PMQs What happened to democracy? He spaffed it up the wall! What happened to integrity? He spaffed it up the wall! What happened to our N.H.S., The nurses’ pay, an honest press, The legal right to loud protest? He spaffed them up the wall! What happened to the Zillion quid? He spaffed it up the wall! What happened to the trade we did? He spaffed it up the wall! What happened to our common aim, Our amity, our sense of shame? He spaffed it down the bloody drain, Then spaffed it up the wall! Where did our common senses go? We spaffed them up the wall! Where’s social justice? Do you know? We spaffed it up the wall! Where’s all the righteous workers’ fury, Legal Aid and trial by jury? He spaffed it up young Jen Arcuri who spaffed it up the wall. So, Jenny, what’s he like in bed? As gentle as the Walking Dead. He wheezes as he wets the bed. His foreplay’s just like kneading bread, The only thought that’s in his head ……… is spaffing up the wall. (Coda) He spaffed it up the wall, he spaffed it up the wall, The bin bag full of custard just spaffed it up the wall. (repeat until the wheels come off)

Radio Safe Hey, sponsor friendly DJ We’re asking you to play This little bit of music That we made the other day. No need for you to worry No need for you to pray Because it’s ‘radio safe’ It’s got nothing to say. CH: We are Radio Safe, We say nothing at all. We won’t make you think As you’re having a ball. We’re on Radio Safe, Joy without delay Happy in the morning And happy all day With repeats ad infinitum. We will take your pain away Tune in to Radio Safe Safe from troubles & dismay We don’t sing about the climate we won’t talk about the poor we never mention politics won’t recognise the war we’ll make you feel nostalgic for the hits of yesterday that play on Radio Safe as we’ve nothing to say. We’ve avoided all the questions That we’ll need to ask quite soon But in the snoozy meantime We’ll just sing about the moon We’ll sing about enduring love, Love lost or unrequited We’ll keep it ‘radio safe’ No need to get excited There’s nothing controversial There’s nothing Socialist. They’ll play anyone’s request, If your request is on their list. They’ll even give you updates On a sanctioned state of play We all love Radio Safe Because it won’t get in the way.

Blow me home In the head-rush of the west wind And the skin-kiss of the sun In the gut-churn of the breakers And the soul-pull of the moon In the ear-lick of the curlew And the tongue-tie of the gull In the nerve-ease of the shadows And the face-slap of the squall Blow, blow sou’wester, Blow, blow me home. Blow, blow sou’wester, Blow, blow me home. In the mood-hiss of the blown sand And the heart-tug of the tide In the brain-bath of the shimmer And the thought-hush of the cloud In the ball-grasp of the water And the breath-gasp of the gale In the faith-doubt of this heaven And the joy-lift of the swell (rpt chorus) In the eye-fizz of the white-wake And the mind-thud of the sail In the death-fall of the feather And the birth-tick of the quill In the love-sigh of the sunset And the hope-swell of the dawn Is the poet, and the lyric Of the murdered heart, reborn. Rpt. chorus.

Blubbercocky When I was young and Santa old and children did as they were told I'd dream as swans with wings of gold flew to the Milky Way. Behind them pigs would loop the loop as scented breezes cooled my soup white elephants would glide and swoop and whistling, would play. In rhubard trees they'd build their nests as politicians combed their crests and swallowed all the Eton mess throughout the live-long day. Nose-candy mountains, hubris too, had dropped us in an Irish stew and warm seas with Elysian view called us to sail away from truth and credibility and wise but dull maturity. Straight to the sirens' call were we drawn closer every day. In pea-green boats upon a lake of Trukazade our thirsts we'd slake while feasting on some Kobe steak the magic geese would lay so we could gorge on golden eggs as we bestrode the world on legs made up of malted whisky kegs we'd flown down from Islay. Then foaming "champers" at the mouth we'd stripped the world from north to south while calling Truth a "blabbermouth" we'd sing "Callooh! Callay!" But then the dreaded Blubbercock we met before we'd taken stock that nothing was there left to hock to pay the pipes to play. We climbed the magic money tree to sniff the air, to watch the sea, to spot the luckless refugees and blame them for the way our government had stolen all the nation's wealth and had a ball. The money tree was left to fall, it rots there to this day. Soon nonsense will the last word be at parties where the mushroom tea is brewed by madder hats than we. Let's desperately pray!

