DOUGLAS ADAMS
Giving a talk at Saint Trinian’s, Douglas Adams
Was asked by one of the little madams:
“In that hitch-hiker book what you wrote,
Why did you call the big computer ‘Deep Throat?’”
GERRY ADAMS
Was that old habit of Gerry Adams
(Condoning the blowing of people to atoms)
Extinct or just lying dormant?
Wondered a few members, as he took his seat at Stormont.
KONRAD ADENAUER
"I know what! - let's persuade Germans," said Konrad Adenauer,
"To reject the likes of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer
In favour of thinkers a little more empirical
- Then follow that up with an economic miracle."
KATE ADIE
While all were impressed by Kate Adie's
Live, on-the-spot broadcasts from Hades,
Some felt, in the piece to camera from the fiery pit,
She'd rather overdone the 'see how intrepid I am' bit.
MOHAMMED ALI
In one bout of Mohammed Ali’s,
Against, I think, a Senegalese,
To amuse the crowd for a while, in round three,
He stung like a butterfly and floated like a bee.
TARIQ ALI
“I’d love,” said Tariq Ali,
“To address your Anarcho-Stalinist rally
But I’m afraid that evening I’ll be trimming my moustache
- Hey, is that the time! Sorry, got to dash.”
WOODY ALLEN
“Good grief!” thought Woody Allen,
“She’s managed to down half a gallon!”
As he realised he’d been humiliatingly beaten,
In the yard of ale contest, by Diana Keaton.
LOUIS ALTHUSSER
“Why bother to remember Louis Althusser?”
Some of you might be heard to say -
Well, there can’t have been that many Marxist wranglers
Who were also stranglers.
IDI AMIN
The considerate Idi Amin
Wanted to look hungry and lean.
He’d think to himself: “I really ought to start dieting
People find fat’n’happy mass murderers so disquieting.”
KINGSLEY AMIS
An otherwise exemplary old blimp, Kingsley Amis
Despised the homophobe - on what should we blame this?
Had he done a Portillo (or Evelyn Waugh) in his youth?
(Let's face it: wild conjecture's much more fun than the truth)
MARTIN AMIS
"One such jibe is: 'all Brits have bad teeth,' " said Martin Amis,
"- I just say to any Americans I hear claim this:
'Some of us have paid a packet for our smiles to look great
- And anyway, so what? - most of you lot are overweight!' "
GIULIO ANDREOTTI
“Me?” said ex-prime minister Andreotti,
“Do something so scandalously naughty
As to get friendly Mafiosi
To bump off a journalist who’s been too nosey?!”
PRINCE ANDREW
“A marriage of Andrew
And Koo
Might very well kill
His grandmother,” thought Phil.
JULIE ANDREWS
As they filmed a bikini clad Julie Andrews,
Emerging, like a love goddess, from the sea, the bad news
Came from the casting director: they’d got the wrong actress
- What he’d said was: the Bond girl was to be Miss Andress.
YURI ANDROPOV
The official detailed to prod Andropov,
At meetings, when he saw the old man drop off,
Had once done it for the aged Brezhnev, and would then go
And do it again, later, when the premier was Chernenko.
MAYA ANGELOU
“To be honest,” said Maya Angelou,
“When I wrote the book, I hadn’t a clue
- But I’ve since swotted up on ornithology and such things
And could now give a lecture on why the caged bird sings.”
PRINCESS ANNE
There was a difference between Princess Anne
And those creatures who were half horse and half man:
A centaur’s face was human - its body, that of a horse,
While with her it was the other way around, of course.
JEAN ANOUILH
Everywhere he went, up North, Anouilh
Found himself the toast of the ville:
In such places as Worksop and Wigan, he
Was feted for his version of ‘Antigone’
MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI
“Most of the companies,” said Antonioni,
Were quite relaxed about it - only Sony
Felt their corporate nose had been put out of joint,
By their products exploding, at the end of ‘Zabriskie Point.’ ”
YASSER ARAFAT
“Can I put you down?” said Yasser Arafat,
“I’m doing a sponsored ascent of Mount Ararat
- All the proceeds will go
Towards helping the PLO.”
DIANE ARBUS
Diane Arbus
Put an ad in the ‘Argus’:-
“Photographer seeks
Physical freaks.”
JEFFREY ARCHER
Not only did revelations of Jeffrey Archer’s
Criminal departures
From the truth, mean his bid to be Mayor of London would fail,
But, even worse, for him, they also meant jail.
HANNAH ARENDT
To Hannah Arendt
The vulgarity of wickedness was self-apparent:
Barbarities so outlandish they seemed pre-mediaeval,
Couldn’t shake her faith in the banality of evil.
JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE
One morning, Jean-Bertrand Aristide
Went out in a suit made of Harris tweed,
Causing one passing sea-dog to shout: "Oi there, matey!
Those clothes you're wearing are too warm for Haiti!"
NEIL ARMSTRONG
“Call me fussy,” said Neil Armstrong,
“I still say the name is darned wrong :
It just seems such an odd thing to have done:
Calling missions to the moon after the god of the sun!”
CLEMENT ATLEE
“The pre-war maldistribution of wealth,” said Clem Atlee,
“Must not return - for example, take Lady Chatterley
And her gamekeeper: my ministry will endeavour
To bring the two, economically, closer together.”
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH
It would have made the programmes of David Attenborough
(Which consisted of just one damned thing eating another)
More bearable if the beasts had been required
To wait until their dinners had expired.
RICHARD ATTENBOROUGH
The laugh of Dickie Attenborough
Came to resemble the call of the kookaburra
After he’d downed a few glasses of Veuve Cliquot
- His brother noticed, at the do, after the premiere of ‘Biko.’
A. J. AYER
As Mike Tyson is engaged by Professor A. J. Ayer
In a contest as to which one can out-stare
The other - who’s the girl this enables to scramble
From the bruiser’s clutches? - Why, it’s Naomi Campbell !
BURT BACHARACH
As part of the compositional process, Burt Bacharach
Wore one of those plastic caps that came with a pac-a-mac
(All day, for a week!) - “To enter the mind-set,” he said
“Of a man who thinks raindrops keep falling on his head.”
FRANCIS BACON
Francis Bacon
Was left bruised and shaken
After a portrait of Innocent X
Made an impact upon him, of considerable strength.
DAVID BAILEY
“Sorry,” said David Bailey,
“I’d love to come to your celidh
But that day I’m doing a shoot in Frinton
- It’s beachwear - with Jean Shrimpton.”
LUCILLE BALL
It’s not that Lucille Ball
Wasn’t funny at all
But watching midnight TV, aren’t you happier if you see
It’s ‘Sergeant Bilko’ they’re repeating and not ‘I Love Lucy’?
J. G. BALLARD
For some reason, J. G. Balllard
Hummed , whistled or la-la-ed
That song about suicide from ‘MASH’
As he wrote the denouement of ‘Crash’.
HASTINGS BANDA
“What if I am wearing my wife’s blouse?” said Hastings Banda,
“If it’s good for the goose, it’s good for the gander.”
When someone pointed out his shirt buttoned up the wrong way
Half way through a state banquet in Lilongwe.
SIRIMAVO BANDARANAIKA
The way that Mrs Bandaranaika
Would insist that people hear her play the balalaika,
Led at least one music lover, in Sri Lanka,
To wish he could put her over his knee and spank her.
LYNNE REID BANKS
Lynne Reid Banks
Said to the prospective landlord: “No thanks.
This isn’t the room for me
- It’s shaped like a capital T.”
ROGER BANNISTER
“Go hang!” said Roger Bannister,
“You say I can’t, but I can, mister.
If I push myself to the limit, I’ll
Run the first four minute mile.”
JOHN BARDEEN
Running out into the street, John Bardeen
Hugged a nun and then said :“Pardon
My over-exuberance, sister
- I’m cock-a-hoop: we’ve just invented the transistor.”
BRIDGET BARDOT
In a St Tropez café, Bridget Bardot
Ordered a small Armontillado
And when they told her that they’d run out,
She had a chance to practice her pout.
JULIAN BARNES
To Kingsly Amis, novels by Julian Barnes
Most definitely were not rattling good yarns:
He'd packed in 'Flaubert's Parrot' before he'd reached chapter four
Because someone with a gun still hadn't come through a door.
LIONEL BART
Browsing in a medical text, Lionel Bart
Acquired grave concerns about his knees, spleen and heart
- Not to mention his lungs, elbows and poor liver
- Still, he managed to soldier on and write ‘Oliver’.
ROLAND BARTHES
Having read Roland Barthes
And got smart:
The difference between Ariel and own brand biological
Is, I'm now convinced, purely mythological.
SHIRLEY BASSEY
Shirley Bassey
Could tell if a guy was classy
At the very point
That he walked in a joint.
DAVID BECKHAM
“What's that - we've got ten score-draws?” said David Beckham,
"Well, leave it until tomorrow and I'll double check them"
So the pools coupon was put to one side by Victoria,
Who was in a state barely approaching euphoria.
SAMUEL BECKET
“On reflection,” thought Samuel Becket,
“Godot’s turning up might wreck it -
Perhaps the ending would go
Better if he doesn't show.”
DOCTOR BEECHING
That Doctor Beeching
Was secretly using the ‘I Ching’
To select branch lines for closure
Has now been revealed, in a ‘Daily Sport’ exposure.
CAPTAIN BEEFHEART
The portrait of Captain Beefheart
Was an interesting example of sleeve art:
His appearance, as you'd expect, was a little 'way out'
- He wore a rather odd hat and had the face of a trout.
DAVID BELLAMY
“I don’t say ‘wiolets’ ,” said David Bellamy,
“That was Pickwick’s sidekick, Sam Weller. - Me?
I have no difficulty with my V’s
But admit I say things like ‘conifewous twees’.”
DAVID BEN GURION
“We could give it the nickname ‘Ben Gurion’,”
Said some Israelis, when they up-graded the Centurion,
“But, of course, while we’ll take his name and use it for a tank,
We won’t take his advice about giving back the West Bank.”
TONY BENNET
“Haven't you a heart,” asked a lady friend of Tony Bennet’s
(Appalled by his subscribing to ultra-rationalist tenets)
“Which also has its reasons?” - all this, in a disco
- “No,” he replied, “ I left it in San Francisco.”
LAVRENTI BERIA
“Do you have to keep saying that Beria
Is getting scarier and scarier ?
Why don’t you just knock it off?”
Said Malenkov to Molotov.
ISIAH BERLIN
It was with some concern that Isiah Berlin
Read that Arthur’s magician, Merlin,
Had the uncanny knack
Of turning into a fox, and then a hedgehog and then back.
SILVIO BERLUSCONI
“All this talk about a threat,” said Berlusconi,
“To the independence of the media is baloney :
There’s absolutely nothing sinister
About them all being controlled by the prime minister.”
LEONARD BERNSTEIN
“The way the planets,” said Leonard Bernstein,
“Act on people with my birth-sign,
Means I could only have written, when Mars was in Taurus,
That tune for those lyrics that go: ‘There’s a place for us’ ”
CHUCK BERRY
Why did those charges lead to the jailing of Chuck Berry?
- I know little about music but was it such a very
Serious misdemeanour? I’d have thought a small fine
Would have sufficed, for transposing A Minor across a stave line.
JOHN BETJEMAN
“Is that boy still out playing?” said John Betjeman,
“- I told him if he was back late again, I’d fetch him one:
Better get him in I suppose,
Before the dark of reason grows.”
ANEURIN BEVAN
The National Health Service was something Nye Bevan
Wanted brought in, in nineteen-forty-seven
And he didn’t like the way he had to wait
Until nineteen-forty-eight.
RONNIE BIGGS
Ronnie Biggs
Didn’t go in for sly little digs
- He would only taunt British justice with brio,
From his bolt hole in Rio.
OSAMA BIN LADEN
“An unfortunate influence,” said Osama bin Laden
“Was exerted on my father by that book, ‘The Perfumed Garden’
- That's why I have fifty-three siblings back in Ryadh
- Now if you'll excuse me I'm trying to conduct a jihad."
JANE BIRKIN
When Jane Birkin
Did a gig at the 'Fidler's Elbow and Firkin',
The way they kept demanding repeat encores of 'Je t'aime'
Is something I feel I really ought to condemn.
BJÖRK
What rogue gene impelled Björk
To produce such odd work?
The firm that bought Iceland’s genome (don’t it make yer sick)
Is, even now, seeking the answer, in Reykjavik.
CILLA BLACK
Cilla Black,
Sensing a certain lack
Of harmonious proportion in the features of her face,
Thought, perhaps, it was her nose that took up too much space.
CONRAD BLACK
"You heard me" said Conrad Black
"- Give the man the sack."
- When told one of his journalists was expressing opinions
Vaguely sympathetic towards Palestinians.
TONY BLAIR
“I’ve got what’s-his-name on the phone,” said Tony Blair,
“You know - that multi-millionaire
Who’s Formula One’s Mr Big: he’s
Asking how long they’ve got, to stop advertising ciggies.”
DAVID BLUNKETT
“You can rely on me, boss,” said David Blunkett
“ Some on our side will make trouble, but I won’t funk it
- Reaction in the local polls should be remarkably prompt,
When I steal the far right’s thunder by using the word ‘swamped ’.”
