‘Once the rockets are up
Who cares where they come down;
That’s not my department,’
Says Wernher von Braun. Tom Lehrer
Here lies a man who never lived,
Yet still from death was flying;
Who, if not sick, was never well;
And died – for fear of dying! James Thomson, Epitaph on Solomon Mendez, 1782
Essex, Essex, what is it for?
We can’t think of anywhere viler.
Essex where there’s mobiles galore
And in every dream home a rottweiler. Spitting Image s11e2, song, ITV 1991
Awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock,
From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block. W S Gilbert, The Mikado
Well, I wish I was a catfish
Swimming in a oh, deep, blue sea
I would have all you good looking women
Fishing, fishing after me … Muddy Waters et al, Catfish Blues
A ha to Dr Johnson
Said Scipio Africanus
Lift up my Roman petticoat
And kiss my Roman anus. William Blake, re Dr Johnson
To the men-in-the-street, who, I’m sorry to say,
Is a keen observer of life,
The word ‘Intellectual’ suggests straight away
A man who’s untrue to his wife. W H Auden, New Year Letter, 1941
The clever men at Oxford
Know all that there is to be knowed.
But they none of them know one half so much
As intelligent Mr Toad! Kenneth Grahame, Wind in the Willows
The tumult and the shouting dies,
The captains and the kings depart,
And we are left with large supplies
Of cold blancmange and rhubarb tart. Ronald Knox, After the Party
Bury me anywhere
Somewhere near a tree
Some place where a horse will graze
And gallop over me.
Bury me somewhere near a stream
When she floods her banks
I’ll give her thanks
For reaching out to me.
So bury me, bury me,
In my childhood scene
But please don’t burn me
In Golders Green. Spike Milligan
Roses are red,
Farage is a cunt,
Sunak’s a cunt,
and Johnson’s a cunt. Florence, tweet 14th February 2024