Dawg Gone He's thawing in the ashes made from verses of his past and he knows there's little comfort as the embers will not last. So, he carries on regardless of the tempus fugit-ting with a sightless search for wisdom and a senseless hope of Spring. He took a tumbril to the lawcourt for the chica who played scared, paid the taxman and the axeman, who'd insisted no-one cared. He thought she hadn’t cheated him, that she’d been good as gold, ‘til the lawyer said the Last Rites as his life was bought and sold. Gid along little dawggie, gid along. Don’t look back behind you, your alone. Ride on through the desert, across the mountains and you’re home, Gid along little dawggie, gid along. He'd been malleable and ductile, like Bazooka Joe in June, He’d tried to fight the good fight but she’d always come too soon. He'd impressed her with linguistics ‘til the girl just had to crash, but his mouth had written cheques that his libido couldn't cash. He chose exile, not contrition, took the bull by both the horns as he rode into the sunset in his Stetson made of thorns. Even then he tried to follow down the path to righteousness, as he stumbled thru a desert where they couldn't love him less. Now he sets it all to music made for dancing round a pole, and invests in pharmaceuticals - Viagra for the soul. His vision maybe blurred at times by tears, or by rain, on his cider-tinted spectacles of existential pain. In his moments of reflection when the glitter-pills abate, life's not a bitter ballad with no bridge nor middle-eight. It's a symphony of choices where the darkness holds the light, and that light informs the voices, telling him he'll be alright.

Rockabilly Rough-House When punk'd had its better days dragged screaming through the muck and New Wave hit the 80s like a 44-ton truck, Hanging on its coat-tails came the time of laissez faire When money wrote the music, and most bands just did their hair. But ghosting right among them all, a band stayed quite well hidden The band were called The Lost Boys, they were good at what they did But other bands went for the cash while these just went for broke The problem was that resolution all went up in smoke. They couldn’t quite get out of bed to catch the gravy-train Their talent was a driving force, they just failed to attain The dizzy heights of stardom where the air was pure and clear Of any sign of conscience that could cost a band so dear Downbeat broken-hearted tears turned into New Romantic ‘s blood When Rockabilly rough-house turned a trickle to a flood. There were quiffs & stiffs & blaring riffs, all colouring the scene The bouncers bounced, & girlfriends pounced, the language was obscene. So, when they hit the nightclub on the same bill as King Kurt They played about as upbeat as a penitent’s hair-shirt. Exactly what you shouldn’t do to a Psychobilly crowd, Whose cries of disapproval were about to get quite loud. It was sounding like a séance much more than a great night out With a cheerless New Romantic mood about to get snuffed out. There were bottles, beer, and barstools flying graceful through the air With oaths & screams, & barely teens. Each one with too much hair. I was introducing someone’s head to the floor quite forcibly When a mountain of a bouncer said, “Oi! Leave that work to me.” He showed me quite precisely what I hadn’t known ‘til then with his hand so tight around my throat I thought it was the end. He said in such a friendly tone “I think you need some air.” And then without a goodbye kiss he threw me down the stairs. The Lost Boys were all bleeding as they picked up their guitars. They’d been surprised that their demise was written in the stars The time for mournful tedium was buried in the past The Psychobilly rebels had just kicked its skinny arse. They combed & preened & Brylcreemed every quiff & every curl Ttheir duck-arsed necks were unperplexed by an ever-changing world. The moral of this story is “Shit or get off the pot!” The revolution’s coming whether you like it or not It’s no good wearing last year’s style or playing last year’s riffs The music scene won’t hang around for moribund old stiffs.

