[John Whitworth]

I couldn't get a handle on the Round Robin thing at all, but I'll have a punt at this one as I am sure will you all. What rhymes with Luton? Darn tootin'.

No. 2784: Come, friendly bombs

You are invited to rewrite John Betjeman’s poem ‘Slough’, substituting the target of your choice (16 lines maximum). Please email entries, wherever possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 6 February.

[basil ransome-davies]

What rhymes with Luton? Darn tootin'.

Roger Scruton, John, a man surely after your own heart.

[John Whitworth]

Said Roger, the first Baron Scruton,
Relaxed in a whorehouse in Luton,
'At the end of the day
It's as good as a play
Or an afternoon huntin' and shootin'.'

[Mary McLean]

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on France,
where women don’t outgrow their pants
and kids are smarmy sycophants.
Swarm over, Mort!

Or if 'French wisdom' isn’t true,
swarm over, Death, on writers who
propound such piffle. Turn them blue
and rot their corps.

[Nigel Mace]

Here's one I wrote earlier - a lot earlier - but which, without the epigraph, I think I might risk sending.

FALLUJA

(The ‘final’ bombing and assault on Falluja followed on the ‘re-election’ of George Bush and on the Lancet’s report of the deaths of 98,000 Iraqi civilians, mainly women and children, after the illegal invasion of their country by the ‘foreign fighters’ of the US and Britain. This figure for civilian deaths excluded those killed in Falluja during the first assault.)

Come friendly bombs, fall on us now,
As humans, we don’t count somehow,
And SMARTest weapons still allow
Unreckoned death.

Come bombs, and blow to bloody rags
Insurgents garbed as scally-wags,
False youths, false men, false maids, false hags,
Not worth life’s breath.

Bomb and bulldoze Falluja’s town,
Bring minarets, like statues, down -
Their message with munitions drown
And burst our ears.

And smash those folk, from God-knows-where,
Who simply fight and do not care,
But live among us - everywhere -
Till death appears.

Then, ‘blitz’ our homes and lay them low,
Entomb our dead so, at one blow,
As ‘Freedom’ spreads, we’ll learn to know
‘Liberty’s’ knell.

But spare ‘police’ and oil-men too,
Who toil to aid ‘allied’ air-crew,
In heaven-cleaving work they do
Above our Hell.

It’s not their fault they cannot smell
Exploded guts, or even tell
The scream of death from that of shell,
That tears at flesh;

And only think of furloughs free,
In Fort Worth or in Milwaukee,
And don’t look down, slight death to see,
But shower up fresh.

In unbombed homes, with loving wives,
They’ll tease out unentangled lives
For decades, till their turn arrives
To draw last breath.

So - friendly bombs, fall on us now
That, from our dust, may grow somehow,
Inhuman strength, enough to vow
Their choking death.

(With apologies to John Betjeman)

- though I suspect this is not the kind of serious response the Speccie is looking for - more bulldoze East Kilbride or dynamite Milton Keynes. They certainly wont want a call to plough under Chipping Norton - though come to think of it, that is not such a bad idea!

[John Whitworth]

You'll have to cut it to sixteen lines, Nigel.

Yes, you have put your finger on a problem. I thought of rubbing out the whole of Wales. Or Brussels perhaps. Or Islington. That's where Tony Blair's political career began. For which they all should die.

[Douglas G. Brown]

It has been brutally cold for the last week here. So, I have been staying indoors and watching VHS tapes and DVD's of old movies, which I had picked up for a buck each at a flea market this past summer. I have discovered why they were so cheap. So, my target of choice is Hollywood:

BOX OFFICE BOMBS

Box office bombs which were Hollywood’s worst
(Cinema’s progress abruptly reversed);
Terrible movies the public had cursed,
Like “Heaven’s Gate”.

Four dismal hours of tedious trash,
Black hole for forty-four million in cash;
Wrecking careers with a thundering crash;
Such was its fate.

Bleeding red ink like show business blood,
Critically panned as a miserable dud;
This bomb went the way of all Tinseltown crud;
Late-night T.V.

Now, to recover a million at least;
Like the revenge of some mythical beast,
Old box office bombs all get re-released
On D.V.D.

[Brian Allgar]

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on those
Who say “Like, innit”, or “He goes”,
And split infinitives in rows
As though they’re chopping logs.

Demolish those, both old and young,
Who think the past of “bring” is “brung”,
And are the reason why our tongue
Is going to the dogs.

Just atomize those Dougs and Petes
Through whose inane linguistic feats
The tongue of Shakespeare, Donne and Keats
Has come a nasty cropper.

Come, friendly bombs, drop from the sky;
Illiteracy deserves to die.
But kindly spare all those like I
What speak our English proper.

[John Whitworth]

Nice one, Brian. And you have noticed it doesn't have to be a place. Therefore:

Come Friendly Bombs (Pre-Brian Version)

Come friendly bombs and zap the rich,
Leave bankers dead in every ditch,
Zap Fred the Shred, Abramovich
And all their mates.

Zap them daily, zap them good,
Zap their every neighbourhood,
Their mansions up in Chorleywood
And their estates.

Zap the traitors, young and old,
Their bearer bonds, their tainted gold,
Their politicians bought and sold,
Of every label.

Zap these architects of fraud.
Give up to fire and the sword,
This nest of vipers, Gracious Lord,
And cleanse the stable.


Come Friendly Bombs (revised and, I hope, improved version)

Come friendly bombs and zap the rich,
Leave bankers dead in every ditch,
Zap Fred the Shred, Abramovich
And all their mates.

Zap the rats and zap them good,
Pulverize their neighbourhood,
Their mansions up in Chorleywood
And their estates.

Zap the traitors, young and old,
Their bearer bonds, their tainted gold,
Their politicians bought and sold,
Of every label.

Zap the architects of fraud.
Terminate their bed and board.
Strike with fire and the sword,
And cleanse the stable.

[Mary McLean]

Chorleywood's a lovely place -- I used to live there. In the servants' quarters, essentially. On reflection, yes, bomb it. Bomb it flat.

I think you're both right to focus on types of people not places. It felt uncomfortable to write about a place -- I'm sure Betjeman could never have done it after WWII.