I’m old enough that I have seen him live upon our telly

Though not in ‘58 or ‘62

A number 10 in blue and gold whose name we knew as Pele.

His grace suggested poetry of Byron, Keats or Shelley

A ballet dancer cast in gold and blue

(I learned this from the magazines and not from our old telly).

The players in opposing teams had legs that looked like jelly

”Go left? Go ...

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Let me bang the gong

For a cup that’s more strong

The choice for aficianados;

In Spain they guffaw

With a sneery haw-haw

When our coffee shops serve up cortados.

But while enjoying a jar

In some tapas bar

Or cantina that you might be stood in

If you’re in Benidorm

Don’t kick up a storm

At their putt at a real Yorkshire Pudding.

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1        England is still a little way off the top table yet.  You need to be a blind optimist to believe we could have beaten France or Argentina (or Brazil, for that matter).  Indeed, we had our chance against France and, true to our standing as “plucky Brits”, failed.

2        Harry Kane’s penalty taking is not infallible.

3        On their day anyone can beat or lose to an...

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Inspired by the Salvation Army I think I've given Gustav Holst and Christina Rossetti a run for their money.

In the bleak mid-winter

Doorway for a home

Cold and wet and hungry

Christmas Day alone;

Veteran of country’s wars

With PTSD

Nation of the caring

Nation of the free.

In the bleak mid-winter

Low as low can get

Simply one of many

Slipping through t...

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Something "safe" to appease the censors.

I was surfing the channels of late night TV

But none of the channels for “adults” were free

There seemed nothing else that’s of interest to me

So I thought I might give a bash

To an half hour of Bangers and Cash.

For those unfamiliar this is the tale.

The programme is set in Thornton le Dale

Where auctioneers Mathewson’s of...

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I’ve heard it said a few times before that if you’re unsure when it’s “bin day” have a gander over the road at the old gimmer there.

That’ll tell you.

It’s the highlight of a pensioner’s week is bin day.

And now I’ve become an old gimmer myself I can vouch for this.

On occasions, if we’re going away for a few days for a little rest and recoopeyration from the frenzied lives we lead, I’...

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At small and amateur league clubs throughout the North you’ll see

A game in which new codes of courtesy have been applied

Where stickered posters all implore, “Respect the Referee”.

But donkey’s years of habit aren’t erased so easily

Despite attempts to gentrify the game they’ve lately tried

At small-town clubs throughout the North the evidence you’ll see.

Intermittent ...

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I’m working my way through Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and, I have to say, I’m finding it quite challenging.  Mainly, because although the narrative is straightforward enough, dialogue is written as a structural and literal translation of what the Spanish would have been.

Hence there are sentences like,

“And thee, Roderigo, can’st thou say thou hast never a woman struck?”

I foun...

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I think it's not too early for a Crimble song

Now Christmas time is coming – it’s goodwill to all mankind

And some hope that nice presents in their stocking they might find

But, Santa please, I beg you though unlikely as it seems

It’s nine points over Christmas that I dream of in my dreams.

The wife would like the kitchen done but secretly I moan

“That’s too much brass”...

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Deutschland, Deutschland Uber Taxi

Take them to the aerodrome

Deutschland fu$ball packed und boarding

On Lufthansa flight back home.

Klose, Klinsmann, Rummenigge,

Beckenbauer und Muller too

Vier times champions, Uber Alles

Vier more painful years for you.

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I’m puzzled by your pedigree

I wonder if you’re refugee

What with your skin so ebony

So where do you come from?

And by the riot of your dress

You clearly don’t show Britishness

So I’m prepared to make a guess

At where you’re really from.

Perhaps from Bechuanaland?

Or maybe it is Swaziland?

I’ve got it!  It’s Nyasaland

Is that where you come from?

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Before you put them away neatly coiled last year you checked them and they worked.

You took them out this year and they have inextricably entangled themselves; and they don’t work.

You wonder why, but you needn’t.  The answer is in the name, Fairy Lights.  It is, of course, the fairies who make them work.

