[Jerome Betts]

Hope that's a winner, Douglas, Much more entertaining than the original.
You remind me that AEH started life versifying for the Temperance movement, all that later stuff about malt and Milton notwithstanding

O lad, rest unacquainted
With what they call 'a round';
Plain water, cool, untainted,
Lays no chap underground.
From old men stooped and slippered
To youths once tall and true,
Ale's fumes have kippered
The brains of not a few.

And fellows that go barmy
Fare on to fearful ends;
They sign up for the army,
Or cut their throats, or friends.
Ay, lads who fill their crops in
The smoke-room or the snug
Oft take last drops in
The county jug.

[Douglas G. Brown]

Jerome,

Thanks for your approval; you've really nailed Housman's style with your piece. I didn't know that AEH began as a member of the cold water army, nor that the UK had much of a temperance movement (since most of the good liquor Americans drank during Prohibition was smuggled in from Scotland and Canada).

I'm hoping some Hemingway scholar on the 'sphere can up with something in the same vein.

[Rob Stuart]

Slough Revisited by John Betjeman

Come tourists and descend on Slough!
Pick up your phones and book right now.
They welcome everyone, and how.
It’s a delight!

I promise you, this town’s the tops;
It’s got a park, an ice rink, shops.
The entertainment never stops
(Except at night).

The local painters choose to scrawl
Their works on every outside wall,
So arty types will have a ball,
I guarantee.

It’s easy too, I’m told, to get
Hooked up with some debauched brunette
Who’s not an intellectual threat.
Now where’s my fee?

[Adrian Fry]

Larkin on Punk Rock

Bald, half deaf and almost four parts drunk,
I stick the wireless on to find John Peel,
A Northerner who plays the latest punk.
His tone reflecting how I often feel.

The Sex Pistols, he plays, The Undertones,
The Damned, XTC, Splodgenessabounds –
And suddenly I’m glad to have come home
To such base yet invigorating sounds.

There’s sink estate graffiti in their words,
The music is all insolently crude.
Yet something deep inside me half concurs:
A nihilistic truth is being pursued.

I once heard just such primal noise in jazz,
A kind of desperate throwing up of all,
But now that’s merely antique razzamatazz
Compared with something caustic by The Fall.

[John Whitworth]

The boozy masters at my Scottish School used to lunch at Darling's Temperance Hotel near the East End of Princes Street. And came back all the better for it. There is a song that goes (in part) 'Lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine'.

What about. G.K. Chesterton in support of Gay Marriage. Just saying.

[Matt Q]

Adrian, I loved Larkin on punk!

John, I couldn't resist.


John Whitworth: Unlikely Champion

“You take that back, you cad!”, I cursed.
"You’re being rude about free verse.
You joke, you knock; I’ll stand for neither.
Don’t ever disrespect vers libre."



Philip Larkin: This be the reverse

They love you loads, your mum and dad.
.....They may not say so, but they do.
And when you’re happy, they are glad.
.....They only want what’s best for you.

So have a kid, they’re so much fun.
.....They’ll fill your life and stretch your heart.
Have two or three, don’t stop at one!
.....But hurry up and make a start.

Go find a husband or a wife,
.....for death steals nearer every day.
And hand on life to other life,
.....or you’ll have pissed your own away.

[Martin Parker]

Noel Coward on Council Flats

The Council Flats of England were built with the intent
of giving lower classes somewhere cheap to rent.
Though without a Moat and Banquet Hall
God only knows how they live at all
in such a tiny space.
But it keeps them in their place.

But soon the wicked Tax Man will force the rich to sell
all our family silver and our Stately Homes as well.
And after that we'll all reside
in whatever the Council can provide.
So, though their stairwells smell of fart
and are covered in highly offensive Art,
we'll stand by the Council Flats of England.

[Ann Drysdale]

Martin - I've just sung that at the top of my voice. Oh, Hurrah!