Ye Prologue: There’s an old radical tradition Of beating pots and pans in the street, Making a public din (Rather than a private dinner), Ringing bells, banging pans, blowing horns, With domestic utensils used in public, Expressing disapprobation Through community pandemonium, And a cacophony of disharmony. It’s ROUGH MUSICK, A symbolic and cacophonous Criticism of […]

When the working class was first given the vote, The Home Secretary said: ‘We must educate our masters’; The result was the Education Act, Which resulted in elementary schools, Throughout the cities, towns, villages and hamlets Of the United Kingdom; Single storey, red brick or local stone, Separate entrances for boys and girls, Sometimes seemingly […]

It’s possible to shout that in umpteen different languages And still mean it. ‘Fee, Fie, Fo, Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman’ And what does that smell like? It smells of Prehistoric Beaker Folk from Europe, Of Celts and Romans and their Auxiliaries from Africa and Asia, Of Picts, and Scots and Angles […]

Buy George, bye George, by George, It’s my jubilee too this year, Fifty years of hopes and fears, And while you couldn’t call my life A total exercise in active citizenship, You couldn’t call it total subjection either, I suppose. But it’s fifty years of being both English and British – An infant school pupil […]

At the end of the day There are no easy games at this level And two-nil is a dangerous lead When It’s a game of two halves But goals win games And it’s a good touch for a big man When parking the bus Giving a hundred and ten per cent And it may be […]