POEMS
Updated: 26 May 2015
UK GIN DEPENDENCE PARTY
We're not fascists, are we, dear?
Bring that bottle over here.
Now. Where was I? Enoch Powell?
Sod this irritable bowel!
Do you play goff? Come down the club.
Just a snifter, lovely grub...
What, no blazer? Borrow mine.
Chin chin. Maggie, '79!
Now. Where was I? Nigel Farage?
Dear! More bottles in the garage.
Really don't want to disparage
But he should pronounce it Farridge.
Agincourt and Waterloo
Showed those Frenchies what to do
Entente Cordiale - bloody shame.
Wonder how he got that name?
Now. Where was I? Edward Heath?
Awful man with awful teeth.
He's the one who started this -
Led us into the abyss.
It would have been so much easier
To have teamed up with Rhodesia.
Bloody Poles. This gin is strong!
Oh, it's vodka. Got it wrong...
Now, where was I? Fascists? No.
I fought them, I'll have you know.
Well, I nearly did too young.
Something's happening to my tongue!
Bloody Poles. I need a kip.
Do have one more. Just a nip...
Upstairs, ere my forces fail.
Eileen, where's the Daily Mail?
One last parting shot, my man:
Country's going down the pan.
Anyone with half a brain
Is selling up and off to Spain.
Part of that's in Europe, true -
But not the bit we're going to.
Bloody Poles. My poor old head...
See yourself out. Off to bed!
TOO MUCH PRESSURE
(Hypertension: a statement of intent!)
This angry young man is still angry, but older
And now Father Time has just pissed on my shoulder.
'You've got to grow up, John - you're way past that stage
You've reached the condition they call 'middle age'.
It's time to be quiet, say 'yes', watch TV -
High spot of the week, a nice dinner party.
Polite conversation until you doze off
The topics: house prices, taxation and goff.
(That's golf, by the way, in case you're unsure
Not pale folk in graveyards discussing The Cure)
Now just look at you in your Seventies gear
With your punk rock and football and microbrew beer
Political poems and loud, angry songs
You still want to change things and right the world's wrongs?
You stand up and shout and you get in a rage:
It's really not right in a man of your age.
On top of all that, and I don't mean to frighten -
Worst of all for your blood pressure: you support Brighton!
They're not very good and you don't want to die
So sit on the couch and watch Chelsea on Sky....
No.
Sure, I'll take the tablets, and drink a bit less.
If you fancy a game, I might play you at chess.
I hope that I'll make it till I'm ninety - five.
But one thing's for sure, Death - you'll take me alive!
OH FOR THE DAYS WHEN 'SPAM' WAS JUST A MONTY PYTHON SKETCH
Thanks to the internet
my wife is a very happy woman.
My penis is now forty-seven feet long
it stays erect for weeks at a time
and it is garlanded by hundreds of genuine Rolex watches
acquired with the millions I have won
in various Albanian lotteries
and the billions generously deposited in my accounts
by the grateful executors of the wills
of innumerable African tribal chiefs
all mysteriously deceased
along with their entire extended families
in improbably gruesome lawnmower accidents in Liechtenstein.
My account with Lloyds has been suspended.
(I don't have one.)
My wife's breasts
enlarge and reduce, spontaneously,
as we use our 95% discounted software
to gaze at the pictures of our free timeshare apartments
enjoying continuous multiple orgasms
whilst admiring our genuine Chinese historical artefacts
purchased online from Hong Kong.
Our garden is full of imported rubber.
Not rubber sex toys
or even rubber boots
just: rubber.
I have more free Coldplay MP3s
than you could wave a suicide note at.
I also have Kate Moss Suction Power.
I don't know what that is,
but I am hoping it may be useful
next time the toilet needs unblocking.
I now know the Cyrillic alphabet
and the Polish for
'are you embarrased about your size?'
Every morning, a new surrealist word juxtaposition appears in my inbox
as the spammers seek to avoid the filter.
It turk may bake!
Crabmeat be Paris!
Out evoke in robins!
Decomposing lark's vomit engulf Crystal Palace!
(ok, I made the last one up.)
And, to prove that truth is indeed stranger than fiction
in our brave new world,
my website is recommended
as one of the top fifty stockbroking sites
on many search engines.
