(IN MANY CULTURES IN THE WORLD THERE CO-EXISTS WITH SANTA THE CONCEPT OF A NASTY SANTA WHO BEATS NAUGHTY CHILDREN.  IN FRANCE HE IS KNOWN AS PERE FOUETTARD)

My Santa you will never see upon your Christmas card,

The counterpart of Pere Noel: his brother, Pere Fouettard.

I know if I’m a good girl that his presents will be mine;

Le Pere Noel will visit me, avuncular, benign.

...

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(This started off as a letter to my kids when they got to that age when they no longer believed in Santa.  10 years later I made it into this poem)

Dear Sarah and Samantha,

It’s been a while I know since I came to Chapel Haddlesey to see you.  Ho ho ho!

I used to drop your presents off on wintry Christmas Eve; I’d scoff a sherry and mince pie then hurriedly we’d leave.  We wouldn’t want t...

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(An old post but too good not to repeat for my army of fans out there)

As the snow flies -

Cos it’s Christmas here in Haddlesey

And Santa sits underneath his tree

In the Grotto.  (In the Grotto)

Eating warm mince pies.

And if there’s one thing that he don’t need

It’s another squawking kid running off its lead

In the Grotto.  (In the Grotto)

As the kiddie cries.

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(Proud to be lowering the bar of elitist poetry...)

There was a girl that he adored

He planned to brag that he had scored

But we all know the bounder never got her;

He never got to climb upon

Cos Grainger went for Weasley Ron

She found his ginger features were much hotter;

Harry Poeter, Harry Poeter, Harry Poeter, Harry Poeter.

He’d had a longing in his tool

Fr...

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(We cremated my dad on Tuesday.  I closed the service with this short eulogy)

It falls to me to say a few words to bring this service to a close, some of which I wrote a few days ago and some I wrote this morning.

I wrote some this morning because I’d woke early.  I couldn’t sleep for thinking about my dad; several separate memories, some of them almost trivial.  One in particular was a...

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(40 years ago last week the world witnessed the most amazing boxing match)

I watched a giant on the screen in terror and in awe

The man who’d battered Frazier, Norton and so many more

I was 22 years old in 1974.

“Ali’s lost his speed these days. He’ll kill him” they all said

Foreman had the muscle tone, his biceps big as thighs

He had the best of Ali in his power, stren...

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Chewing nails on the edge of your seat

1-0 down as we head for defeat

We’re doing badly but then comes the surprise

It’s Nacer Chadli and we equalise

Here comes the story of young Harry Kane

The unsung hero of White Hart lane

Who gets us out another hole

He steps up with another goal

He’s a one-man Hurricane…..

His Brighton goal put us 2-0 up

He got a hat-tr...

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(Co-written with son-in-law-to-be Robert Shersby and based on a superior parody by York poet, Dave Gough)

Little Bastards, trick or treating

Little Bastards bloody cheating

Gave them sweeties, gave them money, gave them popcorn when they came

Little Bastards, trick or treating

Little Bastards need a beating

I got dog doo on my doorknob, I got dog doo

Just the same.

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(Something for Hallowe'en.  Thought I'd posted this previously but it must have been on FB)

He was playing in defence in a World Cup game

When he suddenly said, “What in Heaven’s name!”

The pain he felt made his blood run colder

He saw he was missing a chunk of his shoulder

It was The Gnash

It was The Monster Gnash

There was a clash

And he was rather rash

A dental s...

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Our Gert she’s not a drinker

To speak of any more

Just a glass at dinner time

She says that it’s the law.

Sometimes she’ll go for days on end

And never touch a drop

Apart from pints of lemonade

All with a lager top.

And if she’s doing Weightwatchers

Where booze counts as a “Sin”

She drinks that slim-line tonic

With just a splash of gin.

She c...

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You’ve had your vote

You’ve had your say

You spoke up for

The Forth and Tay

Would you reject

The status quo?

Independence?