STARS IN OUR EYES Twinkle twinkle prying star, we don’t wonder what you are up above our world so high, lurid rhinestone in the sky. When the blazing sun is gone you turn your piercing gaze upon whoever would snuff out your light or won't go meekly with-out fight. At times the traveller in the dark might thank you for your tiny spark, but if they sense your shifty lies, you sparkle ‘til you blind their eyes, & in the dark-blue sky you keep a watch & through our curtains peep, to see if we are half awake, receptive to the news you fake. But as your bright and tiny spark misguides the traveller in the dark, I wish, I wish you were a star & I didn't know just what you are. So, twinkle most beguiling spy until you own the Earth & Sky & keep me calm with fairy tales & win my heart as my mind fails. Dazzle, dazzle darkest star. Who'd save the world from what you are? You're guided by a cunning hand, your balls & tinsel blight the land! A voice that whispers truth is faint among the stars we choose to paint, like little diamonds in our Sky while tits & glitz seduce the eye. Our new God's show cannot fall flat, so twinkle, twinkle, gaudy twat! Be-glitter me in sparkly trash, bedazzle with a golden stash of coins to take my pain away. Noel, Noel! I want to say, Baptise me at your vapid font & make me trivia never want. Oh! Fill me up with careless joy & let me win that cuddly toy. Oh! Sing and dance you ageing star; the papers told us what you are, & where & when & whom you'd had. A little mud is not that bad when flung by men who blur the truth, by slipping gin in your vermouth. So let them build a paradise as Armageddon's danced On Ice. All that glitters never fades; no scars nor tears to hide with shades. The Glimmer Twins will never age & Heaven's never in a rage. Dad’s Army’s on a painless loop. Toothless, we slurp nostalgia soup. I hope, I hope I'm paranoid & all my worries turn out void of truth & credibility, then I'll embrace the New TV. Now heaven's here! It’s yours! It’s mine! On channels 1 to 999. No need to wonder who we are if we just watch that twinkling star.

The Artist (1980) He was painting the gutter of Wind Street, like a Jackson Pollack, in bile. His bitterness twisting his insides, on his outside the ghost of a smile. His show had been on at The Mission where his pictures had sold like Van Gogh's & along with the plaudits & back-bites he'd received twenty-seven fuck-offs. His vision was fine, ‘til he'd shared with the world what had made his heart sing at first sight, now he just sees in dull greys and blacks swirled round occasional pinpricks of light. He'd been framed & mounted, that last, from behind. He'd been strung up & hung out to dry, but his blacks had been blacker than all the reviews and his highlights too bright for the eye. They'd all drunk the free wine that had flowed from the font of his Altruists' Church of The Arts, Where, an hour ago, they'd had Zeitgeist in spades, now they'd all become Philistine farts. He's unsung, undiscovered, and misunderstood and a light year ahead of his time. For the talentless blind he's a talent too good and a pearl that's been cast before swine. Yes, an artist he was, and an artist will be, through a change from the fine to the rough, but his category still begins with a 'P', where the pavement is canvas enough.

The Gravity of Loss. 1. Ignition Once upon a burning grain of sand, I wished for a bright and beautiful Dutch ballet-dancer called Marianna. She had long blonde curly hair, deep-blue eyes, and a smile as bright as any star. My wish was answered - well over sixteen years later – with a bright and beautiful Spanish salsa dancer called Arianna. She had long dark curly hair, deep-brown eyes, and a smile as bright as any star. Now, decades later, it is obvious, that I had under-estimated the gravitational effect of six thousand sunsets on the arc of my wish. It also seems obvious that I shouldn’t have wished at the end a long day in the pub. 2. Lift Off Wishing on a star is not as easy as poets would have us believe. Do they mean comets, meteors, or stars, or even satellites? Taking it to extremes, it could be a titanium spanner that some space-cowboy has dropped in the celestial works. But if I have understood anything from the countless theorems and hypotheses coming out of the University of Hollywood, the romantic, wannabee lover needs to wish, not upon a constant, and common, burning ball of radioactive hydrogen, but upon the, whimsically fleeting and unreliable, “falling” or transiting celestial body, or particle. For simplicity’s sake, let us assume they mean meteors. It would save us a lot of hand wringing, if poets were as sensitive about astronomical terminology as they are about prepositions and their ethereal and romantic notions. Anyway. Now, we must predict, precisely, where and when one (a meteor, not a poet) will burn its way across our sky, then we need to calculate the coincidence, or the intersection, of our wish with the, so-called, “star’s” celestial trajectory. We shall need to have determined our wish’s mean velocity, having reckoned for the drag of doubt or disbelief, and for the gravitational pull of a heavy heart, even for the dynamic efficiency of the syntax and lexis used in expressing it. Pitiful exclamations of woe and tristesse sent into the heavens, over a tear-stained cambric sleeve only serve to muddy the waters. It was discovered, apocryphal years ago, by the Head of Melancholic Forlornness at the metaphysics department of The Oh Christ! College, Cambridge, that unless precise attention is paid to the quantum minutiae of the grammatical expression of our wishes, they may turn back in the air and contaminate us with the “friendly fire” of our own rash romance. We need, also, to gauge the angle of response, bearing in mind the centrifugal and centripetal forces of the world’s spin and orbit over the duration of our computed time-wish continuum, if we are to be in the right place on the Earth’s surface when our granted wish arrives. And all of this in just the fraction of a second that the star burns. Apparently, hundreds of beautiful Dutch ballet dancers have found themselves romantically involved with the wrong person, due to sloppy calculation and vaguely expressed desires. All in all, modern internet dating services are more practical. They neither cost you the Earth, nor the capacity to recognise when you are already in Heaven. 3. Fallout Not even Einstein was able to figure out the gravity of loss. Even he mis-calculated the influence of un-balanced men on the purity of his balanced equation. So now, I have lost faith in pure romance and impure science. Which is why I can be found, on summer's nights, watching sparks of space dust showering us with light, wishing for no more than this turning heaven wishes me.

