The War On Gangs

If a 'gang' is "a group of people with compatible tastes or mutual interests who gather together for social reasons" (Dictionary.com), then David Cameron wants to declare war on:

Hip-Hop, Gary Glitter,
     Brady Bunches, Football Fans,
Famous Fives, Secret Sevens,
     Harry's Hogwarts, Boy Bands,
All-American Airborne Armies,
     Custer's Clusters, Mongol Masses,
Soccer Squads, Tennis Teams,
     Golfing Gangs, Kung-Fu Classes,
Hippie Herds, Fantastic Fours,
     Cabin Crews, Ku-Klux-Klans,
Chess Cliques, Party Posses,
     Gaming Geeks and fucking France.
Cub Clubs, Crochet Circles,
     Travelling Troupes, Demolition Derbies,
Tory Tribes, Right-wing Rings,
     Shady Sets and Political Parties.

...and who could possibly argue with him?

Cage Fighting With John Sell Cotman

A speed poem from the Poetry Takeaway, written for Laurence, for whom this is somewhat of an obsession...

The gallery was rammed that day
With Norwich's great and good:
Periwigged and buckles shined,
And an artistic thirst for blood.

"Painting's just too tame, these days - 
It's not been fun for ages.
If only these artistic wimps
Were made to fight in cages!"

So Cotman stripped, and John Crome whipped
His face off with barbed wire,
While Cotman pounded  Johnny's head
'Til he began to tire.

The rounds went on, and neither John
Had the strength to win 'em,
And neither painter could foresee
The dropkick from Henry Ninham.

Ninham raised his arms and yelled
"You fuckers know I'm well hard!",
But he was felled as his pride swelled:
Hamstrung by Emily Stannard.

The Norwich School was cunting cruel,
With broken teeth and collars,
But all the crowd agreed out loud
That it was better than watercolours.

[I really hope a researching History of Art student finds this...]

Summarising Suetonius

Ottava Rima is not conducive to speed poetry.

Some years ago, when Hadrian first thought of building walls,

Suetonius (who worked for him) began a mighty tome

That listed all the emperors who'd had the luck or balls

To sit and rule, quite unopposed, from the Imperial throne.

Like Julius, who made his name by conquering the Gauls,

But then earned just opprobrium by marching into Rome.

      Yet won his place in history as first of all the Caesars,

      That's quite a feat, given his propensity to seizures.

Augustus was the next in line – he took his uncle's name -

And kicked the ships of Antony right back across the Med.

He beat all opposition down until, such was his fame,

The Senate had no choice: they put the laurels on his head.

And, all in all, you'd say he had a quite successful reign,

Though one thing always plagued him, right up to his deathbed:

      When Varus lost his legions, ambushed across the Rhine,

      Yet still the Romans went and tried to deify him.

Tiberius, the little shit, was next to take control,

And nobody could stop his evil, no-one even tried, so

Capricious was his nature, and so murderous his soul,

That there was cheering in the streets when finally he died.

Caligula was little better: crazy, mad arsehole,

Who only lasted long because the army took his side,

      And when of 'Little Boots' the troops could stand just no more,

      He's stabbed by some Praetorians, right in the corridor.

Now Claudius, the stutterer, arrives to take his turn:

Some say he was a simpleton, some say he was a saint,

And history records that he was always taciturn,

That prob'ly made him easier to just assassinate.

Then Nero came along, and played, and watched his city burn,

But no man trusted food when it was served upon his plate,

      Cuz Nero poisoned both his brothers, and his uncle too,

      Then finally his mother, which we've all once tried to do.

The next three emperors don't hang around for very long,

A few, frustrating months is all old Galba seems to last,

And who remembers Otho's name in any play or song?

There was no time to write such works, his reign went by so fast.

Vitellius thought he'd last longer, boy, was he sure wrong:

No sooner did he start his reign, he blinked and it was past.

      So, though when his turn comes, he's way across the sea,

      Vespasian comes along, and starts the Flavian dynasty.

He calmed the Empire down a bit, the Colosseum built,

And passed a stable legacy to Titus, his first son.

How so much Jewish blood across the temple floor was spilt

We'll never know – six months it took to take Jerusalem.

But take it Titus did, then later, possibly from guilt,

He left it to his brother, Emperor Domitian.