But you said “No”

I’m sad to say

For our UK

The whole debate

Won’t go away

The nationalists

Will just want more

We’ve opened up

A running sore

Things can only get bitter

Can only bitter

From now on

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Every schoolboy knows where to find the school record.  It is, of course, in the bogs and is the proud mark of the boy legend who has pissed the highest.

What is less well known is that many schools have a second, lower mark.  Whereas the higher is marked “P” the lower is marked “J” for jizz.  (I believe that in public schools the letters are “U” for urination and “E” for ejaculation).

...

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Well since Sir Alex left us

Old Trafford’s citadel

Is not the Theatre of Dreams it was –

More like Heartbreak Hotel.

Well since old Fergie left us

The men have played like boys

We never blamed the players though

We just blamed David Moyes

We thought him a phoney

He talked such baloney

When he bought Fellaini

I could cry.

Well since young David lef...

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(I have just become a twerlie)

I’ve just acquired my bus pass

For reaching 62

So caught the service up to York

I thought, “That’s what I’ll do”.

I felt a bus pass virgin

Expecting to be barred

But no! the driver looked at me

And said, “Just swipe your card”.

We set off first to Selby

And picked up several more

But then it slowly dawned on me

As fo...

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(Played on my home-made 3-string petrol can guitar)

Well I’d bought my ticket and I’d paid my fare

I’m flying to Almeira and its beaches there

Yes, I’d bought my ticket and I’d paid my fare

It cost me just a tenner – that’s good old Ryan Air.

I paid another 50 as an Admin Fee

I’d booked online, so that’s another 3

The girl on the check-in says “The seats aren’t free.

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(In a rather dark humour so I thought to re-post this.  I do forewarn audiences this is a little shocking but they are always shocked)

The mission’s not impossible; it is not even hard;

I just enact the script for Him - a player, nothing more;

It’s happened in the future once it’s become His Word,

Which is to purge creation of the Babylonian Whore.

She worms her way throug...

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As I gazed out on St Ives beach, the sea, the sky, the sand, I never saw it coming as I went to lick my hand.

It cost me two pounds fifty, two scoops with clotted cream; but pleasure is so transient and joys not as they seem.

Of course, I saw it wheel away with its triumphal scream which seemed to mock, "You dozy get!  I've half-inched your ice-cream".

No, I never saw it coming and s...

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He worked the prison garden and always quite alone

For fear of those reprisals that prisoners deal their own;

He could not tell the police, the courts, for reasons had he none,

Not even to himself could he explain what he had done;

So vacantly he tends his plot and lives each day somehow

And nurtures his geraniums which are his babies now.

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We have a good arrangement between Our Gert and me

In carving up decision-making fair and equally.

I take all the Macro-stuff and sort all that lot out

While she sweats all the Little Stuff that I can do without.

By way of some examples I hope that you might glean

The basis of our partnership and sorts of things I mean.

I decide, for instance, the rise in interest rate

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Don't get your hopes up (A repost)

Hoping for our games in Rio so that we won’t have to fly

Hoping for a group of minnows so that we might qualify

Greece, Algeria

We needn’t fear ya

Anyone else and it’s “Goodbye”;

Jesus Christ Almighty! We’ve got Italy and Uruguay!

Perlo, Balotelli, Buffon – players you would pay to see

Forlan, Suarez and Cavani scare me shitless,...

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(The angel in the photo is from a window in Selby Abbey.  I want her to collect me when I throw a six)

Any guitarist will tell you once you drop a plectrum onto the floor it will never be found again; it is lost to the world forever.

Among God’s hierarchy of cherubims and seraphims, angels and archangels, one is tasked to make divine music, Virtuosa; and her instrument of choice is the ...

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(An homage to the North Yorkshire Moors Railway and Johnny Cash)

I hear the train guard’s whistle

The slamming of the doors

The fireman stokes the furnace

For the haul across the moors;

The driver lets some steam off

And sees the train guard’s flag

Then gets those big wheels turning

For the Goathland Drag.

You’re leaning from the window

As the platform eases...