ENID BLYTON
In her books, Enid Blyton
Addressed issues which frighten
Small children - really deep fears:
Such as being thought to have big ears.
PAT BOONE
One piece of advice of Pat Boone’s
Was: “Don’t even attempt it in the dunes
- But the flat, wet bits of the beach are just grand
For writing love letters in the sand.”
DAVID BOWIE
In the pub quiz, David Bowie
Knew the owner of Snowy
And how James Bond liked his Martini
But thought Jean Genet was some sort of ‘jean genie’!
PATTIE BOYD
Why did the queue lengthen, when Pattie Boyd
Said that the whole business was making her so annoyed,
She would pick up a stick and beat
The next rock megastar who got on his knees, at her feet?
MALCOLM BRADBURY
Drinking far from his usual haunts, Malcolm Bradbury
Was moved to pull a face and blow a raspberry
At a new acquaintance, he knew only as ‘Rodge,’
Who thought all his books were by David Lodge.
MELVYN BRAGG
When Lord Melvyn of Bragg
Took to presenting it in drag
Viewing figures for the ‘South Bank Show’
Started to grow.
MARLON BRANDO
In the circles frequented by Marlon Brando,
It was nothing to see that somebody was going commando:
- Indeed, if they'd had a poll to find the worst offender
By his own admission, he could have been a contender..
WILLI BRANDT
“Damn!” thought Willi Brandt,
“The rich nations are showing scant
Political will to go beyond lip support
For the recommendations of my report.”
LEONID BREZHNEV
Leonid Brezhnev
Loved those fortified wines from the region around Jerez
- At international summits he’d get merry
Toasting East-West rapprochement with sherry.
BENJAMIN BRITTEN
"I'd better compose something," thought Benjamin Britten,
"People are starting to complain I haven't written
Anything new
Since 'The Turn of the screw'.”
WALLY BROEKER
After filling the glass punch-bowl with water, Wally Broeker
Took some dye, salt, ice cubes and a red hot poker,
Then proved lowering salinity in the surface layer
Of the North Atlantic can halt the ocean conveyor.
JACOB BRONOWSKI
When, at an ideas fair, Jacob Bronowski
Was manning the history of science kiosk, he
Found himself dealing with a heckler
Who disagreed with his views about Kepler.
PETER BROOK
“I’ve thought up some ideas,” said Peter Brook
“To give ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ a new look:
One of my wheezes
Is to put fairies on trapezes.”
MEL BROOKS
If I remember rightly, Mel Brooks
And his accountant, cooked the books
So they’d clean up, when (as was certain) ‘The Producers’ failed
- But their plan misfired and I think they were both jailed.
GEORGE BROWN
As George Brown
Was dancing to ‘Tears of a Clown’
He leapt into the air at a trajectory
That looked odd when traversed by a foreign secretary.
GORDON BROWN
"It was just an idea," said Gordon Brown
"You know I like to keep expenditure down:
But if you insist, Tony, we'll meet at Granita
- Rather than in a 'Happy Eater'. "
JAMES BROWN
“Eeowoo!” said James Brown,
“It’s gone and broken down:
With the sex machine not working, I can't say: ‘I feel good!’
- Better get on down and poke about under the hood."
YUL BRYNNER
It used to bother Yul Brynner,
That his hair was getting thinner.
He would complain: “What a slap-head I am!”
- Until it got him a part as the King of Siam.
ZOLA BUDD
The excessively honest Zola Budd
Could bring fellow athletes down to earth with a thud:
Reeling from her bluntness, they’d find it most galling:
The way she would leave them emotionally sprawling.
JULIE BURCHILL
In her original piece, Julie Burchill
Dealt only with the cultural influence of Virgil
But, needing to expand it by a few hundred words,
Added bits about all the puppets from Thunderbirds.
BURGESS and MACLEAN
Burgess and Maclean
- More brains down the drain!
We spend all that money on schools and colleges to steep them
In the arts and sciences, but then - can we keep them?
ANTHONY BURGESS
Prolific polymath, Anthony Burgess
Turned out so many writings they threatened to submerge us
Under the weight of their multiplicity
- Many slanted by his somewhat odd Catholicity.
GEORGE BURNS
When she asked George Burns:
“Tell me, how much are Grecian urns?”
Pulling a pained face, he
Just said :“Say goodnight, Gracie.”
WILLIAM BURROUGHS
It was a bad day for William Burroughs:
He was getting nothing but shrugs and ‘dunnos ’
As he frantically rushed around
Asking where any horse could be found.
RICHARD BURTON
Lazy and slipshod writers about Richard Burton
Don’t care if they leave the average reader uncertain
Exactly how to pronounce the word, when
They discuss where he came from - Pontrhydyfen.
GEORGE W. BUSH
It was remarkable how angry George Dubya
Could get with someone he thought of as a blubberer:
He re-enacted to habitable lachrymosity
With extremitous antimosity.
GEORGE BUSH (THE ELDER)
Barbara shot a dirty look at her husband, George Bush
- He’d said something admiring about another woman’s tush.
His wife was out of earshot but we all make slips
- He’d forgotten she could read his lips.
RICHARD AUSTIN BUTLER
Rab Butler
Could hardly have been un-subtler
In (weeks before an election) managing to contrive
The giveaway budget of nineteen-fifty-five.
STEPHEN BYERS
While it was unfortunate for Stephen Byers,
That his name rhymed with ‘liars’,
It didn’t seem to inconvenience Denis Hopper
The least bit, his name rhyming with ‘whopper.’
NICOLAE & ELENA CEAUSESCU
Pretending his cupped hand was a radio mike, Ceausescu
Spoke into it, with a comic voice: “Calling International Rescue!”
- His wife said: “What an odd sense of humour you’ve got!”
(As the pair were taken out to be shot).
JOHN CAGE
After the players (chosen at random by John Cage )
Had taken the score and picked any old page :
The brass flipping coins on to a table made a nice
Contrast to sound of the percussion rolling dice.
MICHAEL CAINE
It was the wind machine operator that Michael Caine
Blamed for them having to shoot the house of straw scene again.
Standing there, in his little-pig suit, he said, with a scoff :
“You weren’t only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!”
JAMES CALLAGHAN
“Right now, the trade unionist,” groaned Jim Callaghan
“Looks like a cross between Bill Sykes and Caliban :
Those gravediggers who won’t bury the dead
Have buried our chances of re-election in stead.”
MARIA CALLAS
Whenever she could, Maria Callas
Would turn up to support Crystal Palace
And once, during a hold up to the start of play,
Kept the crowd entertained by singing ‘One Fine Day.’
ROBERTO CALVI
It would appear from the fate of Roberto Calvi
That a milieu more familiar to the Duchess of Malfi
Than to any respectable character from Rattigan
Was moved in by those bankers who worked for the Vatican.
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL
"Thanks to Andrew Gilligan," said Alastair Campbell,
"And the guy who leaked the info he managed to scramble:
We can distract all those now realising just how scanty
Genuine facts were in those dossiers, by attacking Auntie."
ALBERT CAMUS
The bookies who took Albert Camus
For his very last sou
Couldn’t help but deride a
Man who always backed the outsider.
ERIC CANTONA
That fierce monarchist, Eric Cantona
(He'd often say things like: “Georges Jacques Danton - pah!”)
Kicked a Palace supporter who’d had the cheek
To shout, as he passed: “Vive la République!”
TRUMAN CAPOTE
“The world had grown bored,” said Truman Capote,
“With Sancho Panza and Don Quixote
- I homed in on the two drifters of ‘In Cold Blood’
As a complete contrast to the hidalgo and his bud.”
IRENE CARA
“It was, of course,” said the quizmaster,“ Irene Cara
- You also passed on: ‘Who was known as the vamp?’:-Theda Bara
- On the tip of your tongue, wasn’t it? - The singer of ‘Fame’-
But, baby, you didn’t remember her name!”
MARIAH CAREY
At one time, Mariah Carey
Found wearing clothes that reveal a bit scary
But suddenly she stopped being so wimpy
And then hardly wore anything that wasn’t skimpy.
KAREN CARPENTER
Karen Carpenter
Said: “I’ll kill that darned printer!
Look what it says on this lyric sheet here:
‘Why do nirds suddenly appear.’”
JIM CARREY
Take that there ex-stand up, Jim Carrey:
On reaching stardom, he was made instantly wary
Of the situation, by the fact that all the birds and blokes
Surrounding him, invariably laughed at his jokes.
RACHEL CARSON
Passing a DDT factory, Rachel Carson
Had to suppress an incipient fantasy of arson,
And thought: “Unless the use of that stuff ends,
It’s farewell to our feathered friends.”
ANGELA CARTER
Typically, Angela Carter
Just had to be that little bit smarter
Than whoever first told 'Three Billy Goats Gruff'
- Sticking in all that Freudian and magical-realist stuff.
JIMMY CARTER
People wondered with which women Jimmy Carter
Had occasionally sinned in his heart - a
Possible candidate was one flirtatious minx he
Kept fetching drinks for at a do thrown by Zbigniew Brzezinski.
FIDEL CASTRO
One Yuletide eve, into a dream of Fidel Castro’s,
The spirit of Christmas past rose
And recalled that Yankee plot (typically bananas)
To stuff his stocking with booby-trapped Havanas.
PRINCE CHARLES
The refusal of that rebel, Prince Charles,
To let the ‘thou shalt nots’ and ‘thou shalls’
Of the conventional world rule his life,
Explained the mistress older and uglier than his wife.
CHER
Thanks to Cher’s
Being a conspicuous ad for his wares,
Business for her cosmetic surgeon
Began to burgeon.
JACQUES CHIRAC
Jacque Chirac
Said: “It means nothing to me - flak
From all these countries - we’ve signed no treaty
Saying we can’t test our bombs down by Tahiti,”
NOAM CHOMSKY
While Noam Chomsky
Was attending a linguists’ conference in Tomsk, he
Was offered, by an inventor, for a reasonable price,
The rights to a language acquisition device.
JAVACHEFF CHRISTO
All the critics exclaimed: “Ah, Christo!”
When someone wrapped up the factory that made Bisto
- In fact, that artist was busy in Moscow :
The drapery was the work of saboteurs from Oxo.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
“They should have tried harder,” thought Winston Churchill,
“Those who’d wanted to name the planet Uranus, Herschel
- This barrier that runs from Stettin to Trieste, I’ll make certain
People always refer to, by my phrase: ‘iron curtain’ ”
ERIC CLAPTON
“Hell!” said Eric Clapton,
“That’s the third time I’ve snapped one
- Why is it I always overdo
Those stretches on the G-string, in the middle of ‘Strange Brew’?”
ARTHUR C. CLARKE
Arthur C. Clarke
Would do anything for a lark:
He invented a carpet shampoo, just for the fun
Of calling the product ‘2001.’
LORD KENNETH CLARKE
“Curse the New World!” said Lord Kenneth Clarke,
“That Washington neo-classical stuff is too stark,
While the Mexican churiguerresque
Is so over-ornamental, it’s grotesque!”
JEREMY CLARKSON
In my favourite Kafkaesque story, a Jeremy Clarkson
Type character goes and parks on
A double yellow line,
And is banged up for years, in stead of just getting a fine.
JOHN CLEESE
John Cleese
Damaged his knees
As a result of the stresses and torques
That he imposed upon them by doing silly walks.
BILL CLINTON
The porcelain-mad Bill Clinton
Wanted to call his daughter Minton
But Hilary proved refractory,
So Chelsea was named after a nicer sounding factory.
KURT COBAIN
Team spirit was not what Kurt Cobain
Smelled of, as while unblocking a drain,
A freak blow-back covered the high priest of grunge
From head in foot in gunge.
EDDIE COCHRAN
My collection of records by Eddie Cochran
Is so complete that I’ve even got one
Of those rare, uncensored copies of ‘Three Steps to Heaven’
Where he goes up to seven.
LEONARD COHEN
“I’d wanted the bird,” said Leonard Cohen,
“To perch on the wind tossed bough of a rowan;
But that doesn’t rhyme with 'choir'
So I stuck it on a wire.”
NAT KING COLE
At the bottom of the agreement form, Nat King Cole
Read the line which decided him against selling his soul
- Put in bold type, by a fiend who wasn’t too clever,
Was: ‘When you fill in the above, it will be forever.’
JACKIE COLLINS
“The critical judgement I dread most,” said Jackie Collins
“Is that Tom Paulin’s :
I fear his review of my new Tinseltown bonkbuster
Might, far from being glowing, prove a little lacklustre.”
JOAN COLLINS
“How can you bear to be a soldier?” said Joan Collins
“- All those ‘at eases!’, ‘attentions!’ and ‘fall-ins!’
I’m glad it’s you that's guarding Buckingham Palace
And me who’s got a part in that spin-off from 'Dallas'.”
PHIL COLLINS
“With this toothed applicator, Grandma Maude,” said Phil Collins
“(It can get glue under problem edges, like that tarpaulin's)
I'll make your leaky shed roof watertight, rest assured
- I can seal it, combing in the aerolite, old Maude.”
JOHN COLTRANE
“What’s that?” said John Coltrane,
“Only ninety minutes remain
Before I have to get off and the fat lady sings
- But it’ll take me that long just to play ‘Favourite Things’!”