Now that really is Pythonesque.
I'm sure some of you have a relative like this.......
POISON PENSIONER
I've tried to work it out but I just can't see
How a cretin like you is related to me
You've just one brain cell and that one's a mess
Parroting rubbish from the Daily Express
No, not the Sun: you'd say that was a 'rag'
Delusions of grandeur from a jumped up hag
But don't get ideas: you're as thick as a shoe
Poison pensioner - this poem's for you
I've had it up to here and I'm cutting up rough
Distant relative? Not distant enough!
Ever thought of space travel, prejudiced cow?
I'd suggest Uranus but you're up there right now
You've a monochrome vision of a world that's dead
A million Reader's Digests inside your head
I'd like to put vomit in your cheese fondue
Poison pensioner this poem's for you
You worked all your life in the public sector
And all you ever did was whine and hector
Moan about the people who fought your cause
Cheer for the Tories and their union laws
You were born in a council house you clueless bitch
But you side with the Right and you vote with the rich
Bowing and scraping to the privileged few
Poison pensioner - this poem's for you
You've a medal for meddling, that's for sure
If this was my house then I'd show you the door
But my mum needs help and you're here to see her
So I sit and listen to your verbal gonnorhea
Right now I wish I was in her head
'Cos Mum won't remember a word you've said
Your compassionate act just got a bad review
Poison pensioner - this poem's for you
Bossy yet servile, some combination!
Paralysed spine of a lickspittle nation
Could have been a builder, ended up a tool
Lifelong victim of divide and rule
You're a Ragged Trousered Philanthropist
Who wasn't even waiting for the boat you've missed
You're a turkey voting for Christmas too
Poison pensioner - this poem's for you!
USE OF ENGLISH
The phrase ‘politically correct’
is not at all what you’d expect.
But how has it been hijacked so?
I’m going to tell you, ‘cos I know.
You’d think it should mean kind and smart
Radical and stout of heart
A way of living decently.
Well, so it did, till recently.
And then some cringing, nerdy divs
Sweaty, misogynistic spivs
Sad, halitosis-ridden hacks
all wearing lager-stained old macs
with spots and pustules and split ends
and absolutely zero friends
(Yes, living, breathing running sores:
The right wing press’s abject whores)
Were all told, by their corporate chiefs
To rubbish decent folks’ beliefs
To label with the phrase ‘P.C’
All that makes sense to you and me
And write off our progressive past.
Their articles came thick and fast
The editors gladly received them
and loads of idiots believed them.
You'll find that most who use the term
Will only do so to affirm
Sad, bigoted, outdated views
they've swallowed via the Murdoch news.
ATTILA THE STOCKBROKER
Inspired by a headline on the billboard for our local newspaper...
SHED FIRE
A perfect English pageantry:
an act so gloriously mundane
New neighbours put up eight foot fence
So strangers now will thus remain
As English as our small town press
who'd like so much to dish the dirt
but headline uneventfulness:
'Local shed fire. No-one hurt.'
A cod war veteran complains
about some kids skateboarding by
The Daily Mail sells very well
And he and it see eye to eye
The homeless sleep under the pier
But most round here don't seem to care
That's city life, another's news.
Shed fire, though. Police aware.
The poster shouts it, black and white
A headline story, that's for sure
And there's a pull out TV guide
For folk who rarely ask for more
And two, more lively than the rest,
Are chatting in the autumn sun.
Not in their back yard, thank god,
But shed fire. Little damage done.
ATTILA THE STOCKBROKER
I wrote this song on the day before an unlawful, senseless, evil and arrogant war was started by the hypocrite US Government who issued 771 export licences for 'dual use' technology to the fascist Saddam and now go to war because they don't know what he's done with the stuff. Perhaps they should check their receipts!!!! They claim a link between Saddam and al-Qaeda. There is! Both were funded by the US Government for years! It is an absolute disgrace that the British government and British troops are enmeshed in this nightmare. Unelected 'President' Bush and his regime doesn't give a damn about this country. UK plane shot down by U.S. Patriot missile - that says it all! STOP THE WAR!! The song is a requiem: - for all the people who will die and be injured and scarred for life - and for the British 'Labour' Party. All those battles, all that history, all those achievements - for this. A vote for Blair is a vote for a warmongering US toady who calls trade unionists 'wreckers'.
