John (The Hat) Keenan was a local miscreant of some renown.  He was recently found dead in his cell in Armley Prison.  He was a drugs dealer, but more Arthur Daley than Pablo Escobar.  The drugs he smuggled and dealt in were hookey Indian Viagra.  I wrote this homage to him a few years ago.

 

There’s a bloke goes down our pub – he’ll be prob’ly scoffing grub

With the chips he eats he’ll never be a lean ‘un

On his head his trilby’s sat, so he’s known as “John the Hat”

With his motto, “I can get it” – he’s John Keenan.

I vowed I’d never read his book but I concede

I’ve broke my word and so I seek repentance;

I struggled for a while with its lack of classic style

But strangely I enjoyed “A Stiffer Sentence”.

So it’s John, John, John.  What the fuck have you got on?

You’d look better wearing spats or a cravat;

Can you get me size 9 brogues

Just like them I’ve seen in Vogue?

You’re a rogue and not an angel, John the Hat.

 

John will happily confide that he did a stretch inside

In Armley and in Lindholme where the lags were;

And what was John’s Great Crime, whose consequence was time?

The import of some Indian Viagra.

When John at last was brought before the County Court

He’d plead his case without due fuss or clamour;

When the judge would sentence John it wasn’t Gaviscon

He’d need, but John’s blue pills to help him lift his hammer.

So it’s John, John, John, you crafty woebegone,

(He’s on the phone in fluent Gujarat)

I’m after Gordon’s Gin

And a vintage mandolin –

Do you think that you could get ‘em John the Hat?

 

And even when in prison, once the chance it had arisen

He found himself a brand new little earner

The scam as Keenan led it, gained him telephonic credit

And so he put his hookey pills on the back-burner.

As his book unfurls, he’s a bugger for the girls

Of the Mumbai clubs and says so in his story;

But his thrills are blown apart, as poor John will lose his heart,

To a little girl, his daughter, name of Shorli.

So it’s John, John, John it’s 6 to 4 odds-on

They’ll come again - beware the bureaucrat!

Best keep inside the line. 

(Are you stocking Calvin Klein?)

I doff my cap to you, mate – John the Hat.