ALEX COMFORT
“I don’t emphasise the fact,” said Alex Comfort,
“That straight afterwards some feel glum, but
It is mentioned (under psychological effects)
In a postscript at the end of ‘The Joy of Sex.’”
SEAN CONNERY
Sean Connery
Nearly had a coronary
When, on achieving power, the Scots Nats
Changed the rules and demanded back taxes from ex-pats.
CATHERINE COOKSON
Most of all, Catherine Cookson
Liked to write books on
The kind of adventures that can befall
A girl who wears clogs and a shawl.
GARY COOPER
An old out-take from a film of Gary Cooper’s
Turned up on one of those programmes of bloopers
- You heard a voice, over a station tannoy, say :
“The train due at noon has been cancelled today.”
JILLY COOPER
Jilly Cooper
Exclaimed: “Oh, super dooper!
I’ve just had an idea for the plot of another stonking
Great tale of the British upper middle classes bonking”
FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA
“What did you call the effect,” said Francis Ford Coppola,
“Flying in circles has on the sound of that chopper - the ‘Doppler’ ?
Well all I can say is: Holy Cow!
I’ll use that noise at the start of ‘Apocalypse Now.’ “
KEVIN COSTNER
Kevin Costner
Said: “So that’s what you meant by the postern, huh?
Well it would have saved me a bit of hassle
If you’d just said ‘the back door’ of Nottingham Castle!”
FANNY CRADOCK
Before Fanny Cradock
Demonstrated how to poach a haddock,
She took a little time out
To give Johnny a clout.
CRICK AND WATSON
How a chromosome stores its info, Crick and Watson
Revealed with their model of the molecule the lot's on:
It came to them, when (by a slip of the wrist)
Crick went and got his zip in a twist.
STAFFORD CRIPPS
In a moment of madness, Stafford Cripps
Once asked for a second helping of Woolton pie and chips:
His closest friends have tried to keep this from posterity
To protect his reputation for austerity.
DAVID CRONENBERG
As shooting progressed, David Cronenberg
Thought: “That’s a relief - looks like it's going to work!
Up to now I was only acting on a hunch
That it was possible to film ‘The Naked Lunch.’”
RUSSELL CROWE
“I will throw something,” said Russell Crowe
“At the next person who shouts, as they go,
‘See you later,
Gladiator.’ ”
TOM CRUISE
Now here’s the low-down on Tom Cruise:
He…( hang on, I’ve just remembered )…always sues
- Hmm…on second thoughts,
Who wants to end up in the courts?
EDWINA CURRIE
Edwina Currie
Once caused a brief flurry
By implying that the eggs in our omelettes
Were bacteriological bomblets.
TONY CURTIS
“Until I was in ‘Some Like It Hot’,” said Tony Curtis,
“I had no idea how nice wearing a blouse and skirt is.”
“Same here - shall I give you a twirl?” replied Jack Lemon,
(He had his new frock, with the fancy French hem, on.)
LORD DACRE
Lord Dacre
Said: "These aren't the work of a faker
- Nothing could be surer
Than that they're the diaries of the Führer."
ROALD DAHL
A painful memory of Roald Dahl’s
Was meeting one of the rare, surviving Neanderthals
Who’d told him all his stuff
Wasn’t subtle enough.
JANET DALEY
Sometimes I suspect Janet Daley
Thinks we imitate America too palely:
She’s right! - let’s carry guns, put the poor in trailers,
All drive gas guzzlers and hire more gaolers.
ELIZABETH DAVID
A girl once sought advice from Elizabeth David
About a boyfriend with a particularly depraved id
And was told her chewing raw garlic, chopped onion or chives
Would probably put a brake on his libidinous drives.
SAMMY DAVIES JUNIOR
Sammy Davies Junior’s
Boasts about the prizes he'd won for his petunias
Revealed a whole new side of him to Dino,
One night when they performed at the same venue in Reno.
RICHARD DAWKINS
“…And there's the trial of Galileo, ” went on Richard Dawkins,
“Jihads, the Inquisition, lopping off babies’ foreskins…”
(Then he paused in this religion-deprecating list
To pull a rude face at a passing creationist.)
JAMES DEAN
Was the car in which James Dean
Went for his last spin, a jinxed machine
- It’s interior really a disguised ante-room
To the after-life, in a Porsche of doom?
DORIS DAY
Doris Day,
Fed up of the way
They’d kept putting her in films like ‘Please, Don’t Eat the Daisies’,
Tried to get a part in Romero’s ‘Night of the Crazies.’
SIMONE de BEAUVOIR
“Must scrub that second line,” thought Simone de Beauvoir:
(Reading over what she’d written so far)
“A woman isn’t born: it’s something she becomes
- It’s not innate, our concern with the size of our bums.”
CHARLES de GAULLE
“So your country has lost an empire,” said Charles de Gaulle,
“And is in now search of a role:
Well it’s not going to find one in the European Community
- Not while I can veto its entry, with impunity!”
JOHN De LOREAN
The significance of John De Lorean
To the motor historian
Is not so much that he did things which weren’t legal,
As his making a car that could look a bit like a sea-gull.
ROBERT De NIRO
When I found myself standing next to Robert de Niro,
One day, at the Tate-Modern, I said: “I do like that Miró:
It's like some comically odd nightmare - don’t you agree?”
- To which he replied: “Are you talking to me?”
GERARD DEPARDIEU
"It's in musketeer costumes and stars Gérard Depardieu."
(I thought: "I'm finding keeping a straight face quite hard, here!"
- The Hollywood exec, who'd just been to Cannes,
Had seen what he called a French re-make of 'Roxanne'.)
JACQUES DERRIDA
"What matador trainers don't realise," said Jacques Derrida
"Is that ways to make a kill, many and varied are."
- So he didn’t do as his teachers had instructed him,
And the bull all but deconstructed him.
COLIN DEXTER
“My prose style,” said Colin Dexter,
“Has such a dense structure and texture,
You’d expect multiple meanings to occur - but, of course,
Readers shouldn’t look for coded messages in ‘Morse.’”
PRINCESS DIANA
I can’t remember: did Princess Diana
Pronounce her own name so that it rhymed with ‘Guyana’
(As it would have been, by old fashioned debs)
Or with ‘hi, Anna!’ like us ordinary plebs?
PHILIP K. DICK
The shade of Philip K. Dick
Found ‘Bladerunner’ all very slick
But thought it was a pity they didn’t keep
His electric sheep.
CELINE DION
“Thucydides is so unfair:” complained Celine Dion,
(Discussing, with friends, that historian’s treatment of Cleon)
“He seems determined to portray him as brutish and manic!”
- Then the phone rang: would she do the song for ‘Titanic’?
CHRISTIAN DIOR
“Shall I treat people as sensible,” thought Christian Dior
“And raise hemlines above the knee or
Ignore the existence of the ration book,
Assume they’re idiots, and bring in my new look?”
WALT DISNEY
“Not that one, you fool!” said Walt Disney,
“The problem I’ve got, Doc, is with this knee
- It’s exactly the same pain around my patella
As I had at the time we were making ‘Cinderella.’ ”
CARL DJERASSI
It was of some consolation to Carl Djerassi
As he squeezed aboard the bus to Talahassie
That the vehicle might have been more crowded still
If, years before, he hadn’t help develop the pill.
MARGARET DRABBLE
"You were peeking at my letters!" yelled Margaret Drabble,
(During a family game of ‘Scrabble,’)
"Was not! Was not!" shouted back A. S. Byatt,
Then the others taking sides led to a domestic riot.
ALEXANDER DUBCEK
The performance of Alexander Dubcek,
Stalking about the poop deck
As Bligh, in a stage version (by Vaclav Havel)
Of ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’, led audiences to marvel.
JOHN FOSTER DULLES
John Foster Dulles
Was a fan of the poet Catullus
- When not busy pursuing a policy of containment,
He’d read about Lesbia’s sparrow, for entertainment.
NELL DUNN
“Because,” said Nell Dunn,
“I think double-entendres are fun.”
When someone asked her, at a literary function,
Why she’d called her play ‘Up the Junction.’
FAYE DUNNAWAY
Ignore those who tell you Faye Dunnaway
Deliberately set out to cause a runaway
Boom in beret sales as a result of ‘Bonnie and Clyde’
And took a cut from the manufacturers, on the side.
GERALD DURREL
The highland gillie said to Gerald Durrel:
“Let’s give this new deer-call a whirl
- I believe they’re animals of which you saw few
While living on Corfu.”
LAWRENCE DURREL
The Scottish doctor said to Lawrence Durrell:
“If you insist on a specialist, I’ll write you a referral
But I think it’s the climate makes people feel much less randier
In England, than they do in Alexandria.”
PAPADOC DUVALIER
For the quick, witty riposte, Papadoc Duvalier
Had no talent but when he told his esprits d’escaliers
Later, to the boys in the Ton Ton Macoute,
They always found them a genuine hoot.
BOB DYLAN
On literary details, Bob Dylan
Could be the most pedantic villain:
A woman mentioned Scott’s ‘Way of the Last Minstrel’, one day,
And he practically yelled at her: “Lay! lady , Lay!”
CLINT EASTWOOD
“Of all the scripts,” said Clint Eastwood,
“I’ve ever been sent, this is the least good:
How could the writers be such goddamn fools
- I’d be cast as a cop who plays by the rules!”
UMBERTO ECO
Umberto Eco
Could have been something of, say, a Gordon Gekko
But decided against a life of ruthless acquisition
Preferring that of a novelist-cum-semiotician.
ANTHONY EDEN
“Now listen,” said Anthony Eden,
“This is how it’s going to be done:
The locals have their gunfight at the OK Corral
- Then we turn up to protect the canal.”
DUKE OF EDINBURGH
“Oh dear!” said the Queen, to the Duke of Edinburgh,
“These anti-foreigner remarks: I see you’ve made another.
If the press learned of it - and let’s hope they don’t do so -
What would they make of your taste for houmous and ouzo?”
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
"Darned nonsense!", thought Dwight D. Eisenhower,
“I’ve got nothing against the rising power
Of the military-industrial complex
- But I guess it’s too late change this speechwriter’s dumb text.”
ELIZABETH II
Elizabeth the Second
Was hardly a fecund
Coiner of the phrase that will never die:
Just ‘Annus horribilis’ and ‘My husband and I’.
TRACEY EMIN
"Men I've kissed?" said Tracey Emin,
"No, I won't be putting them in
- Hell, even the ones who almost went
All the way, won't get their names in my tent."
EMINEM
Most mothers have their faults, but the experience of Eminen
Is a warning against our publicly condemning them:
Honour your mother and father, as told by the Bible
- That way one of them won’t sue you for libel.
SVEN GORAN ERIKSSON
“Which starlets ” said (the lacking in self knowledge) Eriksson,
“Would I most get on with?. .hmm .let’s see…well, Bo Derek’s one
- But I’ve a feeling a woman like Sophia Loren
Might have suited my fiery temperament better,” went on Sven.
PABLO ESCOBAR
The arguments of Pablo Escobar’s,
For starting an international chain of expresso bars,
Went: not only would it provide a means
Of laundering cartel dosh - they could use Colombian beans.
TIMOTHY EVANS
Bear in mind the case of Timothy Evans
And come up with, at least, a surprised ‘Good heavens!’
Whenever you meet some dope
Who wants to bring back the rope.
ADAM FAITH
In a misunderstanding, Adam Faith
Said: “Don’t hurt that puppy, you brute! - I’ll open the safe.”
Adding, when the vet, he thought was a crook, found this funny,
“Well, what do you want if you don’t want money?”
MIA FARROW
Apparently Mia Farrow
Got confused messages from the Tarot
About whether a comedian who played the clarinet
Would or wouldn’t be ill met.
SARAH FERGUSON, DUCHESS OFYORK
“My favourite snacks?” said Sarah Ferguson,
“Hmm…let’s see…well, a hamburger’s one
But toes, ...sorry, toast with Marmite - mm! luscious!
- Is what I like the most,” went on the ginger Duchess.
BRIAN FERRY
When it finally became obvious, Brian Ferry
Went as red as a berry :
Neither he, nor anyone else in the band,
Had the slightest idea how to do the Strand.
IAN FLEMING
“Why is it,” thought Ian Fleming,
“All the critics keep condemning
The use of brand names in my thrillers?”
- As he paid in the cheques from Aston Martin, Mars and Spillers.
JANE FONDA
Wherever, in America, Jane Fonda
Happened to wander
She risked bumping into someone who’d express annoyance
At a trip that she made to Hanoi, once.
MICHAEL FOOT
Crucially, Michael Foot
Had helped rob the tomb of King Tut:
His 'eighty three election performance was so crummy
Because he was under the curse of the mummy.
GERALD FORD
The underestimated Gerald Ford
Could simultaneously sing ‘Come into the garden, Maude,’
Pat his head with one hand, in time with rubbing his tum
Clockwise with the other, and walk - while chewing gum!
HARRISON FORD
The impression given by Harrison Ford,
In those Indiana Jones films, can only be deplored
- Archaeologists rarely meet with violence while on the trail
Of the Ark of the Covenant or Holy Grail.
JOHN FORD
“You’re mistaken,” said John Ford,
“It’s not a genre with which I’ve got bored:
Stop bombarding me with suggestions
For films to direct that aren’t westerns.”