The party's over. We need a new one.
The table in question is in the Mother Shipton Inn in Knaresborough, West Yorks. I had no idea: I just went in there for a drink, sat down and saw the plaque on it. It seemed horribly appropriate to be there at that moment, a few hours after hundreds of Labour MPs whom so many decent and committed party members had campaigned for at the last two elections betrayed their party workers and constituents so abjectly.
I'm sure they won't be on the doorsteps next time! In 1997 I doorstepped and did a benefit concert for Ivor Caplin, MP for Hove, now one of the most enthusiastic warmongers. I feel ashamed to have done so and next time will be doing exactly the opposite!
(For mainland European readers, Guy Fawkes was a Catholic zealot who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605. His motives were very dubious. But that's hardly the point.)
GUY FAWKES' TABLE
I'm sitting at Guy Fawkes' table
The day Parliament voted for war
Though the mass of the people oppose it
And it flouts international law
I'm sitting at Guy Fawkes' table
While American thugs flaunt their power
Egged on by a sad little muppet
And his craven and cowardly shower.
CHORUS
Aneurin Bevan, your party is dead
And the time for a new one is nigh
Will the last person Left please turn out the lights?
New Labour, just fuck off and die.
They won't be caught up in the carnage
They'll be pontificating right here
Their kids won't be Iraqi conscripts
Moved down while they're shitting with fear
Saddam was the yanks' chosen ally
On a whim, they now say he must fall
So they'll carpet bomb defenceless ground troops
But that's not 'mass destruction' at all...
CHORUS
I'm sitting at Guy Fawkes' table
As Bush and his muppet connive
And I'm filled with unspeakable anger
And I'm thinking of 1605
One message, Dishonourable Members
Who endorsed an illegal attack -
No, I don't want to bomb you like Guy did
But I'd love to send you to Iraq.
CHORUS
We need a new socialist party -
But not the Judean People's Front
Not another small sect, but a movement
With the power to change and confront
We need an electoral system
Which gives every voter a voice
'Cos we're fed up with voting for traitors
And we have the right to a choice!
CHORUS
MY POETIC LICENCE
(An affirmation)
Yo! I'm the MC of ranting rebel poetry
I know my history and my identity
I'm independent, a red cottage industry
DIY from here to eternity
Now let me tell you what's been going on -
I take my inspiration from centuries long gone
Oral tradition of sedition, that's my position
No court jester with a tame disposition...
Poetic licence? Twenty years I've had one
and they don't come easy, they're not given out for fun.
You have to earn it, work and sweat and move
not get stuck in a dead poet bore groove...
I earned mine in dirty scummy punk clubs
Rock gigs, arts centres, festivals and dodgy pubs
And yes, once or twice I've had to fight -
but when a fascist hits a poet, the poet's doing something right!
So listen up, this MC's here to stay
Wild twenty years ago and still fired up today.
I love words and I've got this message for you:
Poetry's not boring - though some poets bore you
And I have to say that some poets bore me.
They're about as fun as a week on the lavatory!
Dull and pretentious, playing the Art Game -
real problem is they give the rest of us a bad name.
But I'm in the forward line, down there in the scrum.
Tedious whining poets - up your bum!
Now some of the critics think my stuff's no good
but I earn my living at it - those jerks never could
Yes, as you see, I'm a little bit bolshy too
But that's just one of the ways I want to get through
Sometimes it's cerebral, quiet, esoteric wit -
sometimes it's loud and hard and rude as shit!
I love words and I love 'em in the red and raw
I like to use them in ways they've not been used before
Want you to laugh and want you to think as well
Bollocks to TV - this is live, as live as hell!
Oral tradition - the real origins of poetry.
Attila the Stockbroker - ranting rebel MC.
Dean of the Social Surrealist University.
Welcome to my wild poetic journey!