But where ever there are fairies there are hobgoblins and it is their work to s...

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They’re blaming the Russians, they’re blaming the war

They blame the pandemic we suffered before

They’re blaming Liz Truss who’s been shown the door

But no-one dare blame for this gloom

The elephant in the room.

They say the supply of labour’s too few

They’re blaming the energy companies too

They’re blaming inflation – well that’s nothing new

But no-one dare blame...

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I couldn’t get into all that sentimental schmaltz that pervaded our media a month or two ago.  I’m talking about the queen’s death.  Echoes of Princess Di and all that, which equally left me in disinterest.  But I did gauge that it wasn’t quite the right time to post anything on the matter which was less than self-flagellatory.

See, I’m not an avid monarchist.  But, equally, I’m not an avi...

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I quickly learned that working for the National Coal Board built up loyalties.  I suppose it came from an environment where men (-no women worked underground by law-) might depend on one another for their lives.  I imagine the same will be true of the armed services or the police and other sectors which operated “on the edge” – where danger, injury or even death might always be around the corner.

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I never part with money

To mendicants I meet

Who shelter in shop doorways

Along the city streets.

I fear they wouldn’t  spend it

In escaping from the rain

But rather on White Cider

Or a hit of crack cocaine.

But happily I’ll shell out for

A homeless man who begs

On a voucher for a meal and drink

That you can buy from Greggs.

You might not like what I w...

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I never used to think about mortality much, not mine at any rate.  I had the whole of my life in front of me.  I’ve still got the whole of my life in front of me but, perversely, there’s three quarters of it behind me.

It isn’t that I hide from the Grim Reaper’s scythe every day; it’s that bodily functions I used to take for granted start to mock me.  And I’m not talking about the expected ones...

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Not exactly "remembrance" in the conventional sense, but worth a sortie into the murderous mathematics of military history.  A lethal game of rock, paper, scissors.

The foundations on which we built Empire

Are scarcely a secret to share

The offensive force of musketry fire

The defensive strength of the square.

The advantages of the musketry line

Are best learned mathema...

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(There's a bit of slipping on the audio)

…Record I bought sits out on a limb with other peoples’ – the common denominator to most of theirs being an “embarrassment” factor.

Take my mate Colin, for example.  He’s a retired fitter who spent donkey’s years working underground for the Coal Board.  As solid and upstanding a bloke as you could meet in a long day’s march.

But I suspect he m...

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Where was I last night on Halloween? (A hardy perennial re-post)

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 through history, corrupted to the core;

In Adam’s fated fall from grace h...

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Something a little disturbing for Halloween.

In those halcyon days of public executions hanging people was a bit of a hit-and-miss affair.  The “science” of determining the drop needed, based on the height and weight of the condemned man or woman, was at best rudimentary and at worse not used. The result was that rather than a quick death from a broken neck the condemned would slowly and p...

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Who’d’a believed it?  Just a few short weeks ago he was out in the wilderness –

Then lo! Behold the implosion of Disastrussonomics.

Predict...

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Jesus! I can't write fast enough to keep up with events on the ground.  She's gone!

I gave my solemn oath

To you for Growth, Growth, Growth

I couldn’t then conceive

That it was only make believe.

The higher rate of income tax

I pledged that I’d relax

No VAT for tourists to GB

And income tax at 19p

I promised that I’d lose

The duty on your booze

And that I...

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So, it's starting to piss me off - the current fashion for starting off an answer with "So". Its taken over from random "Likes" in limited vocabularies. So, pack it in!

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Now I’ve woke up

To this stark reality

That she needs a fall-guy and that stooge is me.

Now I’ve woke up

To that’s why she’s brought me back,

Not to share the blame but stab me in the back.

Now I’ve woke up

Realising what I am

I’m simply Truss’s sacrificial lamb

And I have flown 5000 miles

I had no time to even pack

I’ve raced back so this lousy bi...