MICHEL FOUCAULT
With its overtones of whips and bondage, Michel Foucault
Liked the song of the Hebrew captives from ‘Nabucco,’
- He’d just been over to the gramophone and popped it on
That time he first came across Bentham’s Panopticon.
GENERAL FRANCO
In desperation General Franco
Tried splashing his armpits with Cinzano Bianco
After the medics had informed the caudillo
They had no remedy for his chronic B.O.
ARETHRA FRANKLYN
When they asked Arethra Franklyn
How much it had hurt when she’d strained her ankle in
A trip over a football, as she’d gone to dribble it,
She replied: “Just a little bit, just a little bit”
LUCIEN FREUD
"Us women that you paint," one of them said to Lucien Freud,
“Aren't that saggy and blotchy and we're getting annoyed
- We don’t ask that you make us pretty as anemones,
But - you do your friends like that! How’d you paint your enemies?”
BETTY FRIEDAN
A mildly poisonous serpent bites Betty Friedan,
So she runs to the dispensary as fast as she can,
On this Caribbean island of the rich and the chic,
To sort out her problems with the venom, in Mustique.
MILTON FRIEDMAN
If you answer the door and it’s Milton Friedman
Peddling economic theories, say you don’t need one:
Last time, his ideas, about money being too abundant,
Just helped in making loads of people redundant.
DAVID FROST
“We need someone to row in the mixed pairs with David Frost:
It seems his skulling partner, our friend Ms Emin, is lost
And won’t be here in time for the celebrity race
- So, he rows without Trace.”
VIVIAN FUCHS
Like Doctor Faustus, Vivian Fuchs
Cried aloud: “I’ll burn my books!”
But it had nothing to do with selling his soul
- He was trying to keep warm, while at the South Pole.
FRANCIS FUKUYAMA
As the conference grew heated, Fukuyama
Asked everybody there to become calmer,
Then said history had halted
And was promptly assaulted.
BUCKMINSTER FULLER
Life’s compared, in one line of Buckminster Fuller’s,
To a glass geodesic dome of many colours
But this habit of borrowing is even plainer to see
In his: “did…a stately geodesic pleasure dome decree.”
ALI G
There’s something about Ali G
Which doesn’t quite ring true to me:
He appears stupid but, sometimes, it’s as though he’s got brains:
On the other hand: what intelligent man lives in Staines?
PETER GABRIEL
Fronting the act dressed as a fricative, Peter Gabriel
Might have got away with - but one that was bi-labial!?
That was too much, and the other members of Genesis
Prevented it, by means of threats and menaces.
YURI GAGARIN
When the barmaid told Yuri Gagarin
That it was too late for him to get another jar in,
Goodness, but the 'Columbus of the cosmos'
Was cross!
HUGH GAITSKELL
Hugh Gaitskell
Said: “I find these debates dull -
All this hot air about the bomb is a pain:
The boredom is something I have to fight, fight and fight again.”
J. K. GALBRATH
‘Thought for the Day’ came from J. K. Galbraith,
Representing those of the Post-Keynesian faith.
He said, over the air-waves, in tones of great sonority:
“Shame on you, members of the contented majority!”
NOEL AND LIAM GALLAGER
So fond was Liam Gallager
Of Samuel Richardson’s ‘Pamela’
That when Noel declared it inferior to ‘Clarissa’
Liam punched him on the kisser.
GENERAL GALTIERI
Political longevity? For that, Galtieri
Had no particular flair: he
Became a has-been as
Soon as he lost the Malvinas.
AVA GARDNER
It surprised some that Ava Gardner’s
Favourite Canterbury tale was the Pardoner’s
- But it would certainly have made a better noir than the Miller’s
And cried out for the femme fatale she’d played in ‘The Killers.’
JUDY GARLAND
After vowing to stay off the pills, Judy Garland
Did a season at a nightclub in the Saarland
And, you know, I don’t think that unlucky star took one,
All the time she was in Saarbrücken.
BILL GATES
As a standard procedure, the young Bill Gates,
After he’d taken girls out on dates,
Said: “It’s been a lovely evening,” and kissed them
- Then asked them up to see his operating system.
GLORIA GAYNOR
The island on which we marooned Gloria Gaynor
Provides enough food and drink to sustain her,
Even if rescue should take ages to arrive,
So she'll probably survive.
BOB GELDOFF
“Band Aid helped make sure,” said Bob Geldoff,
“That the forces of catastrophe were held off
- It wasn’t just a sticking plaster
Applied to a disaster.”
GEORGE VI
George VI
Was a little bit miffed
When he overheard a bystander mutter:
“So ‘speaking the king’s English’ means to stutter!”
BOY GEORGE
"A nice cup of tea," said Boy George
"Even without the accompaniment of a quick gorge
On chocolate biscuits or a quiet puff on a ciggy,
I'd still prefer to a bit of jiggy-jiggy."
RICHARD GERE
The more besotted fans of Richard Gere
Claim he had a backside without peer
And that its appearance in ‘Breathless’
Left them with memories that will be deathless.
INDIRA GHANDI
Nobody told Indira Ghandi
That you have to have a reasonable excuse handy
- Say, an intensifying regional insurgency -
Before you declare a state of emergency.
MAHATMA GHANDI
Mahatma Ghandi
Had a distinctive modus operandi:
In stead of trying to seize the enemy by the throat, he
Practised civil disobedience, in a dhoti.
RAJIV GHANDI
Would that woman, who blew up Rajiv Ghandi,
Occasionally have practiced the art of mehandi?
Is sometimes using henna to make patterns and swirls,
On the hands, something done by Tamil Black Tiger girls?
MEL GIBSON
When somebody asked Mel Gibson:
Where was it he came into this world: Melbourne? Brisbane?
He replied: “It couldn’t have been either, because
I was born in up-state New York, not in Oz.”
ALAN GINSBERG
“Excerpts from an Anglo-Saxon lay?” said Alan Ginsberg,
“Reciting bits from your translation of ‘The Fight at Finnsberg’!
- I’m not sure that that would fit in very well at all
In this reading we’re planning for the Albert Hall.”
A. A. GILL
For the rest of eternity, A. A. Gill’s
Being thrashed with bunches of daffodils
And, simultaneously, probed in depth, with a leek,
Would be fitting retribution for his anti-Welsh streak.
PHILIP GLASS
Philip Glass,
When he asked: “What’s wrong with the brass?
They seem to be playing my piece quite gingerly.”
Was told they were scared of repetitive strain injury.
JEAN LUC GODARD
“Did he have to choose this, as well?,” thought Jean Luc Godard,
As, in addition to the rapier, he picked up the poignard
- He’d called the critic out, for saying ‘Quelle blague!’
About ‘la nouvelle vague.’
WILLIAM GOLDING
It was contended by William Golding,
That if boys don’t have to fear the odd smack or scolding
From, say, a teacher, father or mother,
They’ll start worshipping pigs and killing one another.
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV
When the waiter told Mikhail Gorbachev
He was sorry but the borsht was off,
The president made such a to do
You’d have thought the old guard had launched another coup.
GOSCINNY
You’d never have got a translation from Goscinny
Of “non sint nimis concinni”
- His spoof Latin came from ‘foreign phrases in common use’
At the back of ‘La Petite Larousse’.
BILLY GRAHAM
“I'd love to,” said Billy Graham,
“But wouldn’t know how to sing you a ‘Te Deum’
- I can only save your soul from abomination.
Then you go to a church of your own denomination.”
CARY GRANT
Being rumoured gay didn’t cause Cary Grant
To call it an outrage and rave and rant :
When he arrived in a town, at the hotel, he knew
Women would knock on his door, to find out if it was true.
HUGH GRANT
For several minutes, Hugh Grant
Could only flop back and pant,
In the driver’s seat of his car
- While jogging in the park, he’d gone too fast and too far.
GÜNTER GRASS
“He needs another gimmick,” thought Günter Grass
“A dwarf, with a scream that can shatter glass,
Isn’t sufficiently rum
- Perhaps if he kept playing a tin whistle or drum….?”
GRAHAM GREENE
In a Saigon park, Graham Greene
Found a drunk spoiling what should have been a peaceful scene:
There, yelling “Yeehah!” and banging on a jerry can,
Was the man on whom he’d modelled the quiet American.
GERMAINE GREER
I refuse to believe that Germaine Greer,
Got a kick out of inspiring males with fear
And would do something like, say, over-praise Aphra Behn,
Just to have fun browbeating any dissenting men.
MATT GROENING
"Those quick visual gags you throw in," they told Matt Groening,
"Only the really bright can spot - people are complaining."
(I know the ones they meant: I frequently glimpse ones
While watching ‘The Simpsons’)
CHE GUEVARA
The CIA started rumours that Che Guevara
Was in the habit of using lipstick and mascara:
Hoping that, in a macho culture, this would stop
Bolivian peasants supporting such a fop.
ALEC GUINNESS
I bet you didn't know that Alec Guinness
Was drawn to deserts, the way a Bedouin is
- He used money he made from playing Obi-Wan Kenobi,
To finance several of his trips to the Gobi.
SALLY GUNNELL
Pale Hecate’s votaress, Sally Gunnell,
By means of spells and incantations, used to funnel
Some of the magical energy, by which Puck put girdles
Round about the earth, into her four hundred metre hurdles.
WILLIAM HAGUE
The baldness of William Hague
Led some Tory voters to renege
And succumb to Labour’s slogan: ‘Vote for Blair -
He’s still got all his hair.’
TONY HANCOCK
As he bummed his way around the world, Tony Hancock
Kept himself going, while he was in Bangkok,
By resorting to a practice, I’m sure must be harmful:
Selling his blood by, very nearly, the armful.
TOM HANKS
I used to maintain that Tom Hanks
Wouldn’t do psychopaths or people who rob banks
But “He only ever plays men who behave decently”
I can no longer say - he's had parts as crooks recently.
ROLF HARRIS
“A lowly wench called Catherine,” said Rolf Harris
(Recounting local legends, in the castle at Beaumaris)
“Tried to rise in life, by getting off with one Sir Dwight
- But poor little Kitty didn’t make it, through the knight.”
GEORGE HARRISON
“It’s easier,” said George Harrison,
“If a there’s a male around, for comparison,
But I can usually pick out a female, when I’m watching hawks,
- There’s something in the way she squawks.”
DEBORAH HARRY
“Pretentious? Moi?” said Debbie Harry,
(Holding, conspicuously, a text of ‘Ubu Roi’ by Jarry)
“You’re all just jealous, because I’m the only one in Blondie
Who knows the difference between a trochee and a spondee.”
HANS and LOTTE HASS
As Hans and Lotte Haas
Tucked into a grilled sea bass
It didn’t seem to cause them any grief
That it had starred in their film about an underwater reef.
ROY HATTERSLEY
“Oh dear, what could the matter be?” thought Roy Hattersley
“I was right wing labour but am on the left, latterly
- And all because I, ideologically, sat tight
While everyone else moved to my right!”
CHARLES HAUGHEY
“With that verbal quirk,” said Charles Haughey
(Hearing of a man who always referred to Bill Oddie,
By some strange twist of the tongue, as Mister Dior)
“I suppose he’d call me Mister Hee-Haw.”
STEPHEN HAWKING
“You’re not usually this silly,” said Stephen Hawking,
“It must be the whiskey talking!
- Would my ‘Brief history of time’ have been briefer
If they’d proved the existence of the ether?!”
FRIEDRICH HAYEK
Some Americans go a bundle on Friedrich Hayek
- One of liberty's greatest philosophers, by heck!
In Britain, most considered him not quite of this earth
- Telling the council house dweller he’d end up as a serf!
DENIS HEALEY
Alarmingly, Denis Healey
Very nearly
Gave in to his secret yen
To throttle Tony Benn.
SEAMUS HEANEY
“What’s next on this side?” thought Seamus Heaney,
“Ugh! They’re re-running an old episode of ‘The Sweeney’ ”
- In an instant, between his finger and his thumb,
The squat TV handset rests, snug as a gun.
PATTIE HEARST
“All you, in the counter queue, freeze!” yelled Pattie Hearst
“Anyone making a move gets a burst!
- Now lie on the floor slowly and calmly.”
(While fundraising for the Symbionese Liberation Army.)
EDWARD HEATH
Such an antipathy was felt by Edward Heath
Towards his successor as Conservative chief
That when he was playing the piano or organ,
He’d muff a note, if he so much as thought of the gorgon.
HUGH HEFFNER
His poor secretary! When she told Hugh Heffner
His angry shouts almost managed to deafen her:
Apparently, all the playmates had decided to flounce
Off to a rival mag, called ‘They’re Big and They Bounce.’
JOSEPH HELLER
While it didn’t exactly put Joseph Heller
In the same league as a Rockefeller,
He became reasonably well-to-do
From the sales of ‘Catch 22.’
JIMI HENDRIX
With his ‘National Anthems’ album, Jimi Hendrix
Proved himself one of rock’s great eccentrics:
It included the ‘Marseillaises’, ‘The Star Spangled Banner’
And ‘Land of My Fathers,’ played in the psychedelic manner.
CHARLTON HESTON
I bet Charlton Heston
Always went around with a bullet-proof vest on
- As president of the NRA
It wouldn’t have done for him to get blown away.
BENNY HILL
Were those silly endings something of which Benny Hill,
Had genuinely, finally had his fill?