Attila the Stockbroker
29 November 1999
You may think that delivering our country on a plate to the US Government , betraying the firefighters and privatising everything that moves for the benefit of their corporate cronies is enough. But New Labour (aka the Bush Poodle Scabs' Party) have, astonishingly, managed to come up with YET ANOTHER piece of legislation which even the most right wing Tory would be thoroughly proud of. They want all live music to be subject to a licence - a direct attack on dissident grass roots culture and confirmation that in the ideal New Labour world everyone is a TV-gawking passive consumer vegetable devoid of an original or independent thought.
This legislation is contained in the small print of the Licensing Bill which is currently on its way through parliament. Yes, if the government get their way, every pub, every community hall, everywhere which hosts live music will have to be licensed. One bloke sitting in the corner of a pub playing the guitar to his mates will be breaking the law unless the pub has a licence - personally subject to a fine of up to £20,000 or six months' imprisonment! Wide screen TV transmissions in pubs to hundreds won't be affected though........'cos that would upset New Labour's friend Rupert....
Unbelievable!!!!
OFF LICENSE!
(for Kim Howells, Minister for Culture)
Rupert Murdoch, that's your 'culture'
Tellytubby corporate state
Wide screen god won't need a licence -
He got you elected, mate!
Thousand Morris dancers whining
With petitions so polite
Some of us aren't cuddly folkies
And you've got yourself a fight!
Sky TV New Labour Tory
Mainstream dullard business bores
So come on, arrest Attila -
Cos I'll flout your stupid laws!
Poems and songs don't need a licence.
Never have and never will.
I'm here in your face, Kim Howells -
Tearing up your Licence Bill!
ATTILA THE STOCKBROKER
7 February 2003
NEW WORLD ORDER RAP
"We will not let the mechanisms of death fall into the hands of men with no respect for life" ("President" Bush, 12 March 2002)
Welcome to Camp Xray, under Fidel's noseThe world's policeman wields his truncheon as the anger grows....
Change the names and fudge the dates
For United Nations read United States
They're coming soon over your border
One World Nightmare - New World Order....
Yes, they talk of Jesus Christ: Self Righteous Brothers all
And every television screen is at their beck and call
So here's a public service broadcast; he who lives, obeys
and the moral of this story is just what the dollar says..
There's no debate there's just G8 and a global mafia superstate
Policed by thugs, awash with drugs and kept in place by Murdoch's mugs
And Sheriff USA is there to turn you into fries
Yes you can bank on a Yank in a tank 'cos he who argues, dies!
Change the names and fudge the dates
For United Nations read United States
They're coming soon over your border
One World Nightmare - New World Order ....
If you TRY to play the game you're sure to get it wrong
'cos the New World Order makes the rules up as it goes along
One minute you're its bosom pal and general factotum
The next its high technology is aimed straight at your ....head
Said sell you arms, said bomb you flat.
Said sell you arms, said bomb you flat.
Said sell you arms, then bomb you flat.
Then sell you more arms...fancy that!
You want to join another gang? Hey look, your country just went bang!
Change the names and fudge the dates
For United Nations read United States
Fundamentalists were their friends
Are they still? Well, that depends....
Al Quaeda - now they'll bleed ya!
You'll end up just like roast pork.
They paid you to murder kids
in Commie countries, not New York!
Hey Assad, you made 'em mad
Lockerbie bomb was really bad
but now they want you on their side
So they'll forget the ones who died
Hey Saddam, time for bam-bam
They helped you kill 'em in Iran
But Saudi oil is looking dodgy
So they're gonna waste ya, podgy!
Change the names and fudge the dates
For United Nations read United States.....
They're coming soon over the border
One World Nightmare - New World Order...
All hail Humanitarian Nato - that's not a bomb, it's a potato!
Just behave or dig your grave: they've got some refugees to save
It's pick and choose, some win, some lose - yes, they're in Kosovo
But Palestine, Timor, Rwanda, sorry, man, no go
Listen, it's not that they don't care, but there aren't points to score down there
The message is to Moscow, large - shut up and put up, they're in charge
and they don't want to lose contacts for banking loans and arms contracts
For every psychopath they bomb there are two more they buy stuff from
and sell stuff to and arm and train and arm again and arm again
Said arm again said Armageddon
Said arm again said Armageddon
Said evil thug - said trusted friend
said evil thug - said trusted friend. Huh!
