An ormolu stool for the new Royal baby.

From the archive.

A nation rejoices
a nation is happy
for a baby from Wales
has filled up her nappy

no signs of austerity
in her posterior dexterity
yet for her no diamond
or other rare jewel

no silver
no pearls
but the perfectly formed whirls
of a
golden hued,
curlicued
ormolu stool.

We wrapped it in tissue
sent it off to the issue
of the issue
of our dear Queen's eldest son
With a brief covering word
to authenticate the turd
as a born and bred, dressed in red,
Welsh number one.

Suggesting that
when they unwrap it
they have Gilbert and George snap it
for in turd matters they
are certainly no fool
And will quickly identify
reasons aplenty why
(in the words of the hip)
it is undeniably cool...

To be blissfully happy
with the contents of a nappy:

A golden hued, curlicued, ormolu stool.

Lines written on failing to become poet laureate.

Passed over for the laureateship again
god knows I've tried

written poems about royal weddings and babies
odes to wildlife, urns and joy
tedious blank verse self indulgencies
doggerel
mentioned Amy Winehouse
declared my black moods mixed race
allowed my inner child a voice
played fast and loose with convention
written stuff that rhymes
churned it out by the metre
and the foot:  iamb, trochee, dactyl, anapest, spondee, and pyrrhic

all to no avail 

Dart morning.

Fat lazy salty whore
Rolls brassily into the river’s maw.

Under a counterpane of mist
A blanket of oaks cloak the valley
Down to limpet pocked rocks
Teased by the lardy tarts petticoats.

On, in, swell diminishes to lap.
Fox and otter quarter the shore
The rising tide and sun
dressing the mud in sequins.

Working boats steam seaward
Gulls dogging ploughed wakes.
Sip and plat of my oars
As they turn the meaty water like spaded sods.

Rare Sumatran pygmy elephant discovered trapped in Notting hill basement.

A very rare pygmy elephant has been discovered 'trapped' in a Notting Hill basement. the animal is unharmed and seemingly quite relaxed about the situation.

Due to the rarity of the creature and the fact that no such animal is registered in any UK zoo it is assumed that the elephant has escaped from one of the many illegal sub-basement menageries that are suspected to exist in the affluent west London area. This would also explain the animal's laid back attitude to its current situation. It is assumed that the owner will not come forward to claim the illegally imported beast.

Sumatran pygmy elephants are only found in Sumatra and on the island of Mauritius where they have been kept for centuries as an ornament to the famed bonsai Baobab gardens, where they stand motionless for much of the time, that are unique to the Indian ocean island.

The owner of the house where the elephant was found and who prefers to remain annonymous stated that she would prefer it if passers by would refrain from feeding the animal buns as the crumbs were difficult to clean up.

Although the creature, now named Elaphant n daroum by local schoolchildren, seems happy enough a rescue attempt will be made in the next few days.

I became your mirror.

I remembered your conversations

about a child losing innocence

as we walked on the heath that day

long after he had gone

I instinctively picked up a stick

pointed it at you

shouted bang

and killed the woman who chased him away

you snapped then

snapped the stick, snapped at me

you would not blame yourself of course not

that day I did not lose my innocence

YOU gave me guilt.

and I became your mirror.

Selfie dance.

Discerning mice give thumbs up to local bakery.

This made me chuckle, found on the MyLondon site:


"A Ladbroke Grove bakery was given the worst possible hygiene rating after an inspector found "one of the heaviest and mouse extensive mouse infestations" they had ever seen.
After an inspection on February 21, St Helen's Bakery was given a 0 out of 5 food hygiene rating by Kensington and Chelseacouncil, meaning that urgent improvement is required.

There is more HERE

I imagine that the mice gave it a very high rating.

The Portobello Gold has had a facelift.

A few weeks ago I was asked to sign a petition to RBKC regarding the facade of the gold which is currently undergoing refurbishment. I was happy  to sign the petition, the building is an unattractive piece of 20th century utilitarian architecture totally out of place on Portobello road. I was also surprised to recieve an email of thanks from the new owner.

I assumed from looking at the proposal that the brick facade was to be painted with a fragmented looking mural, nothing remarkable but an improvement all the same.

I walked up  to take a look at the progress today and was very pleasantly surprised, far from painted bricks the entire face has been rendered and painted then the render nibbled away to form the image. I imagine a port fed stitlon attacked by a bunch of artistic mice might look similar.

Well worth stopping to have a look. Now we must wait to see what incarnation a well liked local pub returns as. It opens soon I understand.

Meaningful Vote 3: The legal implications of separating the Withdrawal Agreement and the Political Declaration

Found this on the interweb on the Public law for everyone blog by Professor Mark Elliot:

 'The Government has confirmed that tomorrow, Friday 29 March, it will lay a motion before the House of Commons seeking its approval of the Withdrawal Agreement — but not of the Political Declaration concerning the UK’s future relationship with the EU. It has further indicated that if the Withdrawal Agreement is approved, it will introduce into Parliament the long-awaited ‘Implementation Bill’, which would be needed in order to give effect in domestic law to the Withdrawal Agreement. As far as the legal implications of this proposed course of action are concerned, three issues are worth mentioning."

More HERE

Brexistential angst.

"Brexistential angst", sometimes called existential dread, anxiety, or anguish, is a term that is common to manybrexistentialist thinkers. It is generally held to be a negative feeling arising from the experience of human freedom and responsibility. The archetypical example is the experience one has when standing on a cliff where one not only fears falling off it, but also dreads the possibility of throwing oneself off. In this experience that "nothing is holding me back", one senses the lack of anything that predetermines one to either throw oneself off or to stand still, and one experiences one's own freedom. Angst, according to the modern existentialist, Adam Fong, is the sudden realization of a lack of meaning, often while one completes a task that initially seems to have intrinsic meaning.
It can also be seen in relation to the previous point how angst is before nothing, and this is what sets it apart from fear that has an object. While in the case of fear, one can take definitive measures to remove the object of fear, in the case of angst, no such "constructive" measures are possible. The use of the word "nothing" in this context relates both to the inherent insecurity about the consequences of one's actions, and to the fact that, in experiencing freedom as angst, one also realizes that one is fully responsible for these consequences. There is nothing in people (genetically, for instance) that acts in their stead—that they can blame if something goes wrong. Therefore, not every choice is perceived as having dreadful possible consequences (and, it can be claimed, human lives would be unbearable if every choice facilitated dread). However, this doesn't change the fact that freedom remains a condition of every action.

The greatest poet the world has ever seen.

For Jan Nieupjur. RIP.


Dressed in ermine he ransacked wardrobes for rags,
combed hedgehogs for fleas.
Eviscerated boots for spores of poets foot
and got down with the homeless and the poor.
He shaved Schrodingers cat with Occams razor
then taught it Braille
in order to better understand his acne
acne that did not respond to Keats or Byron or any of the other guitarless lyricists
but responded to his doggerel
as he slavered on the ointment labelled 'keep away from children, they grow into critics'
and watched as the pustules subsided.

How many other poets, he mused, can cure acne with verse
I must be
The greatest poet the world has ever seen.

The forlorn hopes of the brides parents.

The forlorn hopes of the brides parents were crushed when the groom arrived with a chop saw and they realised that they were giving their daughter to the man they had spent a lifetime warning her about.

Pendulum

She asked me: 'What do you do?'
I said I am a pendulum.
She said: 'So am I'.
We held hands full of hope....