They wished to know and, in speeded up motion, packs
Of reporters chased him, to the tune of ‘Yackety Sax.’
EDMUND HILLERY
Although they tried to frighten Edmund Hillery
With hollow threats of the stocks and the pillory
And told him he’d be jeered at and cursed,
He still wouldn’t say if he or Tenzing got up there first.
HIROHITO
“That word means ‘suddenly,’ ” said Hirohito,
(Seeing, in a score of the ‘Surprise Symphony’, ‘subito’)
“I know some Italian from being chairman of the ‘Tokyo
Society for the Appreciation of Pinocchio.’ ”
ALFRED HITCHCOCK
“This is definitely my house,” thought Alfred Hitchcock,
“And this is the right key: why doesn't it fit this lock?
- I could be in one of my own films - that’s it, by jingo!
I’ll get in through the rear window.”
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
“...and as a life form,” went on Christopher Hitchens,
“ I’d class him down with the mosses and lichens
- I tell you, that Clinton…” - His friend said “Yikes!
I’d assumed the Bill, you were talking about, was Bill Sykes!
PETER HITCHENS
Two friends got separated from Peter Hitchens,
At some huge exhibition of bathrooms and kitchens:
Then one said: “That’s him over there - look - so far to the right
He’s almost out of sight.”
SHERE HITE
Why does Shere Hite
Always look so uncommonly white?
What is it that induces some women to sport
A prison pallor? - she should write a report.
ERIC HOBSBAWM
“It was the Age of Frustration,” wrote Eric Hobsbawm,
“Now, no sooner did a revolutionary mob form
Than the bourgeoisie - curse it!
- Would proceed to disperse it.”
DAVID HOCKNEY
David Hockney
Could not abide the speech of the Cockney
- He moved to LA for the lifestyle and the light
And because there no-one ever says ‘Sarfend’ or ‘aw-write.’
GLEN HODDLE
Glen Hoddle
Dismissed as twaddle
Stories that he thought it was a punishment by God
To be re-born as manager of an England squad.
XAVIERA HOLLANDER
"Private Dutch lessons?!" they said to Xaviera Hollander,
"Sorry, but that story has more holes than a collander."
(It looked like the cops were going to book her
For being a happy hooker.)
BUDDY HOLLY
“I’m flattered, Miss Lee,” said Buddy Holly,
“A star like you asking advice from a new boy like me - golly!
- But those crooks are refusing to pay you money that’s due?!
- May I call you Peggy? - My! My! - Peggy, sue!”
ALEXANDER DOUGLAS HOME
What irritated people about Alex Douglas Home
Was not his face exuding a deaths-head gloom:
They could live with his sepulchral dome
- But a name spelled like that should have been pronounced ‘home’!
ERIC HONNECKER
A favourite play of Eric Honnecker’s
Was Shakespeare’s ‘Titus Andronicus’
He’d often have this tale of vengeance and impiety
Put on by the Stasi Amateur Dramatic Society.
J. EDGAR HOOVER
The red wine, spilled by J. Edgar Hoover,
As he stumbled, performing a manoeuvre
Tricky for someone on five-inch heels, made a mess
Of his nice, new chiffon dress.
KENNETH HORNE
Poor old Kenneth Horne
Looked rather forlorn
And the audience began to grow restive,
The day Rambling Sid Rumpole’s song just wasn’t suggestive.
FRANKIE HOWARD
“What can I do?”, said Frankie Howard
“You make me feel so un-empowered:
I distinctly said to you all: ‘twitter ye not’
And what do you do? All twitter a lot.”
MICHAEL HOWARD
Relations between Anne Widdicombe and Michael Howard,
Seemed, at one time, to have irremediably soured
But then, in a U-turn that some found spectacular,
She decided he wasn't the least bit like Dracula.
GEOFFREY HOWE
In his resignation speech, Geoffrey Howe
Avoided farmyard images of the chicken, pig or cow
- People might have remembered he’d been called a dead sheep,
And thus have seen Thatcher as some sort of Little Bo Peep.
FREDDIE HOYLE
“And now, colleagues, I'll turn it on,” said Freddie Hoyle
(His steady state contraption ready, after months of toil)
- But it just juddered and gushed steam and he cried: “Oh hang!”
And, after that, all anyone remembers is the big bang.
RON LAFAYETTE HUBBARD
“My poor church,” sobbed Ron Lafayette Hubbard,
As he took out his hankie and blubbered,
“Why do so many attack it
As a racket? ”
HOWARD HUGHES
One morning, Howard Hughes
Forgot to polish his shoes,
Then slowly this neglect of his appearance grew so,
He ended up looking like Robinson Crusoe.
TED HUGHES
Ted Hughes
Had an unusual muse,
Among whose odder features
Was an interest in the heads being torn off little creatures.
DOUGLAS HURD
Douglas Hurd
Dismissed as absurd
The very thought of us sending small arms or heavy guns
To beleaguered Bosnia-Herzegovinans.
DAMIEN HURST
It seems, from his will, that the late Damien Hurst
Will be sliced in two and each half immersed
In its own glass tank of formaldehyde
- A work expressing both his inner and his outer side.
SADDAM HUSSEIN
Saddam Hussein
Was regarded less with disdain,
Than with considerable hatred and fear,
By Iraq's southern Shia.
EUGENE IONESCO
In the park, an idea came to Ionesco,
As he passed a couple lunching al fresco
- He heard the woman say: “Don’t be preposterous
- My mother is not a rhinoceros!”
MICHAEL JACKSON
‘Beowulf’ was a passion with Michal Jackson
(In the original - he knew Anglo-Saxon)
One way he’d forget his troubles
Was to read from it, aloud, to Bubbles.
MICK JAGGER
“I will not scrape up specimens," said Mick Jagger
“For your botanical collection of sphagna
And if you ask me again, I’ll get cross
- We Rolling Stones don’t gather moss!”
SID JAMES
I wince every time Sid James
Exclaims
“Phworr!” in
Some ‘Carry On’ bore-in.
ROY JENKINS
“I wonder why Americans,” mused Roy Jenkins,
“Insisted on turning nine-pins into ten-pins
- And did the Dutch deliberately breed an orange carrot?
- And why is that waiter taking so long with my claret?”
MOHAMMAD ALI JINNAH
In the course of partition talks, Jinnah
Seemed to get thinner and thinner
While, by contrast, Lord Louis Mountbatten
Was definitely observed to fatten.
PROFESSOR JOAD
When, in a ‘Brain’s Trust’, Professor Joad
Tried to defend the ethics of someone who rode
On a train, without buying a ticket,
He found himself batting on bit of a sticky wicket.
JOHN XXIII
John XXIII
Believed children should be seen and not heard
(By the secular authorities, at least)
If they said they'd been abused by a priest.
JOHN PAUL I
Poor old John Paul I
Got less than a five week burst
Of the joys of wearing the triple tiara,
Before having to bid this world ‘sionara.’
JOHN PAUL II
“Well, that’s it then,” thought John Paul II,
When before him the figure of death stood and beckoned
- But the spectre had only come to express gratitude
For the trade drummed up by his condom-hostile attitude.
ELTON JOHN
“Oops! - Pardon! - Ah! - an idea for a song!” said Elton John,
(An unexpected attack of wind had come on,
And produced a burp so strong, it blew a candle out)
“- Now, Bernie, think of a doomed beauty I could sing about.”
OLIVIA NEWTON JOHN
At a party, Olivia Newton John,
When introduced to a handsome philosophy don,
Thought she’d try and say something quizzical
And came up with the line: “Let’s get metaphysical.”
LYNDON JOHNSON
When LBJ
Found himself on a moving staircase, going the wrong way,
Many people around him thought it an awfully long wait
Before he announced he’d take steps to de-escalate.
JAMES JONES
"Serves you right!" said James Jones,
"Now you'll have to take out such large loans
To fight off all these suits for paternity,
Paying them back will take you from here to eternity.”
TOM JONES
While one was impressed, at the concerts of Tom Jones,
By the musicality of his grunts and groans,
An even greater wonder there
Was the sight of women throwing their underwear.
JANIS JOPLIN
"Hello, hitch-hikers," said Janis Joplin
“I'm going your way - come on, you all, topple in.
Sorry, it’s only an old jalopy, covered with dents
- What I’d really like to have is a Mercedes Benz.”
KEITH JOSEPH
“Eugenics? Cutting benefit costs?” said Keith Joseph,
“Nonsense! - fewer Labour voters being spawned is my motive
For wishing to impede
The tendency of under-class, teenage girls to breed.”
FELICIEN KABUGA
“Why so many, so soon, Mister Kabuga?”
Asked a garden tool exporter in, I think, Chattanooga,
And was told: “Curiosity’s a vice to which I don’t pander
- We’re just going to need lots of machetes in Rwanda.”
KENNETH KAUNDA
Kenneth Kaunda
Could be the most outrageous bounder:
Once he made everyone have custard on their moussaka
While dining at the only Greek restaurant in Lusaka.
CHRISTINE KEELER
Christine Keeler
Refused to reveal her
Greatest secret to the Denning Commission:
Behind that back to front chair did she have a stitch on?
GRACE KELLY
“Only kiddin'!” added Grace Kelly
After saying :“No, not on your nelly!
- I'm carrying on working and don't want to go
And rot in Monaco.”
GENE KELLY
A quick re-write meant that style of Gene Kelly’s
Was no longer cramped by the wellies:
- Wearing normal shoes, as he sang and danced in the rain,
Improved the scene no end, when they shot it again.
JOHN F. KENNEDY
Lyndon Johnson’s take on the shooting of Jack Kennedy
Hardly inspires the writing of an elegy or threnody:
Bobby tried so many times to have him blown away,
A furious Castro decided it was a game two could play.
JOMO KENYATTA
Glittering socialite, Jomo Kenyatta
Always shone among the in-crowd at Henley Regatta
And, with his entourage of blue-blazered Mau Maus,
Never failed to wow Cowes.
JACK KEROUAC
“I was saying: you can’t speak to Jack Kerouac
- This line is terrible, shall I call you back?
What? No! I said: he was on the road
- Not on the commode!”
MARK KERMODE
" 'Film Two-thousand-and-whatever'," thought Mark Kermode,
(Who, at nights, sometimes dreamt that he bestrode
The world of film criticism like a colossus)
"- I should present that. Why is it Jonathan Ross does?"
AYATOLLAH KHOMEINI
Irritability gripped the Ayatollah Khomeini,
As his day at the seaside turned out rainy.
Then a crab nipped his toe - and got so showered with curses,
You’d have thought it had written ‘The Satanic Verses.’
KRZYSZTOF KIESLOWSKI
The eleventh film of his Decalogue, Kieslowski
Suppressed as excessively off-key
- It's about two characters who flout
The commandment: ‘thou shalt not be found out.’
CAROLE KING
Irrational doubts plagued Carole King:
People came to hear her sing
- They’d clap and cheer away
- But would they still love her the following day?
MARTIN LUTHER KING
Martin Luther King
Was really into swing
- After he'd been to the mountain top,
He went off and had a quick Lindy Hop.
STEPHEN KING
“Uncontrolled,” said Stephen King,
“It can be a terrible thing:
Read ‘Carrie’ - there I lay out my thesis
On the dangers of psychokinesis.”
NEIL KINNOCK
The Sheffield antics of Neil Kinnock
Wouldn’t affect the result in constituencies like Greenock
But what damage had that inept razzle-dazzle done
To Labour’s chances in places like Basildon?
ALFRED C. KINSEY
When, at a party, Doctor Kinsey
Met, sitting with their husbands, a pair of conjoined twins, he
Said, scarcely believing his luck,
“You must tell me how the four of you face life with such pluck.”
HENRY KISSINGER
From the Paris peace talks, Henry Kissinger
Rang a girlfriend just to say he was missing her
- Meanwhile, in Haiphong, a woman went: “Yikes!”
As he just missed her with one of his B52 strikes.
GLADYS KNIGHT
Before each performance, Gladys Knight
Put her arms around her singers and hugged them tight
- But she over-did it, one night, and they freaked:
She’d squeezed the Pips until they squeaked.
HELMET KOHL
Things were kicked off by Helmet Kohl
In between mouthfuls of toad in the hole:
At his request, all talks on the Maastricht criteria
Were being held in the staff cafeteria.
THE KRAYS
“Reggie,” said Ronnie Kray,
“Let’s ’ave a week away:
I needs a break from this daily grind
Of only ’armin’ our own kind.”
NIKITA KRUSCHEV
Problem teenager, Nikita Kruschev
Didn’t like school: he’d often mooch off
And if reprimanded, would make a bally-hoo,
Banging on a table with his shoe.
STANLEY KUBRICK
‘Read questions carefully’ it said in the paper on Kubrick,
But, foolishly, I skipped that bit of the rubric
- Then wrote, for an hour, on ‘the gory’ in ‘Paths of Glory’
When all the examiners wanted was the story.
THOMAS KUHN
Thomas Kuhn
On the first morning of his honeymoon
Looked into his partner’s eyes of blue
And asked: “Did the paradigm shift for you?”
KUROSAWA
“The bandits ride up, line abreast,” said Kurosawa,
“Then, all of a sudden, they tumble into a ha-ha
...Hmm...OK, smarty pants, so why don’t you try
To dream up action scenes for this ‘Seven Samurai’?”