Change the names and fudge the dates
For United Nations read United States
for NATO read the Pentagon
They rule the world: the reds are gone
Now Mary had a little lamb: its fleece was white as snow
But when the CIA found out that lamb was sure to go
There was a Grand Old Duke of York, he had ten thousand men
But the New World Order carpet bombed them till he had just ten
And then they signed a big arms deal - now h''s got lots again.....
The Serbs the Serbs have funny verbs and don't use vowels in their words...
Change the names and fudge the dates
For United Nations read United States
Said G8, IMF, World Bank.
Put a fascist in your tank.
Get a loan then starve the poor
Then they'll let you have some more.
That's the way the world is run.
Gorbachov - what have you done?
THE IRAQI WEAPONS INSPECTORS’ REPORT
I am one of a team
of Iraqi weapons inspectors
currently travelling through the United Kingdom
under very difficult conditions
searching for weapons of mass distraction.
The Blair government
have denied that such weapons exist
or have ever existed
and have compiled a massive dossier
of long-abandoned Labour Party achievements
as proof of their honesty and basic good intentions.
These include:
creating a temporary Welfare State
nationalising the mines and railways for a few years
reducing working hours and increasing workers’ wages a bit
and opposing the worst excesses of capitalism from time to time
for a couple of months in 1954
as long as it was alright with the CBI.
But a cursory glance round Britain
has uncovered hundreds of such weapons of mass destraction -
Big Brother
Pop Idol
endless meaningless ‘celebrities’
The Sun ‘newspaper’
and the Royal Family
to name but a few -
and our demands that they should be destroyed
in order to combat mass national supine cretinousness and gullibility
on levels unseen outside lobotomised termite colonies
have met with strenuous opposition
not just from the Blair Government
but from the masses themselves
who scream incoherent and violent abuse
at anybody who seeks to remove them
unquestioningly accept their lot
as the least healthy, worst educated and worst paid people in Western Europe
and energetically defend their right to be exploited.
This, of course, proves the efficacity of such weapons -
their superiority in fact
to anything Mr.Saddam Hussein has at his disposal -
and in my report to him
I shall therefore recommend
the cessation of his present policy of gassing, starving and torturing his people
the scrapping of all the nerve gas and other noxious substances
and the purchase by the Iraqi Government
of weapons of mass destraction
similar to the ones employed by Mr. Blair.
Since these modern, super efficient weapons are all British made
we presume they can be purchased from the relevant British companies
via the usual covert Government sanctioned sanctions busting intermediaries
and we look forward to doing business with him.
Thank you and goodnight.
ATTILA THE STOCKBROKER
9 December 2002
ASYLUM SEEKING DALEKS!
(For Ann Winterton)
They claim their planet's dying:
that soon it's going to blow
And so they're coming here - they say
they've nowhere else to go....
With their strange computer voices
and their one eye on a pole
They're moving in next door and then
they're signing on the dole.....
Asylum seeking Daleks
are landing here at noon!
Why can't we simply send them back
or stick them on the moon?
It says here in the Daily Mail
they're coming here to stay -
The Loony Lefties let them in!
The middle class will pay......
They say that they're all pacifists:
that doesn't wash with me!
The last time I saw one I hid
Weeks behind the settee...
Good Lord - they're pink. With purple bumps!
There's photos of them here!
Not just extra-terrestial....
The bloody things are queer!
Yes! Homosexual Daleks
And they're sponging off the State!
With huge Arts Council grants
to teach delinquents how to skate!
It's all here in the paper -
I'd better tell the wife!
For soon they will EXTERMINATE
Our British way of life.....
This satire on crass ignorance
and tabloid-fostered fear
Is at an end. Now let me give
One message, loud and clear.
Golf course, shop floor or BNP:
Smash bigotry and hate!
Asylum seekers - welcome here.
You racists: emigrate!
ATTILA THE STOCKBROKER
6 May 2002
Recently that friend of intelligent journalism and editorial free-
dom, Rupert Murdoch, took over William Collins - a publishing
house which, among other things, produces the Bible. I can
now reveal the planned New Revised Version...