      Though these last three were seemingly by power uncorrupted,

      They still got blamed by all Pompeii, when Vesuvius erupted.

So there you have it, that completes Suetonius's twelve,

The men who turned a great Republic to a Principate.

Some did it for the power, and some did it for the wealth,

Some simply just believed that they were born to tragic fate.

So when we look at history to learn about ourselves,

The Caesars are a crazy bunch who'll always fascinate.

      I'm recommending that you give Suetonius a look-

      It really is beyond a doubt a damn hilarious book.

The Conundrums of Man

I should sell posters of this.
Click then zoom to see full size.
As if you didn't know that.

Militarihews or A History Of Warfare In Seven Comic Poems

1. Hegemony
Philip the Second of Macedon
Had many skills, and passed them on,
Which did his son a favour
As he went to conquer Asia.

2. The Gallic Wars
Julius Caesar
At the Siege of Alesia
Used dirty Roman tricks
To capture Vercingetorix.

3. 1066 and All That
William of Normandy,
When the wind turned Northerly,
Ended his inaction,
And sailed to whup the Saxons.

4. Chivalry
Edward of Woodstock,
Though of impeccably good stock,
Was barred from the aristocracy 'til
He'd won his spurs on Crecy hill.

5. The Iron Duke
Field Marshal Wellesley,
Or so my research tells me,
Had few friends at Eton
Before Napoleon was beaten.

6. Crimea River
The 7th Earl of Cardigan
Never rode that hard again,
Since charging had put paid
To his beloved Light Brigade.

7. Home By Christmas
Alfred von Schlieffen
Died before completion
Of his plan to capture Paris,
So he never got embarrassed.

The Judgement of Paris

By 'Paris', I mean the colleague, not the city. Or the Trojan bloke played so woefully by that Bloom feller in the movie.

In Ancient Greece, with its Golden Fleece,
And its tales of brave Odysseus,
They celebrated conquests with physical contests
Like throwing a hammer or discus.
When they won a battle, they'd slaughter the cattle,
And sacrifice blood from their veins,
Then run round in circles, jumping over hurdles,
And so began Olympic Games.

Now they are tradition more than superstition,
They run every four years or so;
And if a politician says we want this competition,
Then we all have to cough up the dough.
But the hundred metre dash is a fucking waste of cash -
Just one of many frivolous expenses.
And why's it us that pays for events that last three days
And solely involve horses and fences?

In the days of old, it wasn't about gold -
Friendly competition was enough.
Plus the Ancient Greeks used to show off their physiques
By doing the whole thing in the buff.
So if we're spending money, let's make the whole thing funny,
Remembering the spirit of the Games,
And sit inside the stadia, watching genitalia,
Especially the ladies' beach volleyball.

Dirty Protest

Anyone who's ever shared a house will understand.

"If it's yellow, let it mellow,"
My housemate quipped today,
"If it's brown, flush it down - 
That's always been the way!"

"Do you think your piss don't stink?"
I remonstrated thus:
"Don't use rhymes to justify crimes,
And learn to use the fucking flush." 

You Can't Spell 'Audience' Without 'U'

A Lipogram

Of all the gigs I play every year,

The one I like best is now and right here.

It's not for the poems, or all of the comedy,

It's not what I said: it's the people in front of me.

If they hadn't come for my poems and jokes,

I'd be like Robin Hood with no Merry Blokes:

No-one beside him to help him to loose

The arrows he's made from ash and from goose.

A preacher exhorting to no congregation

Is wasting his passion for no consolation.

There's no real joy in scoring at Wembley

If there's no fans, friends, crowd, or assembly,

The wittiest line, if there's no-one to hear,

Is a solo party, devoid of all beer,

Like talking to someone telepathic,

So all that's said is one-way traffic,

A dialog box (with American spelling)

Where all conversation's hardly compelling:

        A window has crashed again: Click OK

        A window has crashed again: Click OK

        A window has crashed again: GO AWAY.

So thanks for coming, thanks for listening,

Thanks for leaving my ego glistening.

Words make my arrows, the best I can do,

Yet the deadliest longbows are all made of yew.

Haikunivocalism

To make things hard for myself, I decided to impose two restrictions on this one - only using the vowel 'E', and sticking to the Haiku format. Thanks to Ali for providing one word and the names of the protagonists.

