Purple mustard and beige
Became less trendy shades in the nascent global warming age
When anti-nuclear camping grannies
Militant establishment barons enraged
Yet some of us wayward lambs were charmed
Perhaps Armageddon's reaper skis might yet slalom
So we could hide under kitchen tables evading school
Old Formica a formidable repellent of eighties radiation
MAD seemed preferable to another maths detention
Saddam was the avuncular good guy 
CIA's stalwart point man on Iran
And the Soviets
the bad guys jacking-up for Brezhnev
in Babrak Karmal's Afghanistan..

I wrote a poem about nuclear war
It got published in the school magazine
But only because I pretended nuclear war was a really bad thing
What a cynical populist I was even then
And someone felt-tipped Joy Division on my bag
And one of the older fit girls
almost saluted a dumb-founded flag
And only because I wrote a poem against nuclear war
She cooed aaaaw
Thinking I was the sensitive type
A clueless Indianish philosopher-king
Supporting the tortured souls of defunct Joy Division
And being against nuclear war..

Nuclear war
What is it good for
Writing poems against nuclear war
That's what it's good for
Say it again..

And around the same time
A dad of a neighbour boasted
That his new car had a real vinyl roof
The real vinyl roof was colour co-ordinated
With the roof being brown
And the real metallic paint
being a fake metallic lime brown green
It flowed like a genuine blocked artery
A one point three Gee Ell Ee
It did cruise control at almost thirty
It had screaming patterned pastel cloth seats
It had gluey go-faster shiny strips
It sported two reverse lights
It was impressed with itself at the time..

He played James Last on his cassette player
Or Queen
Or other bands that played Sun City
But he didn't buy South African oranges
Because he was really against eating oranges..

Incidentally he never listened to Cliff Richard
Even though Cliff Richard also played Sun City
And yet he enjoyed immensely James Last
Even though James Last possibly never played Sun City
My neighbour's dad was a contrary man really..

His cassette player also boasted medium wave
But not FM
Because it wasn't a Ghia
And the sound on FM just not as clear
He claimed FM and power steering
were only passing fads
For girly New Romantic powder-puff eye-shadow-clad lads
Shock troops of the power windows brigade
Custard-haired dandies
Legless only on shandy
Blow-drying low-tar Embassy
Under the plastic palm tree haze..

A hostess trolley
A fondue set
A tea cosy
A ciggy for 5p
Return the bottle of Tizer
And get a ciggy
The newsagent didn't mind
as long as we acted over-age in his shop
And as long as we also bought
Another Curly Wurly
Or a Sherbert Fountain
Or another bottle of pop
..and another ciggy for 5p
Which we could only smoke outside..

Out of the black and into the red
You don't get nothing for two in a bed
Oh look you nearly won a caravan
But you didn't
Smashin'..  (Jim Bowen)

321
Dusty Bin
Oh how I remember
Those baffling gnomic riddles and rhymes
And no I could never crack the koan wisdom
For a his'n'hers matching set of Terylene bathrobe towelling
Ted Rogers
the Basho of ITV Taoism

And I had an older Marxist friend who would vote Tory
He must have been nearly seventeen
He wished for a job-nuking economy
So he surmised elegantly
Thatcher the best thing..

Later on he threw off his head
Mohican
And joined a polytechnic band
Moody mulleted now
Analog bollocks strangled in spandex
Ensorcelling with low Flying-V imitation Strats
A cross-bred indie tree of Cocteau Twins-Curve-MBV
Swirly mavens of shoegazer glam
And he devoured music magazines like Sounds and Kerrang
And then he got married
Had kids
The end..

So we used to take our school ties off
Before we entered the shop
Acted as if we were young grown men
on our office lunch break I suppose
And the method acting newsagent
pretended he never once guessed
as long as we acted over-age in his shop
And as long as we also bought
Another Curly Wurly
Or a Sherbert Fountain
Or another bottle of pop
..and another ciggy for 5p
Which we could only smoke outside..

I nearly blew my cover one time
When I asked if they would deal me
"a whole Hamlet including a tube of Smarties
for no more than 8 to 10p"
His wife laughed like a drain
But demurred kindly
Consolating that she thought my badge cute
Supporting CND..