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.

Earl Grey, Please!

A Villanelle about the man who passed the Great Reform Act of 1832, and who ended slavery in the British Empire in 1833. He's somewhat of a hero of mine...

Who celebrates the life of Charles, Earl Grey?
There's more to it than just inventing tea - 
We need a man like him to save the day.
When Tories cut, and Lib Dems just obey,
And opposition's lost in vain ennui, 
Who celebrates the life of Charles, Earl Grey?
Who fought against corruption's powerplay,
Who spoke 'til dawn with sweeping oratory,
We need a man like him to save the day.
When leaders lie to make us vote their way,
And private prisons prompt new slavery, 
Who celebrates the life of Charles, Earl Grey?
When taking teachings from our yesterdays,
If ever we could learn from history,
We need a man like him to save the day.
When England tries to ape the USA,
When freedom's just a distant memory,
Who celebrates the life of Charles, Earl Grey?  
We need a man like him to save the day.

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.

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.

A Short History of South Africa

At the end of 2009, I was comissioned to write an article for a short-lived magazine. The publisher was South African, and a large proportion of the readership was South African. This worried me a little - not that I have anything against South Africans (apart from as part of a much wider misanthropy), it's just that I know nothing about them or their country, apart from the fact they all take annoying horns to football matches. I've only known four South Africans in my life – two of those were schoolboys, and a third turned out to be a paedophile. In hindsight, I should have introduced them.

Undaunted (I try never to daunt, especially near my laptop), I decided it was my duty to educate myself about that fair and beauteous land, and share with you, the reader, my findings. So, armed with a pint of tea, a websiteful of Wikipedia and a large bag of illicit herbal narcotics, I give you my Short History of South Africa.

Firstly, after consulting everything ever written on this fascinating region, it’s important to know that both books and the tourist pamphlet agree that the country now known as Sith Ifrici isn't at all important until the seventeenth century, when the first European settlers began arriving. Any evidence of prior human settlement, like the three million year old skulls found at the Sterkfontein caves, are red herrings sent to test our faith by Professor Richard Dawkins, and should be ignored to protect the feelings of a suspicious god who lacks self-confidence.

So, onward to 1652, when Jan de Riebeeck (in English, John the Ryvita) established a 'refreshment station' on the Cape of Good Hope on behalf of the Dutch East India Company. Bear in mind, this 'refreshment' is mostly for sailors, and so presumably consisted of numerous taverns and whorehouses, much like modern day Amsterdam, only with less bicycles. This station continued to service the needs of many a lonely matelot for a century and a half and it is to this long and liberal Dutch heritage that most South African males can trace their bizarre sexual perversions.

In 1795, The Dutch became concerned about Napoleon, because he was short, and mean, and had boats. Great Britain agreed to 'look after' the Cape Colony on behalf of the Dutch, who feared French naval power. “That won't do!” cried an indignant Britannia, “People seizing strategic positions for themselves? It's just damned ungentlemanly!”. Britain went on to seize the strategic position for themselves in 1806, after Admiral Lord Nelson Mandela left an ungentlemanly part of French naval power burning in the sea off Trafalgar.

After the victory over Napoleon, Queen 'Hot Lips' Victoria ordered the veterans of Duke 'Beef' Wellington's army to set about expanding the British Empire until the sun never set upon it, mostly because she was afraid of the dark. Armed with their trusty Brown Bess musket (named after a popular and accomodating courtesan frequented during the soldiers' stay in Lisbon), these valiant knights scoured the four corners of the globe looking for people less well armed than them, in order to steal their land and educate them in the prime victorian virtues of moustaches, sexual repression and tedious floral ornamentation. South Africa did not escape this relentless spread of enforced stuffification – indeed it is believed to have seen the first formal reasoning for the expansion. When questioned about the morality of their conquests, the soldiers replied with this popular ditty:

It doesn't matter

Cos we have got

A bloody great gun

And they have not.

Pvt R. Kipling, Her Majesty's Ironic Rifles, 1851-49

Eventually, British expansion led to trouble with the natives. The most famous of all uprisings in the region began in 1879 when the Zulus – descended from 80s pop legend Shaka Kahn – surrounded the British Army at Mickey Rourke's Drift. One of the most famous battles in history commenced as the melty-faced Hollywood hardman and his band of resiliant redcoats fought off endless swarms of the enemy. It's hard to be precise about the number of Zulus, but Mr M Caine, an eyewitness from a documentary I watched, said that there were literally “Fousands of 'em”. Only the superiority of the newly-issued Martini Henry rifle (named after a famous aristocratic drunk in downtown Durban) and Rourke's legendary rage as the attackers repeatedly trampled his prize begonias saved the plucky colonialists from destruction.

British rule was again under threat at the turn of the twentieth century when tensions between settlers of Dutch origin in the Orange Free State and Lord Kitchener's firm belief that all citrus fruit should be paid for led to a series of conflicts known as the Board Wars. This period can be classed into three main phases: the Plasterboard War, the Chipboard War, and the brief but bitter Undertheboardwalk War. The Board Wars are famous not only for the British introduction of 'Happy Camps' , where wives and children of the rebels would be accommodated with their choice of death by starvation or death by disease, but also is remembered as the first time the British Army fought without their traditional red uniforms. Red was thought a little too 'nineteenth century' for some of the more style-conscious officers, and the uniform varied for a year between shades of pastel and day-glo tie-dye schemes, before settling on khaki after a few conspicuously avoidable massacres.

After the death of Queen Victoria, people of her south african colony forgot about moustaches and rebellion, and spent remainder of the twentieth century engaged in their newest hobby, A PART HATE. Under the rules of A PART HATE, everyone in the country had to hate a specific part from the plays of Shakespeare which was decided by a show of hands. The first part hated was that of Polonius, the tedious waffler from Hamlet, but the fad really got going in 1948, when the country united in their hatred of the mechanicals from A Midsummer Night's Dream, for their overtly simplistic and anti-agrarian portrayal of rustic life in sixteenth century Warwickshire. Such was the outpouring of vitriol that any actor caught playing the part of Bottom was enforced to live life effectively as a second class citizen, being denied access to the best libraries and being forced to drink only the cheapest of wine. One can only imagine the shadow of despair this would cast upon many a classically trained thespian – some of the survivors of this punishment can still be seen today in District 9 of Johannesburg.

During the 1970s, when the people of the republic hated the part of the bear in The Winter's Tale, the international literary community pointed out that it had all got a bit silly now, and decided that they wouldn't talk to anyone who disrespected Shakespeare and couldn't clearly see that the bear only existed in a stage direction. The writers of the world imposed a series of boycotts, depriving many South Africans of the chance to see the finest performance poetry or experimental theatre. A PART HATE was eventually ended when theatre-lover Admiral Lord Nelson Mandela hired the Spice Girls to star in his play featuring all of the Bard's previously despised characters and the burning remnants of French naval power.

The phenomenal success of this fusion of Girl Power and Ship Power launched the Republic of South Africa into a golden age. For the last few decades, its people have enjoyed a happy period of bloody diamonds, bishops in tutus, and cricketers who are better at throwing matches than they are at flying around mountains. All thanks to David Beckham's wife. Here endeth the lesson.