JACQUES LACAN
You can see why Jacques Lacan’s
Ideas appealed to his fans:
Psychobabble met gallobabble
With results so impressively impénétrable.
ALAN LADD
Alan Ladd
Had a memory that was bad:
“Based on a book by a man named Shane Gray,
The best film I was in was called ‘Zane’,” he’d often say.
NORMAN LAMONT
In the bath, Norman Lamont
Usually, only sang ‘Sur le pont
D’Avignon’- it was, to his family, an
Ominous sign if he sang ‘Je ne regrette rien.’
PATRICE LAMUMBA
Patrice Lamumba
Excelled at the rumba
And once won first prize for his cha-cha
At a contest in Leopoldville (now called Kinshasa.)
PHILIP LARKIN
“So that’s where I left them!” thought Philip Larkin
After groping about, in the dark, in
A state of some urgency, for a packet of three,
“- Between my copy of Lady Chat and the Beatles’ first LP.”
NIGEL LAWSON
As he dozed through ‘The Tempest’, Nigel Lawson
Woke suddenly at the words: ‘hang the cur, hang the whoreson’
And said, in a voice, a bit shocked and non-plussed:
“I‘m not the only one to blame for this bust!”
NIGELLA LAWSON
"Large pickled gherkins -" said Nigella Lawson,
"When I talk about their uses, shall I hint at a rather coarse one?"
Her director replied: "The answer to that one is 'no'
- Remember we're trying to clean up the show."
L. S. B. LEAKEY
After the pub crawl, L. S. B. Leakey
Woke up next morning feeling peaky,
Glanced in the mirror and thought: “Heavens protect us!
- I look less human than a homo erectus.”
TIMOTHY LEARY
“There’s no effect,” said Timothy Leary,
“Look at this music - it’s still utterly dreary,
And the décor sounds, if anything, even more drab!
- Are you sure there was any acid in that tab?”
F. R. LEAVIS
“How lacking ,” thought F. R. Leavis,
“In intensity of moral purpose, ‘Right ho, Jeeves’ is :
Luckily, I’ve arranged for a ban on
The inclusion of such works in the canon.”
JOHN LE CARRÉ
A mole must have been at one of John Le Carré’s
Extremely select soirées
Where guests could be unguarded about what they might say,
As two British networks got rolled up next day.
HARPER LEE
Harper Lee
Said: "Put a small photo of me
On the fly-leaf if you can:
It's not vanity - it's just some people think I'm a man."
JOHN LENNON
“What I saw on the trip,” said John Lennon,
“Was Big Ben being climbed by a giant, four-legged lemon
But needing the line to have more poetic power,
I made it a semolina pilchard and the Eiffel Tower.”
SERGIO LEONE
“What we’ll call the film can wait!” said Sergio Leone,
“Give me your decision on my pay rise now - yeah or nay?
I’m only asking for
A few dollars more.”
BRENDA LEWINSKY
“Now look here, Miss Lewinsky :
It’s clear the president thinks he
Could dismiss you as a fantasist, so get hip
And don’t have that dress cleaned.” said Linda Tripp.
C. S. LEWIS
“It must have been,” thought C. S. Lewis,
(Mounting the platform to sounds of ‘boo! hiss!’)
“The idea of somebody non compos mentis, this.
- A talk on ‘Narnia’ to the devils’ apprentices!”
W. F. LIBBY
“How safe could the attribution,” thought W. F. Libby,
“Of this coprolite to the reign of Senacherib, be?”
The up-shot of which cogitating
Was his invention of radiocarbon dating.
LIBERACE
The Austrian officer’s uniform that Liberace
Always wore when he played the Radetzky March, he
Had improved by having the jacket waistline trimmed with mink
And changing it from its original colour to pink.
GORDON LIDDY
"Political break-ins?" said Gordon Liddy,
"When it comes to running those, I am the kiddie
- Also the final, in last year's All-Comers
Burglary Skills Tournament, was won by us plumbers."
KEN LIVINGSTONE
“ Minor Wodehouse characters?” said Ken Livingstone,
“My favourites? - Well, of course, that Black Short, Spode, isn’t one
- As you'd expect, I think the best out of the whole lot’ll
Have to be the newt fancying Gussie Fink-Nottle.”
SELWYN LLOYD
“Raising taxes on fags and beer,” thought Selwyn Lloyd,
“Leaves too many voters aggrieved and annoyed:
Well today is the day all that folly stops
- Kids can’t vote, so we’re going to tax lollipops.”
ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER
An affectation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s
Was always calling Ebbw Vale, ‘Ebbers’.
(There, surrounded by sheep, like a scene from James Herriot,
He'd first set to music some light verse by Eliot.)
JENNIFER LOPEZ
It was an honest assistant who served Jennifer Lopez
('They’ll tell you any old thing,' is something only a dope says)
When the star asked her: ”Does my bum look big in this?”
She answered: “If I said ‘no’, I’d be fibbing, miss.”
MALCOLM LOWRY
There are those who think Malcolm Lowry
Had a prose style that was much too flowery
And when asked if they like ‘Under the Volcano’
Can be counted upon to say: “ No.”
LORD LUCAN
Hunting near his hideaway, Lord Lucan
Killed an armadillo with a stone meant for a toucan,
Tried to spear a parrot but got a marmoset in stead
And meaning to club a tapir, struck a condor dead.
DAVID LYNCH
“Heh! Heh!” chuckled David Lynch
As he watched a whole audience flinch
When they saw that ovary cheeked lady tread
On giant sperms, as she danced, in ‘Eraserhead.’
DOUGLAS MACARTHUR
“A quarter of a million?” said Douglas Macarthur,
“Where did they spring from?”- his face white as a cadaver
- Then he cursed like someone gone doolally,
As the Chinese poured across the Yalu valley.
JOSEPH MCCARTHY
“Which House Committee,” said Jo McCarthy,
“Will help keep this country commissar-free
By rooting out those with pinko proclivities?
Why, the one on Un-American Activities!”
PAUL MACARTNEY
“Tails! I win! - so we repeat” said Paul Macartney,
“My opening melody, after ‘she once had me’
- Now let’s toss to see who does the tune for that bit there,
Where she asks me to stay and tells me to sit anywhere.”
JOHN McENROE
John McEnroe
Said: “You’re always laughing so
- This constant frivolity has had a deleterious
Effect on your mental health - you just cannot be serious.”
IAN McEWAN
“I’ve given so many of my characters,” thought Ian McEwan,
“Off-beat deaths, I find it impossible to dream up a new one:
Me? Borrow? When desperate, what could scruples or qualms be?
- The next one goes, head first, into a butt of Malmsey.”
JAY McINERNY
“ No, it’s not like a hot curry!” said Jay McInerny,
“- Cocaine oozing from every orifice isn’t burny.
- Still, waking up in that state, makes you feel so unwitty,
It sort of takes the edge off the bright lights and big city.”
SHIRLEY McLAINE
It wasn't just a case of Shirley McLaine
Having an affair with Charlemagne -
Ethel Merman fell for Sherman, as he marched through Georgia,
And Jorge Luis Borges once snogged Lucrezia Borgia!
MARSHAL McLUHAN
Although he tried hard, Marshal McLuhan
Never came up with a really good new one
When people began to find it tedious
Listening to his old slogan about messages and medias.
HAROLD MACMILLAN
Steeling himself, Harold Macmillan
Thought thoughts of a sort that were ‘Atillan’
Until he imagined himself ‘the scourge of God’ come back
- Then went and gave a third of his cabinet the sack.
STEVE McQUEEN
Steve McQueen
Liked to drive a mean machine:
Whether it had two wheels, four wheels or six,
If he could, he’d show off with one, at some point, in his flicks.
MADONNA
Her parents calling her Madonna
Didn’t seem to have the desired effect on her:
In stead of all that boy toy stuff, she might have - who can tell?
- Been another Julie Andrews if they’d called her Jezebel.
NORMAN MAILER
Outside a bookshop, Norman Mailer
Stood and shouted, through a loud-hailer:
“I should be found on every discerning reader’s shelf!"
(As a taster for his 'Advertisement for Myself.’)
JOHN MAJOR
The sporting John Major
Would always take a wager
- He even accepted a bet on which of his MP’s
Would be the next one disgraced for sleaze.
ARCHBISHOP MAKARIOS
At one time, all things done by Makarios
Were looked on by the British, as nefarious
But once he was president of an independent Cyprus,
Somehow they seemed to find him less viperous.
NELSON MANDELA
"Make some dosh" they told Nelson Mandela
"Write a second autobiographical bestseller."
- Adding that if he really wanted to cash in, he
Should call it something like 'I Dish the Dirt on Winnie.'
PETER MANDELSEN
“My favourite fireworks?” said Peter Mandelsen,
“Hmm… let’s see…well, the Roman candle’s one,
But it’s a nice big Catherine wheel I really like to see:
A flashy bit of spinning always appeals me.”
CHARLES MANSON
The girlfriends of Charles Manson
Preferred different hairstyles to the boys in Hansen:
The women liked to appear bald and scary,
While the band went for a look altogether more hairy.
IMELDA MARCOS
Imelda Marcos
Got her shoes out of the catalogue from Argos,
As her feet would always kill her
If she wore ones made locally, in Manila.
PRINCESS MARGARET
“ ’Ere y’are,” said the barman to Princess Margaret,
“Get this one down yer la-di-da gullet.”
- She took her double gin and sighed :
Boy, had standards at the Savoy begun to slide!
BOB MARLEY
Friends wondered why Bob Marley
Was behaving so bizarrely
As, with a disdainful sniff,
He waved past his turn on the spliff.
QUEEN MARY, THE QUEEN MOTHER
A bad habit of the Queen Mother’s
Was having everything done for her by others:
Why, it’s ninety-nine per cent certain,
She never, in her life, drew a curtain.
ROBERT MAXWELL
Friends claimed that Robert Maxwell
Always treated the Mirror’s hacks well
And accidentally lost them their pensions
While acting only with the best of intentions.
THAGO MBECKI
So unexpected was the visit, that Thago Mbecki
(An over-enthusiastic trekkie)
Was still dressed as Lieutenant Uhuru,
When he greeted Walter Sisulu.
GOLDA MEIR
“Ah, peaceful days!” thought Golda Meir,
(She’d just fed some oats to her arab steed, ‘Emir’
And was listening to her ginger tom, Pip, purr)
The evening before the attack, on Yom Kippur.
FREDDIE MERCURY
“Claims of the paranormal,” said Freddie Mercury,
“For your spoon bending antics, I find really irk, Uri.
That anyone thinks your powers uncanny is tragic -
I mean ‘stage tricks’ when I say: ‘it’s a kind of magic.’”
GEORGE MICHAEL
“Those brass fittings are unique,“ said George Michael,
“And the urinals have an unusual flushing cycle:
I’m an anorak about these places - they give me a buzz.”
(As he was listened to, by a - yawning - plain clothes fuzz.)
KATE MILLET
To Kate Millet,
Denied a cushy academic billet
And with them not printing ‘Sexual Politics’ any more,
Ollie Reed’s drunken attentions must have seemed the last straw.
SPIKE MILLIGAN
“Tell sound effects,” said Spike Milligan,
“We’ll need a pair of exploding silicone
Knee implants and ten thousand silver shekels
Being dropped from a great height on Eccles.”
SLOBADAN MILOSEVIC
It's a pity that Slobodan Milosevic,
Always got ratty on his slivovitz,
As whenever he became particularly incensed,
He’d go and have somewhere ethnically cleansed.
LISA MINELLI
For seemingly ages, Lisa Minelli
Had to go without her beloved tagliatelli
While dieting, in preparation for such roles
As Sally Bowles.
HO CHI MINH
Ho Chi Minh
Ignored complaints from downstairs about the din
When he had a celebratory do
After the victory of Dien Bien Phu.
KYLIE MINOGUE
“This guy I know,” said Kylie Minogue,
“Is a bit of a loveable rogue:
I asked him if he ever caught ‘Neighbours’
And he said: “Strewth! I’d rather watch ‘Playbus.’”
JONI MITCHELL
When somebody told Joni Mitchell
That there’s one locomotive which’ll
Draw ten dozen trucks, she gave three hurrahs
- She wouldn't have to stop counting lovers like railroad cars.
ROBERT MITCHUM
Robert Mitchum
Said: “They can't handle the way I pitch them,”
(After yet another big hitter had heard the call: “Strike three!”)
“- It’s my seemingly indolent delivery, you see.”
FRANCOIS MITTERAND
Wouldn't it have been fun if Francois Mitterand
Had been a link in a circle, as in Schnitzler’s ‘La Ronde’:
Wife and mistress, who first met as he was put in the ground,
Getting even with the old goat, in the merry-go-round?
MOBUTU
Perhaps Mobutu,
In stead of getting into bed with the Hutu,
Should have played footsie
With the Tutsi.
MARILYN MONROE
One thing that appealed to Marilyn Monroe
Was a man with a talent for bons mots,
Which was why Arthur Miller
Was able to thrill her.
SUN MYUNG MOON
“Our working party,” said the Reverend Moon,
“Should be reporting back fairly soon
On that thorny question as to why the word ‘moonies’
Is regarded, by so many, as synonymous with ‘loonies.’”