Scene: TV. Settee.

We see Trev, beset by stress.

He needs beer, needs weed.

Jenny eschews weed.

She needs TV. Endlessly.

Glee. Dry red. Perfect.

Trev rejects TV.

Even the BBC News

Repels Trev's peeved eye.

Jen eyes the TV,

Tends the stew, blends the jelly -

Jenny feeds Trev well.

Trev, dry, dejected,

Key green reserves depleted,

Necks the sleek green Becks.

Yet, he frets: Where's Drew?

Drew's key. Drew vends sweet weed, see?

He never fleeces.

Trev's eyes express nerves.

Even Jenny's well perplexed -

Her Trev's very vexed.

Enter Drew. Trev weeps.

Less testy, breezy even,

He renders the fee.

Drew sells the henry,

Then he shrewdly egresses -

He's needed elsewhere.

Even-keeled, Trev lets

Jenny, ever the server,

Help Trev perfect rest.

She feeds Trev the weed.

Pesky stress levels recede

Serene Lethe seen.

Elves, sweet elves he sees,

Breezy trees teem, green-sheened,

The sphere seems serene.

Nepenthe he seeks -

Jen's gentle neck nestles cheek -

Then:  Shhh! Trev, meet sleep.

Jen pets Trev's tresses,

Wryly, even tenderly,

Then wrecks the jelly.

A Letter From Dave

I joined the Tory Party when I became a comedian. One, to know your enemy and two, because the idea of me as a Tory is the funniest fucking joke in the world. Imagine my suprise when I recieved the letter below:

 

The Politics of Apology

They say that ‘sorry’ is a Viking word,
Thus one King Alfred just never heard.
He didn’t say ‘sorry’ for all his mistakes,
Like funding the church, or burning those cakes.
It wasn’t a part of his lexicon –
He’d never have used it when he did wrong.
But Alfred was King, he had great dominion –
He couldn’t care less ‘bout public opinion:
No elections to win, no voters to woo,
No mindless minorities desperate to sue,
(He did have to deal with a deluge of Danes,
Riding and raiding across his domains,
Making his people fear lots, and dread more,
In flagrant breach of the Treaty of Wedmore).


But that’s another story, you’d prob’ly get bored
If I told all I know about the Great Pagan Horde.
Instead, let’s just stop for a second and see
If Alfred the Great were a modern MP
Would he be Labour? Would he be Tory?
Maybe Lib Dem and keep changing his story?
What if he got in a terrible scrape
By making a comment that got caught on tape?
He forgets all about his microphone –
An easy mistake for an Anglo- Sax-one.
(Before judging that rhyme, just you be wary - 
I bet none of you have seen a Saxon diction-ary)
By speaking his mind, he causes a stir,
A newspaper frenzy starts to occur.
He’s going to be subject to trial by media,
A bit like that bloke who runs Wikipedia.
Before poor old Alfred’s had time to inhale,
He’s attracted the wrath of the Daily Mail,
Who deem that his comments are deeply offensive,
Throwing his party on the defensive,
Since speaking one’s mind is just unacceptable,
Especially if one’s trying to appear quite electable.


Would Alfred say ‘sorry’? Would he retract?
Say he was joking (though after the fact)?
Would he back down against opposition,
And build a new Abbey to show his contrition?
Or would he stand firm, despite all the grief,
Say it’s his job to hold a belief?
Say those who slavishly toe party lines
Are just empty mouthpieces, lacking in spines,
Who don’t seem to notice habitual hypocrisy,
Such is the state of modern democracy?
Given this dearth of decent debate,
I don’t think there’s room for Alfred the Great.
He’d prob’ly get sick of all of this faking,
Hide in a bog, and go back to baking.

High Horses

Clip of me performing at the Edinburgh Fringe:

Come And See (My World Cup Bid)

Dear Sepp Blatter and associated FIFA bigwigs, liggers, and cronies,

England is a perfect venue for the World Cup! I hereby officially invite you to come and see for yourself.

Come and see the country where millions of grown men pay thousands of pounds to watch lithe young men in short little shorts parade their five hundred pound haircuts and inability to remain upright after the slightest of contact, and paediatricians are attacked in the street.

Come and see the country where everyone can name Man U's starting eleven, but nobody can name 10 MPs.