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(EU asserts the "right to be forgotten")

There’s stuff you did as a student

With smokes that weren’t cigarettes

And photos that you might have posted

On FaceBook which cause you regrets.

A solitary night of misjudgement

Which memory still makes you sweat

The story that leaked of a threesome

With ladyboys met in Phuket.

The scandal of “Money for Questions”

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I’ve been a disappointment

To women all my life

Starting with my mother

And ending with the wife.

I’ve disappointed many of

The opposite fair sex

Who’ve grinned at my gazinta

(That’s what’s inside my kecks).

I’ve offered explanation

When they would cruelly mock

“You get it from the saddle;

It’s called a Cycling Cock”.

As anyone who cycles kno...

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(In 1190 York's Jews were hounded into Clifford's Tower which was, at that time, a wooden structure.  They were burned alive. History is unsure whether they took their own lives or whether the mob did it for them.  Until quite recently Jews were ordered by their faith to turn their faces away from the city as they passed it - something York shared in common with more notorious locations such as Au...

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Strange how time shapes the views we hold of events and, for the purposes of this piece, of people.

Consider the war criminal who had 180 Neapolitan POWs executed and whose funeral was shunned by most of his Admiralty peers.  His statue stands proudly in Trafalgar Square.

Or Richard the Lionheart, revered as the quintessentially “good” English king, but who bled his Exchequer dry prosecuting...

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The war between the sexes gets fought out in en-suites

But really!  What’s the issue girls?  I’m talking toilet seats.

We want it up to do our stuff; you want it down for yours

So if it’s down we lift it up (then pee on toilet floors).

So if you find we’ve left it up no need to frump and frown

Cos, sweetheart you’re a big girl now – just put the bugger down

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The question is “Do you need to score 100% on them all? Or is there a passmark?  Or can you afford to fail in three if you pass in four?”

These are important theological questions for me as currently I sit precariously balanced.

I’m not avaricious nor envious, and I have no pride.

On the downside there’s gluttony of course, slothfulness naturally and Noel Edmonds makes me angry.  Three ap...

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You can tell he

Loves the telly

For his chance to smarm

He would give an arm

And a leg;

Aimed to prove he

Was a smoothie

On our TV set

As he got the better

Of Nick Clegg;

Charming and urbane in his soft sell,

Weaving with his words his subtle spell

(What’s that smell?)

Nutty as a cake with fruit

But can’t wait to put in the boot

Nigel Farage, Black Shir...

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My dad wasn’t a clever man but he told me when I was young that if you shared all the money in the country out equally, inside a fortnight half of it would be back where it started.  I couldn’t see it at the time but I’ve started to understand the kernel of truth it holds.

Consider if in the great divi-up you got the “Citizen’s Share” of £100,000, what would you do with it?

Well, there’s onl...

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I am just a rich boy

David Cameron is my name

I’ve inherited my fortune

From Daddy who was something in the City;

So I detest

All those grimy handed workers

So bollocks to the rest…

When I left my home and my family

I was no more than a boy

For the college that is Eton

Then on to Brasenose, Oxford University;

Laying low,

Where I drank with Hooray Henry...

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Nothing prepared me for the gig at “t’Monkey”; not five years of Open Mic-ing, not ten years of living nearby at Penistone.

The first thing I noticed about the place was that it wasn’t there.  Located in the Barnsley Triangle near Thurgoland, land of sheep and Thurgs, it steadfastly refused to acknowledge the Google Map I had run off; pointlessly, as it happened as there were no street lamps to...

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(You would have to do a long day's march to meet anyone half as nice a man as Joe.  His 90th birthday was a week or two ago.)

Joe 90 is a carpenter and has been all his life

And like the good Lord Jesus works with saw and plane and knife

A quiet man from Haddlesey, both humble and with pride

His lifetime lived in modesty with much he should not hide.

In 1942 our Joe w...