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It’s one of those things that’s never occurred to me before, but the onset of dementia in my mother-in-law prompted the thought.  What happens to old spies?

I can’t see any reason why those previously engaged in the Security Services should be immune from its clutches.  And how great a risk is it to a nation to have thousands of spies, each privy to secrets of varying national importance, stumb...

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It pleases me to see black and brown players of African, Asian and Caribbean heritage playing at all levels of sport.  It pleases me.

It pleases me to see couples, one white one black, with kids of mixed race in tow.  It pleases me.

It pleases me to see black and brown politicians at the highest levels of government.  It pleases me.

It pleases me to see them at all levels of society.

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Hot on the heels of the news story of the chess cheat who allegedly had vibrating anal beads "about his person" comes this news item of cheating in a big money fishing match in America.

Your cheatin’ carp’s

A scam that’s new

But Your Cheating Carp

Will tell on you.

Your Cheating Carp

At first prevails;

Your Cheating Carp

Has bust the scales.

Your Cheating ...

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I can’t dispel the image of shit flushing down the khazi

Or handbrake turns to spin around a double decker bus

Fear not, though, for embarrassment is not afflicting Kwasi

And neither is it suffered by Liz Truss.

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If this news item has passed you by, I suggest you google “Chess Cheat”.

For cheating at the game of chess

There’s nothing better supersedes

Electronic codes my team

Sends my vibrating anal beads.

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It's Glasgow or it's Liverpool

That's hosting where it's at;

But I shall not be watching

This Festival of Tat.

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After the armies moved on, either routed or doing the routing, the field would be left to the looters.  Soldiers, no doubt, but also camp followers such as wives, prostitutes and baggage train minders, along with any locals.  They’d loot the dead, dying and wounded of anything of value – coins, clothing, weaponry, rings, boots.  Even teeth were pulled out with pliers, which for years were known as...

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I’ll tell you what pisses me off, seeing as you’re interested; that’s the scrotes who aren’t disabled that park in Blue Badge parking spots.

Now I know what you’re thinking.  “How do you know they’re not disabled? Not all disabilities are visible, you know”.

Ok.  I buy this. And I have to say that I’m not above the hypocrisy of parking there myself when other places aren’t available.  Take l...

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Well worth the re-post today.

You’ve seen this happen times before

You’ve read the script, you know the score

You know it’s coming once again

From Heung-min Son to Harry Kane.

The ever-present threat is there

It’s peril to ignore this pair

A quick glance up – the pass is on

From Harry Kane to Heung-min Son.

From England and from South Korea

Respect for ...

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My father-in-law is an avid gardener.  He visits local garden  centres at least three times a week, and always for a scone and tea lunch.  You might think this is a bit obsessive or even sad but it lends structure to their week and gives my mother-in-law, who has dementia, some sort of physical and mental stimulation.

Quite frequently he’ll also buy a plant or two.  Some might be bargains but s...

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Charles has got the crown and throne

The "line" runs through his sprogs

William gets the Prince of Wales;

I get the bastard dogs!

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Serena Serena, you deserve your rest

Serena Serena, you truly were the best

Those of us who saw you

Can count ourselves as blessed.

Serena Serena, you win my vote

Serena Serena, for you they made the quote

You let your play speak for you

You truly are the GOAT.

Serena Serena, the queen when in your prime

Serena Serena, for 20 years sublime

Unrivalled fo...

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The beautiful games been my passion

I’m one of the game’s connoisseurs

And now as I approach my departure

One more fan will be lost to the Spurs.

I’ve followed them since I was a nipper

I’ve idolised Smith, Greaves and Kane

Klinsman, Mackay, Danny Blanchflower

At the Mecca that was White Hart Lane.

But now at the end of my lifespan

Before I let my last breath g...

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Inspired by the sight as I picked them up of my wife, daughter and her friend in Beverley on Race Day.

It’s Ladies Day at Ponte Racecourse

Fine sights for a young man to see

Girls nobbed up just like circus ponies

A spectacle gaudy but free

And clutching their glass of Prosecco

The Pontefract Shagnasty Three.