Come and see the country that loves foreigners , but only if they've got a solid left foot and a healthy streak of arrogance and greed. Otherwise “Fuck off outta here, Abdul, the country's full”.

Come and see the country where footballers are paid more than novelists. This isn't sour grapes because Wayne Rooney earns in 90 minutes what I earn in a year – I have no desire to be a footballer, as I like my girlfriend to have a brain. And I don't wanna have to share her with my workmates later in a hotel room in North London.

Come and see the country where we're told we have talent while a grinning shitsack of tanned botox pumps insipid ball-less guff unbidden into our ears and our national team can't even beat a nation that doesn't know the rules.

Come and see the country where my mates think talking about football is more important than listening to drunken me hold court.

Come and see the country where footballers can get away with rape and a man who tells the truth gets accused of it.

Come and see the country where neighbours will murder each other over a parking space, despite apparently believing that putting your hazards on means you can park anywhere you damn well please.

Come and see the country that fires scientists, but welcomes with open arms a bigoted, AIDS-spreading, hate-mongering purveyor of fatuous fairy-tales called the Pope.

Come and see the country where “You watch where I'm going” is an acceptable substitute for personal responsibility.

 

Come and see the country where Alan Carr is allowed to call himself a comedian.

Come and see the country where kids can spray graffiti but not spell it.

Come and see the country that thinks copying America is a viable long-term strategy.

Come and see the country that never makes a fuss, but thinks the French are lazy.

Come and see the country where people are angrier at me for not voting than they are at the politicians they voted for lying their asses off to get elected. “Well, if you didn't vote, you can't complain!” Really? Watch me. I didn't vote in X-Factor either, but I still know Jedward are cunts.

Come and see the country where politicians think that duck moats and a university education are the same thing – they're both fine, as long as you pay the money back afterwards. No! They're not the same thing – one is you stealing money from us for something frivolous, vainglorious, and dumb, the other is you selling other people's children's future's down the river to line the pockets of your mates, saying “Yes, we'd like you all to be educated, rational adults, we would. That'll be fifty grand and a lifetime of crippling debt, then. Never mind, to help you pay that off we've got some nice business interests we've made friends with who are looking for cheap graduate talent to grind to torpid dust on the greasy pole of corporate bullshit mixed metaphors”. Thank you very much Vince Cable, you two-faced, back-stabbing, soulless, turncoat whose yellow tie and yellow belly are the only things that differentiate you from a right-wing, neo-con, money-grabbing Tory moron fuck.

Come and see the country where the government would rather spend £17 million on a four-week advertising fest to distract the populous from a right royal buttfucking than spend the money on good schools and clean hospitals and anti-Top Gear missiles.

Come and see England. We might not be as corrupt, backward, sinister, avaricious and tyrannical as Russia, but we're trying really hard.

PS. Should you be looking for somewhere different to Russia, we'll need a regime change. Quickest way to achieve this is to make the Queen all dead and stuff, dissolve the parliament, and start again. But I guess the Russians beat us to that one, too.

Ode On A Distant Prospect Of The Future or It's Not Folly To Be Wise

Following on from a conversation with Matt Panesh The Monkey Poet

Scene: The not-too-distant future.

The last clever people on Earth are trapped

In a maze of their own devising.

Nine of us are left, just nine,

Like Muses, or Ringwraiths,

Or stitches saved by the timely.

No needlework can save us now,

For we are doomed, doomed to die -

Again, a bit like Ringwraiths.

We quiver quietly, await our fate,

And ponder our survival rate.

Not zombies, wolves, or orcs we fear

But the horde of fuckwits drawing near.

We happily co-existed, not so long ago.

We got lost in libraries, they had football

And fighting, and fake tits,

And other things that real men like.

But while we were reading,

They were breeding.

While we were pleading with our girlfriends

For some environmentally-friendly anal sex,

They were filling four-by-fours with

Fat kids and gasoline,

Until we became an endangered minority,

Like Polar Bears, or Tigers,

Or the Irish.

And when the gas stations ran dry,

And they were forced to think for themselves,

They'd forgotten how to do it.

And they turned on us,

Desperate for someone to blame

And to make their kettles work.

They turned with fury unrestrained,

They hunted us 'til few remained.