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(As someone who campaigned for the Party during the 70's and 80's my views on the great man are a little more qualified than others)

Ben, the two of us need look no more

We both found what we were looking for

When I faced my darkest hour you helped me stay in power

So you my friend will see, you’ve got a friend in me.

All those times at Labour’s Conference

Causing rifts...

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For a number of years I’ve felt rather guilty when conversations turned to various “Grand Old Dames”, whom I declined to confess, did nothing for me at all.

I’m sure the fault/lack of taste or appreciation was all mine.  Irrespective of the size of our group I certainly always seemed to be in a constituency of one.

Take Tolkien for example; specifically, “Lord of The Rings”.  I think th...

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As Verger at Selby Abbey I’m somewhat embarrassed by my doubt about the existence of God. 
 

I’m not agnostic; I’m quite aware that no further empirical ‘evidence’ will remove my doubt. I’m what the pollsters term a “D/K”.

In all other aspects of life I consider myself a bit of a cynic but a conundrum puzzles me. Bill Bryson explains (“A Short History of Nearly Everything”),

“…if you w...

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I’ve been writing and performing now for something like five years, so I feel I have some experience in gauging Open Mic audiences.

You can carve them into as many types as there have been gigs – each one in its own way different.  But I detect some common denominators (and it’s my piece) so I’m going to “compare and contrast” two broad types – Spoken Word and Mixed Acoustic.

At Spoken Word ...

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Ever since I was a young boy I used the village hall

For voting in elections; I’ve voted in them all;

But I ain’t seen nothing like his incompetence and gall

That bloke with the glasses sure is a mean Slime-Ball.

In leadership he’s lacking and in charisma too

He doesn’t have our backing; he doesn’t have a clue:

Hated in the Staff Room as well as County Hall

That bloke wit...

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Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote

Writ by Jeff Chaucer and not Colle Porter

The Wiffe of Bathe exulted to famme

Provinge there’s nothinge atalle like a Damme

Talles of Olde Cantabrae reade by Olde Codgers

And eke ye musicale by Richarde Rodgers

She mouthed dirtie her talle so daintie

Extollinge those partes so sweete and quainte.

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(I'd be equally happy to take this bet with any of my left-wing friends on WOL, starting today)

I recall a conversation from 1968 with a fellow embryonic leftie.  It was the time of the Czech Uprising, and the Paris Student and Chicago Riots.

He argued these were the death throes of capitalism, heralding revolutionary socialism in the West.

I reckoned he wasn’t right in the head; tha...

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The old age dream is so hard to beat

I dream of Werthers for a treat

An end to swelling in my feet

And fitting teeth so I can chew my meat.

I want a bladder bag so that I might

Get to sleep right through the night.

They're on my head when I’ve lost my specs

In every queue I am always ‘Next’

The video gets me lost and perplexed

I try so hard but it won’t se...

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(Another in my little bunch of poems about the Tudors my daughter asked me to do as a project for her class at school)

King Philip of Spain

Should have taken the train

Then he’d have been contented;

But no!  Said he,

“We’ll sail the sea;

And anyway, trains aren’t invented”

But waves were tossing

His ships on that crossing

It found that it was harder

To sail ...

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(Robert Johnson, The King of the Delta Blues, is famously said to have "gone down to the crossroads"  ie he did a deal with the devil, selling his soul for fortune and fame.  I did the same, selling mine for my sexual attraction to women.

Played on my home-made 3-string cigar box guitar.)

I went down to the Crossroads

To meet him as I planned

I went down to the Crossroads

To me...

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(The second of my little series on the Tudors for my daughter doing a project on them with her class)

King Henry the Seventh was first to arrive,

Ascending the throne – 1485;

No doubt you’ll have heard

That Richard the Turd

Never left Bosworth alive.

His eldest son Arthur was accident prone

And died at 15 before he was full grown

The crown was passed on

To his ...

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On Monday my father gave me ten ducats.  I bought bread and cheese and meats and wine.

On Tuesday he gave me ten ducats.

On Wednesday he likewise gave me ten ducats.