They cut quite a dash did our threesome

Short skirts ba...

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We've just bought a holiday home near Beverley and it's been our misfortune to have to travel the Goole Bridge on the M62 while it is being (invisibly, it seems) repaired.

I’m looking down upon it

But the waters barely move

The tide has turned

The river’s barely flowing

I’m waiting in a line of cars

I’m 60 feet above

The Ouse is moving quicker

Than I’m going.

There’...

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Recently I’ve been reading a number of the Terry Deary’s “Horrible History” series.  And I do think there are lessons we can learn and apply today.  In particular, in the way we deal with punishment.

I like the idea, for instance, of burning witches at the stake (Nadine Dorries springs to mind); hang, draw and quartering (those Loose Women); or abscisis genitalibus (Jeremy Clarkson). 

...

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I wrote the original for that Barnsley nightingale Olivia Newton John but bloody Bob Dylan and George Harrison stole it from me.

If it wa’n’t fo’thee

There wuntav ever bin no Gre-ase

Nor “Tek Us Om” ‘ad bin rele-ased

I’s’ll tell thi that fo’ free

If it wa’n’t fo’thee

If it wa’n’t fo’thee

I’d ‘av none o’ this songs to lampoon-in

Wi wunta sin them pantaloo-ins

Th...

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Seems like only yesterday I left all that behind

No more lousy rat-race, commute or daily grind

I started work from university

At Grimethorpe I was almost 23

A 20-year stint with the NCB

A green nerd

But now work is just a four letter word.

But like thousands that I worked with I survived redundancy

So wearing my best suit and tie I sold consultancy

The money and th...

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Currently, me and Our Gert are speccing out buying a static caravan; you know, the big buggers which infest the likes of Ingoldmells and Cleethorpes.  We’ve lugged a touring caravan behind us for nigh on forty years but have decided it’s time to change.

Now, most people who tread this path do it because they are happy to keep going back to a particular destination or because they’re too old and...

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May thi brass

Stay firmly fixed

In thi wallet

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“Send them back home” or “Turn their boats round”

Or “Pack them all off to Rwanda”

“We don’t need them here to dilute England’s stock

This way we will make Britain grander”,

How have we become so uncharitable

To those who would flee from abroad

When once we would open our arms to such folk

And welcome them into our ward?

The Flemings, the Huguenots or Europe’s Jew...

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Worldwide fans will know that I have no issue with others enjoying whatever gender identification they like.  But to pretend that former males should be eligible to compete in elite women's sports is nonsense.  How many former females do you find wanting to compete in men's elite sports?  I wonder why.

(Let’s go girls!)

I’m in the heats tonight; my swimsuit’s fitting tight;

Ther...

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Given the life I’ve led, I’ve been fortunate indeed to have picked up a criminal record for only one offence.

It was the day Ipswich beat Arsenal in the FA Cup Final of 1978 – an otherwise excellent day.  We’d gone out for a curry that night and the idea emerged between the four of us to do a runner without paying.  My mate’s wife and me left first, casually strolling to the door and shouting v...

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Danny McAndless was our Physics teacher when I was at the grammar school in the 1960’s.  He’d been someone’s Physics teacher at the grammar school since the 1860’s.

In one of the lessons he tried to explain to a bunch of bored 15 year-olds how the whereabouts of apparently random particles could be determined on the basis of probability by Brownian Motion.

Now I’m in my 70’s I wish I’d paid ...

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So you thought that wildfires and flooding were an issue for the likes of Australia and California, or Bangladesh and the Maldives.

Is that why you ridiculed a little Swedish girl?

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I'd always been envious of those people who could boast a fashionable "syndrome" or "disorder" to explain behaviour the rest of us would get a clip round the ear from our dads for.  But not any longer.  I too now have my own syndrome - Restless Leg Syndrome or RLS for short.  It's worst for me at night and I can only mitigate against it by sitting up in bed.