HENRY MOORE
When a female reporter asked Henry Moore
“What’s the hole in this statue’s tummy for?”
He yelled: “That stupid question again!” and threw a maquette
At the hackette.
DUDLEY MOORE
Dudley Moore
Could quickly spot a bore:
They were always the keenest
To tell him that old joke about the little pianist.
PATRICK MOORE
You’d get nothing but sense from Patrick Moore
On things like the composition of Jupiter’s core
Or how the celestial north pole was once in Draco
- But some said his politics came from the planet Whacko.
ROGER MOORE
Trumped up charges brought by rivals against Roger Moore
(They claimed he’d used his eyebrows to semaphore
The contents of his hand
To his bridge partner) failed to get him banned.
AKIA MORITA
Concerning the earphones, queries of Akia Morita's
Included: "Are you still getting a squeak in the tweeters?"
And: "That problem with the woofers -you know: the squawk one
- Solved it yet?" - during Sony’s development of the walkman.
DESMOND MORRIS
You had to look hard to see that Desmond Morris
Was a distant relative of the lemur and loris,
But it was almost impossible to escape
Noticing his family resemblance to an ape.
MOHAMMED MOSSADEQ
The proverbially easy-going Mossadeq
(He was always saying things like: “Go on then - what the heck!”)
Quite surprised people by insisting so stubbornly
On nationalising the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.
ROBERT MUGABE
Robert Mugabe,
Misruled Zimbabwe,
With a capriciousness so excessively great,
That he jailed one Banana for not being straight.
IRIS MURDOCH
When it came to pop, Iris Murdoch
Was so fond of dandelion and burdock
That she kept hers in an antique, cut glass decanter,
Bought out of royalties from ‘Flight from the Enchanter.’
RUPERT MURDOCH
“Suffering from megalomania?” said Rupert Murdoch,
“Me?- don't be absurd, doc!
I'm always compromising, for crying out loud!
Beijing said: 'Drop World Service TV' - and I kow-towed.”
RUBY MURRAY
I’m surprised Ruby Murray
Is a slang word for curry :
She was a pleasant enough singer, but not
That hot.
PERVEZ MUSHARRAF
“There’s only one word,” said Pervez Musharraf,
“To describe the taste of this drop of char - rough!
I hope it wasn't stewed on purpose, like the pot I had
Made for that Indian delegation to Islamabad.”
VLADIMIR NABOKOV
“My great ambition,” said Vladimir Nabokov,
“Is to pull a ‘de Sade’ or a ‘von Sacher-Masoch’ off
And achieve my own eponymous kink
- This ‘Lolita’ should do the trick, I think.”
V. J. NAIPAUL
“When in post-colonial countries,” said V. J. Naipaul,
“Of course, I'm always saying ‘this just won’t do at all’
- It’s not me being excessively fastidious:
All that second rate-ness - it’s simply too, too hideous!”
ABDUL NASSER
It was a decision Abdul Nasser
Thought could not have been crasser:
Why wouldn’t Uncle Sam
Finance his Aswan Dam?
PANDIT NEHRU
“Guess who the star signs,” said Pandit Nehru
“Say should look out for romance today? - we two!”
“So let’s pretend I’m Venus and that you’re Saturn
And have a conjunction.” replied Edwina Mountbatten.
JACK NICHOLSON
“My favourite snacks?” said Jack Nicholson,
“Hmmm.. well, a cheese sandwich with Branston pickle’s one:
I ate a good one while doing ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice’
- I made it on that kitchen table with Ms Lange - it was nice.”
LEONARD NIMOY
Caught in a grumpy mood, Leonard Nimoy
Said: “How could anyone be so dim, boy?
- Of course, I haven’t really got pixie’s ears!”
As his little fan tried not to burst into tears.
DAVID NIVEN
David Niven
Should have had something unpleasant driven
Into his vitals
- Starting that fashion where people gave their memoirs silly titles.
RICHARD NIXON
“Why! Someone seems to have erased,” said Richard Nixon,
“The bit where we discussed who to play dirty tricks on!
- Oh, and when you transcribe the tapes of the meeting
I’m afraid a few expletives will require deleting.”
KWAME NKRUMAH
Enemies of Kwame Nkrumah’s
Put around all sorts of rumours :
(I’ve even seen one about human sacrifice)
But a Swiss account? - No way! That would not have been nice.
MANUEL NORIEGA
The GI’s blared their music at him, unaware of Noriega’s
Passion for Guns’n’Roses - he’d seen them in Vegas.
Luckily for him, his besiegers never knew
He felt physical pain, if he heard ‘I Will Always Love You.’
BARRY NORMAN
“There are some who think,” said Barry Norman,
“That ‘The Raven’ was the best thing by Corman
- And talking of ‘nevermore’
Here are those to whom we said farewell, in nineteen-ninety-four.”
RUDOLF NUREYEV
On defecting, T. E. Lawrence fan, Nureyev
Thought he might change his name and join the RAF
But then decided that servicing a fighter plane
Would be less fun than dancing with Margot Fonteyn.
JULIUS NYERE
Many failures of Julius Nyere’s
Were caused by his being an out and out fan of Fay Wray’s.
Why did his socialist experiments go wrong?
- He spent too much time watching old films like ‘King Kong.’
EDNA O’BRIEN
To her publishers, Edna O’Brien
Said: “No, I won’t make them cyan:
Stuff novelty value - no way and no wise!
- The girl will definitely have green eyes.”
GEORGIA O’KEEFE
Georgia O’Keefe
Said: “Good grief!”
When in front of a painting she’d done, of some roses,
She heard a gynaecologist make a spot diagnosis.
LAURENCE OLIVIER
Laurence Olivier
Performed a kind of balletic demi-plié,
Then moved with a strange, scampering walk,
After he’d said: “..by this sun of York.”
ARISTOTLE ONASSIS
On a hike, with his last wife, Aristotle Onassis
Retraced the route taken in Xenophon’s ‘Anabasis.’
When they finally saw the Black Sea, he cried: "Hey, Jackie,
I don't know about you but I could murder a souvlaki!”
P. J. O’RORKE
P. J. O’Rorke
In the course of a ten minute walk
Through the back streets of Bahia
Found fourteen occasions to sneer.
GEORGE ORWELL
George Orwell
Said: “Listen out for the doorbell:
I’m expecting a man called Harris
- We met when I was down and out in Paris.”
JOHN OSBOURNE
On seeing the heading: ‘Shoot Smack In Bangor,’ John Osbourne
Said: “Why this need by Guardian sub-editors to force corn
On innocent readers? - Would that they penned no longer
Things like 'Chinook Back In Hangar' or ‘Book Lack In Ongar.’!”
OZZY OSBOURNE
“Everyone likes our early stuff.” said Ozzie Osbourne:
A claim on which Violet Elizabeth Bott poured scorn,
Exclaiming: “Ha!- a thingle track of Abba’th
Ith worth the whole bleththed output of Black Thabbath.”
DONNIE OSMOND
“They screamed so much, I might as well,” said Donnie Osmond,
“Have been singing ‘Young Clifford and Fair Rosamond’
Or ‘O for the wings of a dove ’
For all they heard of ‘And they called it puppy love.’”
DAVID OWEN
Quoting Dylan, David Owen
Said : “The answer is blowin’
In the wind,” when asked if a settlement was near
In Bosnia.
VANCE PACKARD
Madison Avenue execs slammed Vance Packard,
Saying: “Sir, you are a blackguard!
We may pull the wool over their eyes, a bit,
But there’s no need to go around advertising it.”
CAMILLE PAGLIA
“Such awesome phenomena,” said Camille Paglia,
“We ought to refer to as Kath, Lil, Pam, Mia...
Women were wrong to insist half be given boy’s names:
Hurricanes should always be called after dames.”
IAN PAISLEY
According to enemies, Ian Paisley
Would roll his eyes crazily,
Before commencing to foam at the mouth,
If he heard anyone argue for re-union with the south.
OLOF PALME
Was it a national trauma - the murder of Olof Palme
( Prime minister, socialist and nuclear disarmer)?
Is “Where were you when you heard that Palme had been shot?”
A question that Swedes ask each other a lot?
GWYNETH PALTROW
“It’s a soprano part,” said Gwyneth Paltrow,
“And I’m a tenor baritone mezzo contralto
- So if I starred in your film version of ‘Tosca’
I’d end up crying because I hadn’t won an Oscar.”
ROSA PARKS
It’s even easier to identify with Rosa Parks,
(At least for believers in the doctrines of Marx)
If you’ve had to stand on a train and thought it a bitch
That there are first class seats empty (they’re only for the rich).
TONY PARSONS
“The claims made by some,” wrote Tony Parsons,
“For the influence of Homer, on our culture, have been vast ones.
But, while I concede that his impact has been large,
We mustn’t forget the significance of Marge.”
DOLLY PARTON
“I won’t say it’s a far, far better film,” said Dolly Parton,
“I do now ”- (sounding a bit like Sydney Carton) -
“But this ‘Steel Magnolias’, in which Herbert Ross directs us,
Is a bit classier than ‘The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.’ ”
JEREMY PAXMAN
A criminal interviewee breathed threats at Paxman,
Who replied (having, already, goaded the poor, mad axe-man
Into a state of exasperation)
“You’re not seriously suggesting my decapitation!?”
LUCIANO PAVAROTTI
After leaving the pub, all Pavarotti
Could remember, next day, when he woke up, feeling grotty,
Beside the remnants of a takeaway chicken korma,
Was rousing the neighbourhood with a burst of ‘Nessun Dorma.’
SAM PECKINPAH
When Sam Peckinpah
Directed a film based on the ride of young Lochinvar,
People complained that a bunch of characters getting shot
And dying in slow motion, wasn’t in the spirit of Scott.
JOHN PEEL
John Peel
Approached the task with such zeal
That no-one ever had to send him any memos
Urging him to listen to more demos.
JEAN MARIE LE PEN
Jean Marie Le Pen
Said: “I’m torturing some men
- If anyone calls,
Tell them I’m attaching electrodes to balls.”
JUAN DOMINGO PERON
On one occasion, Juan Domingo Peron
Put on the costume of Oberon
And with Eva, got up as the queen of the fairies,
Addressed a rally in Buenos Aires.
MICHELLE PFEIFFER
Giving prison visiting a try, Michelle Pfeiffer
Was chatting away with a lifer,
Who said: “There’s one thing that puzzles me
- Is it true that you have a silent P?”
KIM PHILBY
"I'd like to be at your party" said Kim Philby,
"But I'm afraid I don't think that I will be:
If I rightly recollect
Wednesday's the day I defect."
PABLO PICASSO
While buffing up one of his bronzes, Picasso
Went and got zonked on the fumes from the Brasso -
“Am I standing,” he thought, “on the ceiling or the floor?"
- Then went on and etched a female nude with minotaur.
WILSON PICKETT
Wilson Pickett
Had lost his return ticket
And, though I’d always thought the two were quite pally,
Had trouble bumming a lift home off Mustang Sally.
GENERAL PINOCHET
“I checked with the Americans,” said Pinochet,
“And they've agreed Tuesday will be OK
- Our overthrow of democracy, on the eleventh of September,
Should make that a date posterity will remember.”
HAROLD PINTER
Some stage directions of Pinter’s,
Added when the play went to the printers,
Included :‘sinister hush’, ‘pauses to reflect’
‘Pregnant silence’ and ‘pause for effect.’
PADRE PIO
A female penitent asked Padre Pio,
At confession, one day: “Caro mio,
Why are the stigmata inside your fists?
The nails would have had to have gone through Christ’s wrists!”
BRAD PITT
"Normally, I'd say sorry," said Brad Pitt
"But wearing a mini-skirt just doesn't fit
My image as a red-blooded, American boy
- Still, I'll make an exception for this rôle in 'Troy'."
PIUS XII
Pope Pius XII
Believed in doing good by stealth
Which was why his reaction to genocidal violence
Had borne such a remarkable resemblance to silence.
SYLVIA PLATH
Sometimes, Sylvia Plath
Would grip each side of the bath,
Slide backwards, then forwards, and back one more time,
Then pretend to drag the sea after her, like a dark crime.
KARL POPPER
Karl Popper
Said: “Quick, call a copper!”
(In a tone of utterly outraged propriety)
“- I’ve just seen an enemy of the open society.”
JACKSON POLLOCK
One technique of Jackson Pollock’s
Was action painting with molluscs
- He’d create, on a canvas, with the help of some snails,
A dynamic arabesque of silvery trails.
GEORGES POMPIDOU
Far from stopping us joining the EEC, Pompidou
Was the French president who actually wanted to
Let us in (he could have said: “No, you can’t enter!”)
- We Britons should give his name to a big centre.
COLE PORTER
“It’s lies,” said Cole Porter,
“I’ve never been a cocaine snorter:
And it wasn’t the white powder that made me so terrif
-Ically blasé that I rhymed that with sniff.”
POL POT
Human life was something Pol Pot
Didn’t value a lot
Nor was its preservation a huge
Priority with the rest of the Khmer Rouge.
PIERRE POUJADE
Pierre Poujade
Found chatting with foreigners, leftists and Jews, hard
- It was much easier for him to shoot the breeze
With his fellow reactionaries.
ENOCH POWELL
"What's that? 'All hail, the despised Enoch Powell'?"
He said, as they cackled: “Foul is fair and fair is foul!"