Relentless, like a rising tide,

The horde of fuckwits just outside.

In the name of God and Clarkson they march,

Under a Hogwarts banner.

Destroying what they don't, or won't, understand.

Like Pollock's paintings

“Coulda bin done by a four-year-old!”

Or Cage's compositions

“Four and a half minutes of silence my arse!”

Or the idea that anything good might exist outside London.

Egged on by politicians who parade their piety

While legislating the loss of liberty,

With money mad marketing men

Singing the theme to Hollyoaks and chanting

Ignorance is Bliss!

Ignorance is Bliss

Britain's Got Talent!

Ignorance is Bliss!

With Gray in his grave, slowly revolving,

Humans chose to stop evolving.

The result of which – we can be sure -

The horde of fuckwits at the door

For a while we kept them at bay.

The outer defences sliding doors

That said 'Push' and 'Pull' on them,

Signs that pointed left, and said 'Keep Right'.

Inside those, tables, strewn with

Packets of nuts with nuts inside,

Scalding hot, warning-free coffee,

And a knife that was guaranteed suicide-proof -

We figured they'd see that as a challenge.

But there were so many of them.

On they came, like Soviet soldiers at Stalingrad,

Only with warmer, puffier coats.

On they came, past the Paris Hilton exhibition,

Ignoring the Rubik's Cubes and Slinkies littering their path,

Past the astrology readings that said

“With Scorpio in the ascendant,

Treat yourself to some KFC and X-Factor”

On they came, determined to crush the last remnants of

The smart-arse, clever-dick, big-word-using,

Poetry-reading, faggot world we represented.

They're just outside now.

I still refuse to pray.

We hear the knuckles scraping floor,

As foreheads seek to smash the door.

Our fearful fingers scratching skin:

There's a horde of fuckwits breaking in

But this is the future, it isn't set -

There's time to change this vision yet!

Ignore the rumours that you've heard:

Intelligence isn't a dirty word.

Think for yourself, wonder, question,

Try to cleanse the doors of perception.

Be proud of your learning, proud of your smarts,

(And stop them from slashing the funds for the arts!)

Reduce population in the simplest way:

Try to stop fucking, just for a day,

Teach your children to think straight from birth,

Before all these fuckwits take over the earth.

                     Intellectuals of the world unite!

                     You have nothing to lose but your brains.

Hippie Hop

The Pen and The Sword had a fight, this once -
The Sword got sick of The Pen and his rep -
Just strutting around with undeserved fame,
Going “Yo, I'm The Pen! You gonna step
To me bitch? I'm the baddest!
You try and fuck wi' me,
You'll be the saddest
Cuz me and my nib'll put your ass in the morgue -
Ev'ryone knows The Pen's mightier than The Sword!”
The Sword wouldn't take this, he had backbone
A pattern-welded spine, entwined on the inside.
His steely constitution wouldn't take no shit
From an upstart Bic, a fucking glorified
Crayon, He ain't playin'
Designed for killing and he lives for slayin'
He says to The Pen “Damn, boy, you're a fool,
No way you can win – I'm a weapon, you're a tool.
Let's duel, here's the rules:
We meet at dawn, we stand back to back,
We take ten paces, and then I start to hack
You up sucker. Now hit the sack
And sleep – it your last night tonight -
When the sun comes up, we'll see who's got the might”.
At first light they meet, both prepared to fight
To the death, to the very last breath.
(I know swords and pens don't technically breathe,
But this is just a poem, suspend your disbelief)
Back to back they stand, The Sword and The Pen,
They start to pace and count to ten,
They turn to face – the pen drew first:
Drew a picture annotated with a scrap of verse,
Turned to The Sword and said “You see, I'm so great!
You can kill and maim, but I can create:
Pictures, and poems, and the ABC.
Give it up, Stabby, you'll never beat me!”
The Sword flashed and slashed and cut that shit to ribbons,
Destroying ev'rything that The Pen had written.
He advanced on The Pen, screamed “You jumped-up quill!
That's the last time I let you up in my grill!
I'll kill you, spill your ink!
Don't even think I can't make you extinct
Quicker than a blink!
I'm not gonna, cuz I know you've been misled,
You've got a stupid platitude running through your head.
It's just an old saying, you can't take it at its word,
It's ludicrous to think that a pen could beat a sword.
It was written by a bloke in a play 'bout Richelieu
In 1839, that doesn't make it true!
We need to change the maxim, it's time to announce
That it's the mighty mind behind the pen that counts”.