This old age dream isn’t hard t...

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I’m a big fan of Terry Deary’s “Horrible Histories” books.  They’re a brilliant gateway for kids (like me) to get into history.

In “The Measly Middle Ages” he finishes in his epilogue by recounting how Richard III was killed at Bosworth Field in 1485 and his body stripped and paraded in public for two days.  (Probably not in the car park).

This set me pondering how we manage democratic succe...

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No sooner had I written this than others joined the dance!.

I thought I saw a line of self-serving chaps

There was Tugendaht, Zahawi, Javid and Grant Shapps,

Mordaunt, Sunak and Badenoch plus

Jeremy Hunt, Braverman, Liz Truss;

Each one making the most of their stance

Pushing and shoving in the Tory Dance.

They distanced themselves from Johno’s legacy,

Emphasing ea...

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Apologies to The Ivy League

“I’m being dragged from here

Kicking and screaming

I can hear the jeers

Of those who’ve been scheming;

It took a crowbar to get me out”

How the greasy piglet would shout!

Huffing and squealing

He’s kicking and screaming.

“I just blame the herd

(Oh, how I fought ‘em)

Sod those lousy turds

I’ll hang on till Autumn

They’ll ...

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In case you are new to this revelation, here is a re-post of mine from 2019.

Bumbling Boris Johnson is surrounded by his lies

That he can’t lie straight in bed should come as no surprise

Cos he’s a liar

He’s surrounded by his lies.

The Times sacked him for making up a quote with bogus words

And Brexit has been stuffed by those “French turds”.

 “We shouldn’t spa...

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I know. I know. It's not actually a ballad.

I’ve laughed till my sides split at some of the shows

No longer on the TV

The Beverley Hillbillies, Morecambe and Wise,

And Open All Hours are just three.

Then Gavin and Stacey, One Foot in the Grave,

The Young Ones and Benidorm too,

And then there’s Blackadder, of course, Benny Hill

And Porridge to name but a few.

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To start the day like a champion

You should start the day with a shag,

A hand-lowered shite of 6lb weight,

A can of Long Life and a fag.

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The Longest Day it is today

For all from Denver to Bangkok;

"Maybe for them" I say. "But me?

I didn't get up till 9 o'clock".

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In less politically correct times it was an icon of Wakey, to be mentioned in the same sentence as often as not as Batley Variety Club. You got exactly what it said on the tin - fish, chips and accompanying strippers. Not a classic combination I grant you, but it made Heppy a rich man.

It's not uncommon these days to find bouncers on the doors

Of Wakey pubs where bovver might erupt

W...

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You ask me to give up the reins of the job I love

You ask me to jump before push comes to shove

But I tell the Party and the 148

Let’s clear the slate

And end debate

You better move on.

You ask me to draw a line under those who’ve died

Forget that we couldn’t be at their bedside

When you have partied and then baldly lied

We couldn’t hide

The tears we cried

“Y...

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I’ll hang on to what I’ve got

I’ll ride out these bastards’ plot

Something’s bound to turn up for me

I’ll hang on, hang on, hang on to what I’ve got.

Fuck them all – the 148

I shall never abdicate

They underestimate my ego

I’ll hang on, hang on, hang on to what I’ve got.

I don’t care what people say

The precedent of Theresa May

Just like shit sticks to a bla...

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It hung in the outhouse along with the peggy-tub and mangle.  I can’t remember what else was in there but it sat between the pantry and the outside lav.

I find it hard to believe it was zinc – more likely tin, but it was full sized and big enough that me and my sister could sit at either end.

We all had one then except Edie-West-Next-Door, who had converted their outhouse into an internal ba...

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My formative drinking years took place in Nottingham – Hucknall, to be precise.  It was one of the few areas of the country where milds rivalled bitters as the working man’s drug of choice.  (The other ”hotbed” being the West Midlands.  Lager, usually with a dash of lime or black, was for the ladies.)

