Monday 9 April 2007

dierdre barlow,
smoking hard like a lowry
chimney, with wrinkles.

I had to go out and buy supplies, Lemsips in particular. We were down to our last one, which I took to give me the strength to get to Sainsburys and back. I praised Argos, the God of Catalogue shopping (my praise being, you understand, in an ironic, post-modern sense) that Sainsburys have seen fit to repair their savings stamp machine which seems to have been out of order longer than Mariah Carey’s tuning fork.
I was not away long. The UO and I spent a mutually grumpy afternoon watching TV and reading.
On the plus side, while sorting out a pile of crap from my bedside cabinet I discovered the first part of my epic poem about Jeremy Spake:-

Long ago in far Heathrow
Where jumbos rumble to and fro
Disgorging men from distant lands
With bags and passports in their hands

And folk who spoke with foreign tongues
Emitting lingo from their lungs
That few back then could understand
Until there strode into the land

Of Heathrow one whose ample girth
Brought tremors to the Heathrow Earth.
His mighty calves, his mighty thighs,
His mighty cheeks brought gasps and sighs.

As all fell silent in their dread
He raised a meaty fist and said
‘Behold. I am the Spake foretold
From Heathrow prophecies of old.’

‘For lo, do not your prophets write
How one who’s Essex-born one night
Will, after long and testing marches,
Appear before you, in Departures.’


The rest is lost to posterity, as indeed Mr Spake seems to be, last heard of compering ‘The Good Old Days’ in Maidstone. Enough said about that.