Russian Doll He drives a Vauxhall Vodka, or maybe Ford FuKA He’s a right old Tommy Tanker so he won’t get very far He’s a social climbing banker but he needs a better car He’s looked at Nissan Knobheads and at Tesla’s 1KR His name may well be Kevin, or just as likely Shane Whichever way you see it, he’s just a bloody pain With his window down and his bass on boost He’ll drive you half insane With his two-tone horn and his social scorn He’s full of wild disdain. He’s looking for a motor. He suits a Skoda Skank, He’d like an Audi Arsehole but he’s nothing in the bank He’d settle for a Beemer, which needs no other name He’d drive a Jaguar Jerk-off, if it didn’t look so lame. His name may well be Brian, or just as likely Wayne Whichever way you see it, he’s just a bloody pain. With his window down and his bass on boost He’ll drive you half insane With his 2-tone horn and his social scorn, he’s full of wild disdain. Now Kevin’s bought a Vulva, made in Sweden by Volvo. And Karen likes to grind his gears until he lets it go. They’ve slimed up both the back seats, Now they’re working on the fronts. They’re both inside each other, It’s a Russian Doll of c**ts.

Woke Up at the Wheel I woke up at the wheel of love, doing over ninety-five. On a cold and rainy afternoon, felt good to be alive. I was dreaming most the time of home, 200 miles to run, The woman I had on my mind should’ve been the only one. My eighteen wheels all humming low, Sweet Morpheus taking hold. My heartbeat was the motor hauling tons of idiot’s gold. Drove my truck right off the road. Got out alive, but lost my load, Had semen’s demons in my head Those trucking Devils turned gold to lead, Priapic idiots just have no shame There’s no-one else for me to blame I’d broken every penile code. When I arrived, she’d hit the road. I woke up at the wheel of love, having run right off the road, Could plainly see the way I’d come, I knew what I was owed. Spent too much time away from home, held my fate right in my hand Coulda quit while I was way ahead; didn’t work out like I’d planned. I’m the Pirate of Pyrites now; I’m the fool who won’t be told. My heartbeat was the motor hauling tons of idiot’s gold. I woke up at the wheel of love, going under like a stone In the cold and lonely aftermath, felt sad to be alone The nightmare of the homeless heart has a thousand hours to run I’m drowning in what might have been much brighter than the sun. Before the wheels came off my truck any fool could have foretold I was heading for disaster, hauling tons of idiot’s gold.

Zero Hours I feel I’m dying every night, I’m sleeping on my feet, I’ve always loved the daylight, but we hardly seem to meet. Through missing days, I slumber, through the nights I work in hell. I clock on as a number, but I clock off as a shell. I’m a “zero hours” employee without the time to cry. The irony is killing me, but I can’t afford to die. Let’s sharpen up our pitchforks and build the barricades. Let’s all clean the guillotine and man the palisades. I’m working so their cash will flow, not trickle down to me. I’m sweating so the C.E.O. can fly across the sea, all the way, on a working day, to a shameless Cayman Isle, where he can stash a load of cash from my work and his guile. I’m a “zero hours” employee without the time to cry. The irony is killing me, but I can’t afford to die. Let’s sharpen up our pitchforks and build the barricades Let’s all clean the guillotine and man the palisades. I'm just a part in their machine expendable as dirt No more individual than a polyester shirt I've been made in The UK, pay homage to Mammon, I've equal rights to trilobites My work goes on and on