The Bible according to Rupert Murdoch
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was Gotcha! Andthe Lord Rupert said let there be a Royal Family, and let enormous
quantities of trivia and drivel be written about them, yea even unto
the point where a mentally subnormal yak couldn't possibly find it
interesting any more, and let babies be born unto this Royal Family,
and let the huge swathes of nauseating sludge written about them
surpass even that written about their parents, even though these
babies and their parents are about as interesting as a wet afternoon
on the terraces at Selhurst Park.
And the Lord Rupert said let there be soap operas, and let each
of these soap operas be so mind-numbingly moronic as to make a
wet afternoon at Selhurst Park seem a truly uplifting experience,
and let entire forests and the ecological balance of several continents
be destroyed in the endless vistas of retarded outpourings about
these unspeakable transmissions.
And let there be enormous breasts, and endless bonking, and
hours and days and weeks and months and years of chauvinistic
right-wing propaganda so that the brain-dead prats who like the
bonking and the soap operas and the breasts and the royal stories
get the politics as well.
And let any journalist who tries to stand up to the proprietor and
editor in the name of truth, and intelligence, and integrity, and
journalistic standards, be summarily dismissed, and cast forever
into a bottomless pit of decomposing chimpanzee smegma, and let
those journalists who suffer this fate rejoice at the great career move
they have just made.
And the Lord Rupert looked at his work, and even he saw that
it was a load of crap, but this was the enterprise culture and it sold
millions so it was good. And on the same basis he decided to take
over the television too, and the earth itself wept, and little robins
vomited, and cuddly furry animals threw themselves under trains,
and the whole thing was filmed by Sky Channel for a horror nature
programme, and the most awful thing of all was that this was just
the beginning...
Supermodel
Prepubescent imagery.
Empty, stupid eyes.
Waif thin.
Tyrannical.
No fat.
No body hair.
No character, no love, no personality -
no brain.
So thin, and yet...
so thick.
By your anodyne complicity
in this gruesome stereotype
you connive
in the corporate enslavement of your sisters
- anorexia, bulimia, self-loathing, fear.
They aspire to be like you
- an unnatural creation of capital -
and wreck their bodies in the process,
destroy their fertility,
tear apart their lives.
But hang on a minute?
Not my place to talk about that?
I'm a man, what do I know?
You're just trying to earn a living?
What I'm saying has been said before?
OK.
But when the football blokes look
and make some expected remark
I'm supposed to join in.
I'm supposed to fancy you -
or pretend to.
Well, I don't.
And I won't.
More than that.
You revolt me.
You give me an inversion.
It's quite simple really.
I just don't desire a stupid adman's toy
styled to look like a prepubescent girl
- a real 'babe' -
there in the tabloid
next to the lurid description
of Gary Glitter's downfall.
I love a real woman.
I won't buy the product you advertise.
I won't watch your latest film.
I'm not interested in your poxy TV series
I'll never set foot in that bloody car
and I hate you.
I know I should just ignore you, or feel sorry for you
but I hate you
and your fashionist masters
bringers of misery
destroyers of individuality
harbingers of despair.
Women and men:
Riot against diet!
Sod the microchip revolution -
let's have a fish 'n' chip one!
Cream bun chocolate cream bun chocolate
lard lard sag aloo beer beer beer!
Riot against diet!
Smash fashionism!
Say goodbye to Hello!
Make Cosmopolitan....cosmopolitan!
Let's have a real woman's realm!
Take over the curry house
Fill your freezer full of ice cream
Live
Love
Get real!
Attila the Stockbroker
29 November 1999
Haider
Born and raised in Austria, he who would be Chancellor
1929 is here again
Haider!
Ghosts, long stirring, now awake: same well-trodden path to take
Image update, same lies, same refrain
Haider!
Where is your beauty, Austria?
Where is your culture, Austria?
Is this your future, Austria...
A steel stiletto in the face
and the crunch of a manicured fist?
Haider!
Sober, clean and smartly dressed, business class is well impressed
Now he pulls the strings behind the scenes
Haider!
You all heard the things he said, you all know the book he read
You all know those sad old fascist dreams
Haider!
Where is your beauty, Austria?
Where is your culture, Austria?
Is this your future, Austria...
Death and dumplings, pearls and pogroms,
hate in the shopping mall?
Haider!