Nottingham was particularly well served for independent brewers, all now closed or subsumed by...

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I wrote this yesterday, the day of Sunak's special measure and the day after the Sue Gray disclosures but didn't get chance to post it until today.

And when I see the news he points one way

“Don’t look over there to yesterday.

Just look away today

From all that stuff about Party Gate.

It’s cost me billions to brush over all my tracks

With Windfall Tax”.

For several m...

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“We’ve tears still to be cried at night; we’ve hands still to be wrung;

The pain is now and ever for the grieving of our young

Your talk of “thoughts and prayers” sticks like bile on our tongue.”

As every white boy redneck in a truck or on a farm

Brandishes a metal penis nary care nor qualm

And bellows his assertion on his right to carry arms.

“Try not to be so selfish ...

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I vaguely recollect a story, maybe from the Bible, about a son and his father.  The nub of it was the two occasions the son had cried when his father had hit him.  The first time was when he was a child and because it hurt.  The second time was when he was a young man and it didn’t, signifying that his father was now weak and dying.

I have a personal recollection which mirrors this.

I can’t ...

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A thousand years will not expunge this stain

Nor sate the Devil’s craven appetite

All Glory to the People of Ukraine

He smiles as children speak their prayers in vain

And laughs as Death reaps Innocents in flight

A thousand years will not expunge this stain

Lamenting in excruciating pain

As only mothers, daughters or wives might

All Glory to the Women of Ukraine

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I've often heard Facebook described as an echo chamber.  But a better description by Stephen Fry is a "lavatory wall".

My intellect’s mapped out on Face Book

My wisdom, opinion and wit

In time to be thought of a Bible

The Great Works of Coopey as Writ.

I started my scholarship early

By scribbling on lavatory walls

Some say that I haven’t developed that much

Or pro...

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The kids bought me a year's subscription to Ancestry for my 70th birthday earlier this week. (I know what you're thinking; you're thinking "Surely not!").  I've spent a few happy hours researching my ancestry and I thought I'd post this poem about the night my grandma died.  Sarah Ann Hallam (1886-1970).

My mother was with her the night she died.

She’d sat a vigil in turn with her ...

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I thought I could afford her by mail order – she’s my Living Doll

I got the mag to send me bendy Wendy – their best Blow-Up Doll

She’s a gummy granny with a fanny and a real bum-hole

She’s my fornicating and fellating Blow-Up Doll.

I thought I’d better line her sweet vagina back at our hotel

But I overdid the lube with three full tubes of KY gel

When I went to grope she shot...

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We’re hoping to see you returning again

To give us your hard-earned bunce

So make sure that you gamble responsibly though

Don’t lose all your outlay at once.

The last thing we want for our business

Is a punter that goes to the wall

Depleting our customer numbers

And not good for cash-flow at all.

Our public position is “Take Control”

And “Gamble Responsibly” to...

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“John Coopey?”

“Yes. Can I help you?”

“Certainly, sir.  Would you mind stepping this way”

“I’m not with you.  What for?”

“It would be in your best interests to come quietly, sir.  We wouldn’t want to have to use the cuffs”

“Cuffs!?  What am I supposed to have done?”

“I’m afraid there’s been a complaint”

“About me ?  What complaint?”

“You are the John Coopey that posts on a ...

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A re-vamp of a George Formby classic tailored for Goole Open Mic next month.

Now I know I’m not handsome nor ever used to be

But the girls I like at Open Mic would not look twice at me

Now I see other fellas that’s as ugly as a frog

Holding hands with ladies in the hope they’ll get a snog

But if women like them like men like those

Why don’t women like me?

What can the att...

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I was watching that film with Kevin Costner the other night, “Dances with Wolves” when it occurred to me that Indian monikers (Red Indian, that is, not Asian Indian) hang on youthful vitality – “Runs with the Wind”, “Slayer of Bears”, “Popper of Pills” etc.

(As an aberrant departure from this train of thought I am perplexed by the dumping of “Red Indian” into the trash can marked “Political Cor...