On Thursday he gave me only five ducats and I said to him, “Father, I am entitled to ten ducats.  Why do you treat me so badly?”

My father said, “What do you do for your ten ducats other than receive them?”

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(Invited by No. 1 daughter to write a poem for the kids in her class studying the Tudors)

King Henry spent his entire life

Searching for the perfect wife;

He tried them big, he tried them small,

He tried out six wives all in all.

The first one’s name was Aunty Cath

He said, “I fink you’re ‘avin a laugh!”

So he got rid of her, of course

“’Ere’s six quid and your di...

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As dimmed the lights and rolled the drums

We waited the entertainer

The spotlight hit the centre ring –

Marvo, the Great Lion Tamer.

He twirled his cape and cracked his whip

As tension among us increased

And then, behold, we heard its roar

And saw the king of the beasts.

It was eight feet long and five feet high

And held to its stand by a chain

It gaped with...

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In the early 1990’s I was tasked by British Coal with organising the recruitment for the imminently opening North Selby Mine.

We preferred experienced transferees from closing mines, either locally or from further afield, like South Wales; but we also took on “Green Labour”.

I recall one occasion when I received a bunch of application forms which included two from Russia.  Bear in mind that ...

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(A true story of my first car)

The Morris 1800 motor car

Was not designed to travel very far;

It was the first one that I bought

And, sensibly, you might have thought

For ninety quid that I’d been caught

With “MUG” stamped on my head.

I sat a metre distance from Our Gert;

There was no opportunity to flirt;

So far apart I got no chance

To get my hand inside h...

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Me         Hello

Voice     Mr Coopey?

Me         It is.

Voice     Hello John.  I’m Colin.  Did you see Coronation Street?

Me         Er..No.

Voice     We’re conducting a survey into heating costs.

Me         You are?

Voice     Heating costs are one of the biggest outlays for British households, wouldn’t you agree?

Me         Er…Yes.

Voice     We at ThermaSealSolutions of...

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(Written as an old NUM member)

Who wants to be a millionaire?

I don’t

I’m proud of being doctrinaire

I won’t

Who wants the bother of a Barbican flat?

A free London flat? I wouldn’t want that!

Who wants sponduliks cash-in-hand?

I don’t

Who wants the Union’s hundred grand?

I don’t

Who cares about the membership’s fees?

I don’t

No I don’t

I did it all fo...

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That’s one more off the bucket list.

Mine’s a rather niche one of places I’ve been thrown out of. 

These might have been for fighting, vomiting, urinating, singing, not singing, protesting or any other of several healthy pursuits.

It’s included pubs, clubs, football grounds, restaurants, libraries, cinemas, and buses to name but a few.

But most unexpected was to add to this list the Fo...

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Our Gert went on ‘er holiwags Wi’ ‘er best mate called Jane

Two Girls Aloud to Egypt; It’s peace fo’ me again.

It’s egg n chips fo’ breakfast ‘N’ pie ‘n’ chips fo’ tea

You’re wond’rin’ 'bout me dinner - It’s fish ‘n’ chips fo’ me.

Of course I ‘ad a can or two; Wi’ breakfast it’s Long Life

Then pints o’ lager down the pub (You can, wi’out the wife).

I ‘ad, o’ course, a bet or...

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(When United Have Lost)

You’ve been the Premier League Champions 13 of 21 times

And during those seasons you didn’t considered that this was a crime.

You’ve challenged the best teams in Europe like Barca, Real Madrid;

And entertain hopes that in future you’ll match the achievements they did

But where do you go to my lovelies

When United have lost?

Where are your shirts yo...

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Hoping for our games in Rio so that we won’t have to fly

Hoping for a group of minnows so that we might qualify

Greece, Algeria

We needn’t fear ya

Anyone else and it’s “Goodbye”;

Jesus Christ Almighty! We’ve got Italy and Uruguay!

Perlo, Balotelli, Buffon – players you would pay to see

Forlan, Suarez and Cavani scare me shitless, actually.

We’ve no class

Can’t score...

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