their faces
Dressed in their Bullingdon suits
Kicking over the traces
Filling their wellington boots
As long as they know their places
I just couldn’t give two hoots
Yes as long as they know their places
Well I really don’t give two hoots

Twenty years on, whoever
Is tempted to do as I do
Will probably cobble together
A deal with Clegg Mark 2
And they’ll think they can govern forever
But the people are hard to please
So they’ll still swing together
From the lamp-posts or from the trees

idle said...

Simply splendid and impossible to beat, Nick, but I am working on the Old Sailor and it will maybe get the attention it needs this weekend.

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