Idiots At Home

For those that don't have Sky TV and can't watch the new Gervais/Merchant show "An Idiot Abroad", I've saved you the trouble...

Pilkington rides into town,
Sent by a one-trick pony
Who likes to mock his so-called 'friend',
To amuse his Merchant crony.

The hapless chap takes lots of crap
And visits seven wonders,
While Pony sits upon his ass
And points out all his blunders.

Eventually the luckless Manc
Has trouble with the natives,
And causes a controversy
By saying something racist.

The Pony's shocked; The 'friend' is dropped:
"We never knew he'd be that blunt!"
And that's when people realise
That Pony's just 
A fucking genius
A comedy genius
The funniest man to walk the planet since Jeremy Beadle! 
Give him awards! 
Give him awards! 
Hallelujah! 
Hallelujah! 
Why do I even fucking bother?

On Behalf Of The Nation, I Apologise To Thomas Cromwell

In five hundred years we've heard the ideas of Paine, and Huxley and Blake,

For five hundred years we've been the premiers in learning for learning's sake.

In fifty decades we freed the slaves and gave women the right to vote,

In fifty decades came Shakespeare's plays and all that Darwin wrote.

In all those days we've changed the ways that we think about science and space,

For all those days we've striven to raise the wisdom and deeds of the race.

Given that time, it seems like a crime to welcome a bigoted Pope.

But needless to say, I'd hug him today if I found out he really smoked dope.

On God's Time

To Laurence and John, lovely blokes the pair.

I stared up at the clock on the tower of St Saviour.

I hadn't really noticed this church before, but

Even though it was ten to seven,

The clock said five to four.

And I wondered about an omnipotent god who couldn't wind his own watch, and

Was always late to brunch.

I thought that maybe God deliberately set the clock to a different timezone, so

Whenever he was in Norwich, He'd know what time it was in Suriname.

I wondered if He had different churches all round Norwich,

Showing the times around the world,

Like they do in the White House, and

Whether He had a team of wise-cracking advisors like Martin Sheen.

And then I wondered why I was wondering, because

I don't believe in God.

And then I realised,

I was probably the massive spliff that UNNAMED FOR LEGAL REASONS and I just smoked.

The Last Plantagenet Poet

This is for my friend Ross Sutherland's "Last Barman Poet" project. Basically, it's an attempt to create an 'Aristocrats' joke for poets, using the Last Barman Poet poem from 'Cocktail' as a starting point. More can be found at http://last-barman-poet.blogspot.com/

I'm the World's Last Plantagenet Poet,
Descended from a line of kings,
A bard out of my time,
Of great and kingly deeds I sing -
The achievements of my line:
Of Thomas the Martyr,
And Blondel's lament,
The signing of the Charter
And the first Parliament.
The hammered fighting vainly,
The pokers inserted anally,
The war that lasts a hundred years
Leads to abdication tears,
A kingship claimed by force majeure,
And fucking the French at Agincourt.
Of Wars of Roses, Wars of Cousins,
Of brothers betraying by the dozen,
From avuncular crime, carefully concealed,
To a King's final charge on Bosworth Field.
Of deeds of chivalry I sing -
I make my verse my lance,
And if we had a Plantagenet king,
We'd at least be at war with France.

With A Little Help

This is mostly an in-joke.

In Northcote Road, a hippie clan
Did in pleasure take delight.
Where beer flowed and lager ran,
And spliffs so numberless to man
Were smoked into the night.

Where Colo's speedos shamed the sun,
Where Jack taught us all a little Wing Tchun,
Where Jobi jauntily burst into song,
Where Jaa cooked mounds of sticky rice,
Where Bertie smoked his maiden bong,
And cats infected Frank with lice.

Where James played jazz and Luum played folk,
Where Bondy was a constant binger,
Where Weazal was an endless joke,
Where Noel had nostrils crammed with coke,
And Tom broke the fence, trying to be a ninja.

But now one third has moved away,
Something of summer died that day.
But all's not lost, the ship's not sunk - 
There's always somewher to get stoned and drunk.