Inspired by love, I wandered round Vienna
where once my love made music of her own
I marvelled at the music that was born there
But that great city has a heart of stone.....
Haider!
Second coming of the beast, blessed by banker, boss and priest
Slay the beast or bow your heads in shame
Haider!
Young and old, Austrians all, hear your history's baleful call
Hear the butchered millions scream his name
Haider!
Where is your beauty, Austria?
Where is your culture, Austria?
Is this your future, Austria....
For, mark our words, the bastard WILL NOT PASS
Smash Haider!
Or hell in Austria...
02 February 2000
Taken from the Barnstormer album 'Just One Life'
The Zen Stalinist Manifesto
Playing golf or being otherwise dull
with malice aforethought
watching TV for more than ten hours a week
discussing soap operas
(or any TV programmes or adverts
in the case of a stand-up comedian on stage)
and becoming obsessed with the work of
Quentin Tarantino
Damien Hirst
or William Burroughs
will become a criminal offence
punishable by five years' enforced participation
in a non-stop mime
juggling
and face painting workshop
in Slough.
The Berlin Wall will be rebuilt -
only five metres higher.
It will keep people out.
People like the World Bank
the International Monetary Fund
the Spice Girls
Price Waterhouse
Goldman Sachs
Jeffrey Archer
William Archer
Peter Mandelson
Helmut Kohl
and Boris Yeltsin.
Peter Lilley and Michael Portillo
will suffer immediate retrospective abortion.
In order to combat the increasing danger
to civilised society
posed by pig-ignorant
misogynistic
right-wing
testosterone-poisoned
road rage specialists
theme gulags will be introduced
for anyone who drives a van with scratches down the side
and shouts at or otherwise intimidates
lone women drivers at roundabouts
or buys shares in industries
which belonged to him in the first place.
These gulags will all be situated on Rockall
and will have three themes:
Saturday night in August on the Costa Del Sol
auction day at the used car emporium on Shoreham seafront
and happy hour in a Harlow theme pub.
All themes will run 24 hours a day
365 days a year
and inmates will be able to nominate their chosen
theme on arrival.
No theme changing will be allowed
hut Clash albums
chess sets
and copies of 'The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists'
will be available for rehabilitation purposes.
Tight security will be enforced.
Theme gulags will be surrounded by large, deep moats
filled with soya milk and real ale
guarded by pitbullfrogs
and kept under constant surveillance
by hundreds of high court judges
watching from carefully constructed ivory towers.
Boris Yeltsin will finally be recognised
as the traitor and Judas he is
and made to spend the rest of his days
cleaning out the toilets
at the Glastonbury Festival.
With his tongue.
Every Western government leader
and the entire staff of the United Nations
will be forced to walk naked
through the burnt-out towns
and mass graves
in what used to be the Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia
and then have the words
'Marshall Tito was right'
tattooed on their foreheads.
A Zen Stalinist National Curriculum
will be introduced into schools.
Albanian
- both dialects, Gheg and Tosk -
will become compulsory as a foreign language.
Reading Geoffrey Archer
and supporting Crystal Palace
will become not just highly illegal
but indicative of a disturbed mental state
requiring instant frontal lobotomy.
The Alarm will reform.
All school students will have to attend morning assembly
and sing the new National Anthem:
'68 Guns' by The Alarm.
Mike Peters of The Alarm
will become the new Welsh football manager
with David Icke as his assistant.
The Royal Family
will be allowed to remain as figureheads
but will have to join The Alarm.
Billy Bragg will become next in line to the throne
and rhythm guitarist in The Alarm.
All game show hosts
and everyone who works for the Sun
and the Times Literary Supplement
will be shot.
Their executions will be videoed
an acid house soundtrack will be added
and huge week-long parties
known as 'graves'
will begin.
Ken Livingstone and his pet newt Dennis
will become Prime Minister
and Chancellor of the Exchequer.
All privatised industries will be renationalised
without compensation
and a huge TV and poster campaign will be launched
saying simply
'Tell Sid tough shit.'
The Queen will be privatised
and promoted to lead singer of The Alarm.
The first Zen Stalinist Five Year Plan
will be published
declaring world peace and social surrealism
and the dark nightmare of monetarist madness
will finally come to an end.
For ever.