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Well actually No.  It was “Days of Beer and Fags”.  My student days I’m talking about.

I was at Durham in the early 70’s where I “studied” Politics, among other things.

I’d applied to do History but asked as soon as I got there if I could swop to Philosophy and Politics.

“No problem” they said.

As it happens I failed the Philosophy 1st Year Exam.  Friends will no doubt find that astoni...

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(Written as I paid a visit there earlier this week.  Fellow old gits may recall The Temperance Seven's "Winchester Cathedral").

In Chester Cathedral

Bo-wody-o-do

I prayed for Ukraine,

Bo-wody-o-do

I prayed for the end of

Bo-wody-o-do

Their tears and their pain.

I lighted a candle

To end this insane

Blood letting and murder;

I prayed for Ukraine.

I...

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War!  Yeah.  Huh.

What is it Good For?

Absolutely Nothin’

Except for Boris Johnson.

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Whisper its name softly

And have some respect for the dying

Where once it was empty but boastful

It's now too weak to start trying

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We don’t need no Moderation

We don’t need no verse control

No literary prohibition

Exercised by Woke Patrol

Hey, Censor!  Leave our verse alone

The ghost of Mary Whitehouse stands guard over all.

Self-appointed, they defend us

Assiduous in moral toil

For fear a naughty word offend us

Which makes us all break out in boils

Hey, Censor!  Leave our verse alone

The...

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I was commissioned to write the theme tune for this franchise.  I was unsuccessful; they went for John Williams's "Hedwig's Theme".  No matter; I am comforted in the knowledge that mine was the far superior.  A second re-post (but you can't get enough of quality).

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 ne...

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It was my dad’s invention; leastways he never told me he’d heard of it some place else.

Picture a load of lousy rotten kids around a cake. 

How to cut it up so no-one complained they’d got a small piece?

Answer?  Fred’s Formula.

Kid No.1 is about to cut the first slice.

“Aha” you say, “the greedy little git will cut himself a big one”.

He might.

But enter Fred’s Formula.

“...

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You’ve seen this happen times before

You’ve read the script, you know the score

You know it’s coming once again

From Heung-min Son to Harry Kane.

The ever-present threat is there

It’s peril to ignore this pair

A quick glance up – the pass is on

From Harry Kane to Heung-min Son.

From England and from South Korea

Respect for them then turns to fear

Their curre...

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This was one of the formative experiences of my early years and compulsive viewing on the telly for kids of my age in the 1960’s.

It was a “sci-fi” featuring an American nuclear submarine (a super-sub before the days of Liverpool’s David Fairclough).  It was called Seaview, which always struck us as a bit odd; why call an American nuclear submarine after a B&B in Filey?

Anyway, despite not r...

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For Sale:

Two-bedroomed bungalow.  Town centre location.  Three downstairs rooms.  Small garden with its own Grade II listed building.

I expect prospective buyers would not anticipate the Grade II Listed building would be a public pissoire in their front garden.

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Endless, endless skies

Seas of rippling golden wheat

The yellow and blue

Shadrach and Meshach

Kharkov the new Babylon

Spirit doesn’t burn

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From this distance that post-Edwardian world seems locked in a time of slow serenity.

Privileged scholars in whites punting down the Cam

Horse-drawn carriages in sepia brown trotting down the Mall

Flat-capped men smoking outside the factory gates

Nothing could change their world.

And we?

We thumb our Playstations

Saunter around garden centres

Share the gossip at the sc...

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When war was fun. A re-post.

A chant I have not heard for almost 60 years.

Playtime was fun and frightening and formative at primary School.  It was a Boys School and play reflected that.

Ad hoc games of football were being played up and down and across the yard.  Picture Manchester United playing Manchester City at Old Trafford while Tottenham played Arsenal across the pitch and sev...

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It's never the wrong time for a delicately constructed villanelle.

I’m pretty sure it was them old Spam Fritters

From out the freezer – 6 months out of date

Which caused my present painful bout of squitters.

I hear your childish sniggers and your titters

While you make fun of something that I ate

I tell you though it must have been Spam Fritters

I’ve often eaten...

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For a long time now I’ve been more than comfortable with the targeted pop-up adverts thrown at me over the internet.  But whereas I once used to have my pick of Ukrainian beauties desperately seeking good-looking dudes like me for husbands, I now attract more age-related ads. – “Release Your Pension” and such like.

However I am even more appreciative of TV ads more recently doing the same.  Aft...

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Spectating on in impotence we wring our hands in vain

While patriotic blood will spill on soil of steppe and plain;

It’s left unto the partisans and Cossacks of Ukraine

To resurrect the ghost of Taras Bulba.

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I see you’ll all be taking more time off from work this June

For this you’re in Her Majesty’s debt

But now that I’m retired and don’t need to go to work

That’s another bloody day off I won’t get.

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To clear misunderstanding and pretence of false grandstanding

Let me state quite candidly I’ve got no time for cats;

If this your hopes should shatter I still think

“Cats’ Lives Matter”

And find myself on Tiddles’ side and not that other twat.

I saw it on the telly where some chap gave one some welly

He thought it was hilarious and gortled at his joke;

But it’s him I’d li...

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Critics of my many masterpieces have described them as "mere doggerel".  I disagree.  I aspire to "mere doggerel".

Come gather people wherever you roam

And admit that my parodies made you all groan

You’ve suffered them bravely and stifled your moans

But secretly felt they were mangy

But now I’m relenting; I’d like to atone

For my rhymes they are a-changin’.

The blogs...

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Lay me in this sacred cavern

By the softly surfing sea

Let that dank and distant whisper

Ease in me this fatal fire.

Tell the Beast I bear no malice

She and I are of one flesh

Mine to gorge the gulls and shore crabs

Hers to feed my bretheren.

Can you hear the Old Folk calling

From the shadows of the cave?

In the surf that swells the sea-shore?

In the crying of the ...

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I sat in a well-known coffee house today and conducted my own little survey while I supped mine of customers wearing masks as they entered.  Three wore them, 23 didn’t.

You can catch anything you want

At Alice’s Restaurant;

Signs placed on the entrance ask

“Kindly please wear your mask”;

These polite requests simply all fell flat

Customers that entered seemed to think “Fuck ...

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It’s all the rage these days – the outcry against bullying.  Everyone has stories of them being bullied; but no-one was a bully.  Curious that, isn’t it?

Well I was.

Don’t get me wrong, I was bullied too, but that’s not the entire thrust of this post.

Grammar school was a rich vein to mine for this.  “Quad-ing” some kid’s cap was an early example.  Second and third year boys would prowl t...

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I was 10 years old the last time.

I didn’t understand but my mam and dad were terrified.

It was Game Theory played out to perfection by the Kennedy brothers and, less commonly acknowledged, by Nikita Khrushchev.

At any rate, history records it as a “game”.  If the outcome had been different perhaps it would not be viewed as such – if, indeed, there were any of us left to have “history”.

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I used to try at Christmas Do’s

To sit beside some loser,

A woman who was desperate

With morals even looser;

With luck I’d get my end away

At worst that I might goose her.

These days I try to sit beside

A woman who’s much thinner

And if I manage this I’ll think

That I am on a winner;

Cos greedy sods like me all know

She’ll not eat all her dinner.

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I read about the bombings of civilians in Iraq

In Yemen or in Syria or similar attack

The carnage and the horror that rained down from overhead

Because, though, they weren’t English they were only slightly dead.

I well recall those Chinese workers who picked shells that day

Toiling for their gangmasters by light on Morecambe Bay

Who’d underestimate too late how fast the tide...

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This is dead boring.

I saw that film in ’59 that’s called “Some Like It Hot”

With Marilyn Monroe – pure movie gold;

But in the interests of diversity these days we’ve got

To recognise that there’s “Some Like It Cold”.

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