"Anyone would think, weird threesome, that my name was mud."
They said: "Wait 'til you've made a speech about rivers of blood!”
TERRY PRATCHETT
In his ‘Sorcerer’s Apprentice’, Terry Pratchett
Kept the bucket, the broom and the hatchet
But set it all on a world he had hurtle
Through space, on the back of a turtle.
JOHN PRESCOTT
“It’s not like I’m another Cambyses,” said John Prescott,
“You know, that mad Persian despot,
Who shot a courtier with an arrow, just to show off his skill
- I had good reason for socking that guy up in Rhyl.”
ELVIS PRESLEY
At a séance, Elvis Presley
Was put through, by mistake, to John Wesley,
Who said: “My boy, why don’t you help spread the good news,
In stead of going around singing about blue suede shoes?”
PRINCE
Around the time a meso-American expert told Prince
It was the Mayan glyph meaning ‘to walk with a mince’
And that among his colleagues this often raised a giggle,
The artist decided to stop calling himself ‘Squiggle.’
VLADIMIR PUTIN
“When people irritate me,” said Vladimir Putin
“I'm tempted to lay them flat and then put the boot in,
And those people in Chechnya
Couldn’t have made me feel tetchier.”
MOHMMAR QADAFFI
Taught English by an ex-serviceman, Qadaffi
Addressed all Clarkes as Nobby and all Welshmen as Taffy
Civilian clothes were mufti and once, in Benghazi,
He pretentiously asked his host: “Where’s the khazi?”
MARY QUANT
It must have been believed by Mary Quant,
That, at times, many young women want
To look like they’ve IQ’s lower than some pot-plants
- How else to explain her coming up with hot-pants?
WILLARD QUINE
Willard Quine
Could be a bit of a swine:
You wouldn’t believe the amount of malice he
Could bring to bear on a logical fallacy.
AYN RAND
Money to push the ideas of Ayn Rand
Proved forthcoming from most tycoons in the land,
While media moguls made sure their underlings plugged
Her ‘Atlas Shrugged.’
2
RONALD REAGAN
Some maintain that Ronald Reagan
Could only have functioned from day one
To the end of his presidential career,
With a figurative ventriloquist’s arm up his rear.
OTIS REDDING
On a survival course, the teacher asked Otis Redding
Which leaves made the best padding for seating and bedding:
But what was more comfortable, he just couldn’t say:
Sitting on the dock or the bay.
CLIFF RICHARD
The virility of a diabolical brute in Cliff Richard?
Isn’t that like seeking hot bloodedness in a pilchard?
- In fact, his Heathcliffe was quite convincing,
Though, in the clinches with Cathy, some claim they saw wincing.
LIONEL RICHIE
Lionel Richie
Said: “Someone’s being bitchy!”
When an audience member shouted, from the back row :
“You could do with a bit more oomph in that Afro.”
BRIDGET RILEY
When short of ideas, Bridget Riley
Could resort to tricks that were quite wily,
Like banging a TV set until it went on the blink
Then sketching the resultant squiggly lines in India ink.
HAROLD ROBBINS
“As I read ‘Vanity Fair’,” said Harold Robbins,
“I was irritated by that stupid patience of Dobbin’s
But that smart lawyer in ‘Great Expectations’- Jaggers
- I was tempted to resurrect him for ‘The Carpetbaggers.’ ”
RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN
Rodgers told Hammerstein:
That while their sitting side by side at the piano was fine,
A hand on the shoulder would be pushed off, with a shove,
As they were writing ‘People Will Say We’re in Love.’
DIANA ROSS
As for Diana Ross
I am at a loss
- I couldn't do that to my own flesh and blood, me:
Who'd call one of their daughters, Chudney?
LEONARD ROSSITER
On hearing the word: "Cut!", Leonard Rossiter,
Usually picked up a towel and tossed it her
- Then with a splutter and a cough,
Joan Collins would wipe the worst of the Cinzano off.
PHILIP ROTH
“So you’re being bothered,” said the official to Philip Roth,
“By the ships letting their hooters off
As they enter and leave the harbour - how quaint!
Could we have it in writing - this ‘port noise complaint’?”
TIM ROTH
Trivial facts attracted Tim Roth
Like a candle draws a moth
- Obscure facts like: a hill in South Wales called the Blorenge
Is one of the few decent rhymes for Mr Orange.
J. K. ROWLING
“Hee hee, occult colleagues,” chortled J. K. Rowling,
“I bet you’re both beyond consoling
- Well, Diane Wynne Jones, you and your worst witch,
And you, Ursula Le Guin, can eat your hearts out - I’m rich!”
A. L. ROWSE
A lesser man than A. L. Rowse
Would have kept as quiet as a mouse
In stead of missing no opportunity to say
That he didn’t think Shakespeare was the least bit gay.
SALMAN RUSHDIE
Sadly, I doubt if you’d see Salman Rushdie
Ever take a stroll through a Dhaka bustee:
What some might call his hooter and others, his pecker,
He’d be unwise to show, in lands that pray facing Mecca.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
“The effect,” went one outburst of Bertrand Russell’s,
“Of radiation upon white blood corpuscles
Is one more reason to demand
That nuclear weapons be banned.”
JANE RUSSELL
Jane Russell
Vetoed the use of a leaden, counterweight bustle,
As going a piece of engineering too far,
When Howard Hughes designed her a cantilever bra.
WINONA RYDER
Finding it too embarrassing, Winona Ryder
Wouldn’t ask anybody to lend her ten bucks to tide her
Over, until she next got paid
- And just to eat, resorted to crime, I’m afraid.
ANWAR SADAT
Ever since Anwar Sadat
Went down to the sound of rat-a-tat-tat,
If the Egyptians have parades, with infantry and tanks,
They make sure all guns present are loaded with blanks.
FRANCOISE SAGAN
One surmises the young Francoise Sagan
Experienced some sense of chagrin
At her father having a girlfriend or mistress,
If one’s to go by her ‘Bonjour Tristesse.’
ANTONIO SALAZAR
“It’s slipped my mind:” thought Antonio Salazar,
“Which one was Belshazzar and which one Balthazar?”
But then it came back to him, as he gazed at the Tagus,
That the first had the feast and the latter was a magus.
J. D . SALINGER
A rumour went around that J. D. Salinger
Collected those books about Biggles and his pal, Ginger
But no-one could put it to him: is it true?
He would never give an interview.
BOBBY SANDS
We should remember how many days Bobby Sands
Took to kill himself, pushing the lads’ demands
- And there’s a simple mnemonic trick:
Rattle a bag of bones and they go clickety-click.
CARLOS SANTANA
Some critics have suggested that Carlos Santana
Must have run out of marijuana
While he and the band were recording ‘Abraxas’
And that this explains the air of sobriety in the last tracks.
JEAN PAUL SARTRE
It was a belief of John Paul Sartre’s
That if you ask their opinion in Tartarus,
Those who wail, gnash their teeth and weep’ll
Tell you that hell is other people.
VIDAL SASSOON
Vidal Sassoon
Accompanied, on double bassoon,
By Teazy Weazy, sang hit numbers from ‘Hair’
At a party thrown during the Coiffeurs’ Annual Trade Fair.
JONAS SAVIMBI
Jonas Savimbi
Embodied the acronym NIMBY:
While he was in favour of peace, on the whole, a
Very different matter was having it in Angola.
ARTHUR SCARGILL
An aside by Arthur Scargill,
About the size of Denis Thatcher’s golf club bar-bill,
During a speech on the theme of ‘Save Our Pits’
Had his ( partisan) audience in fits.
SIMON SCHAMA
The French Revolution, if I’ve read aright Schama,
Was, ultimately, just posing and amateur drama,
Plus gratuitous bloodshed - not the dawn of a new day.
Hmm! - I think I'd rather curl up with Rudé.
GERHARD SCHROEDER
Political opponents of Gerhard Schroeder
Exaggerate, when they say he yelled blue murder
On hearing there were rumours that he dyed his hair
- But to say he over-reacted would, I think, be fair.
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER
It’s a pity the bemuscled Arnold Schwarzenegger,
With his action-man image had to get quite so mega:
People admiring some sort of latter day Siegfried,
I would have thought, was the last thing that we’d need.
PETER SELLERS
“ Playing Clouseau, all the time,” said Peter Sellers
“Isn’t something about which I’m particularly zealous:
But it brings in ‘le fric’
So I keep playing ‘le flic.’”
MONICA SELLES
Sometimes, Monica Selles
(One of the game’s greatest yellers)
Could sound more like a woman approaching her crisis
Than one trying to get extra power in her slices.
SHAGGY
A pupil had yelled after Shaggy:
“ ‘Oi, mate, those jeans are too baggy!”
But when Miss lined up the whole of 3B,
All she got from them was: ”It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me.”
ARIEL SHARON
As a herb, in an earlier incarnation, Sharon
Was the plant his clump chose to bestow leadership upon
And while in office, he kept ordering incursions
Into a neighbouring bed of nasturtiums.
SANDIE SHAW
When someone asked why Sandie Shaw
Was inspecting, so closely, the studio floor,
They were told: “Because she sings barefoot, she’s
Scared of splinters that might stick in her tootsies.”
ALAN SHEPARD
At a boozy celebrity do, Alan Shepard
Was telling his life story to members of Def Leppard
- He’d got to where he first went up into space:
“Toot sweet,” he’d been told, “to save what’s left of our face.”
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVITCH
Despite fears of Shostakovitch’s
The performance came off with no hitches:
They’d even managed to sober up the guy on the tympani
In time for the start of the Leningrad Symphony.
ALAN SILLITOE
A depressing book, that sequel by Alan Sillitoe:
People found reading it left them with their spirits low
- And why did the characters spend so much time yawning,
In ‘Sunday Night and Monday Morning’?
PAUL SIMON
When Paul Simon
Met a pie man
And found he was going to a fair:
“Well, remember me,” he quipped, “to one who is there.”
FRANK SINATRA
Being boorish, I find funny Frank Sinatra’s
Problem of having to go around in (ha! ha!) a truss.
He was told how to lift heavy loads safely, they say,
But injured himself when he did it his way.
JIM SLATER
The relish with which Jim Slater
Went about his job, could not have been greater
- Asset stripping,
He found really gripping.
IAN DUNCAN SMITH
Ian Duncan Smith
And his wife were having a bit of a tiff
Until both realised the girl with whom she thought he’d been seen
Had, in fact, been dining with Francis Wheen.
DELIA SMITH
Delia Smith
Would always take the pith
Out of a Seville orange, when making preserves
- No more, I suppose, than one of the stupid things deserves.
C. P. SNOW
Every arts graduate he met, C. P. Snow
Would ask: “How much science do you know?”
And when most replied: “Diddly squat!”
Surprise him? It did not!
ALEXANDER SOLZENYTSIN
“I’ve been watching that Solzenytsin,”
Said the commandant, “and I don’t think he fits in:
Has the Gulag a camp specialising in privation
For those of a literary inclination?”
ANASTASIO SOMOZA
How could a country be ruled by a Somoza?
There could be only one answer to this poser:
At some point, Uncle Sam must have decided to back
The oppression of Nicaragua by a south Asian snack!
STEPHEN SONDHEIM
“This evening’s special,” snapped Stephen Sondheim,
“So stop complaining that I’m taking a long time
To get ready to go out tonight
- Tonight won’t be just any night - right!”
MURIEL SPARK
With nothing for the meter, Muriel Spark
Sometimes had to sit in the dark,
And once lived, for a week, on mash and baked beans,
While writing ‘Girls of slender means.’
BRITNEY SPEARS
That song sung by Britney Spears
Must still have been ringing in his ears
As, when his cruel mistress said: “On your knees, slime!”
He got cheeky and begged her: “Hit me, baby, one more time.”
BASIL SPENCE
Basil Spence
Quickly saw sense
And dropped his plans for a stellated dodecahedral
Coventry Cathedral.
STEPHEN SPIELBERG
A big interest of Stephen Spielberg’s
Was World War Two fortifications and fieldworks:
He wanted to make ‘Saving Private Ryan’ most of all
Because it would feature the Atlantic Wall.
BENJAMIN SPOCK
A deadline was approaching and Doctor Spock
Was suffering badly from writer’s block:
Like a toddler, held down on a potty,
The pressure to produce was driving him dotty.
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
À propos of 'Born in the USA' by Bruce Springsteen,
Reagan asked: “What does ‘an ironic ring’ mean?
And why does he think we must be insane
For wanting to use the song in our campaign?”
JOSEPH STALIN
It came as no surprise to Stalin
That he’d become even more unpopular in Tallin:
“Deport a chunk of the population of the Baltic States,”
He’d say, “and you’re quite likely to top their list of pet hates.”
SYLVESTER STALLONE
“That the hero, in the original script,” said Sly Stallone,
“Was a teenage poet, turned gun-runner, is not widely known:
But after several rewrites, all that was left was his name
- And they didn’t even spell that the same.”
DAVID STARKEY
David Starkey’s
Habit of losing his car keys
Meant scenes where, after giving its door handle a few pulls, he
Could do nothing but stand there and contemplate his Wolsey.
RINGO STARR
“How did you know I was a drummer?” asked Ringo Starr,
(Who, early on, had thought he might change over and play guitar,
And gone to a shop to ask the salesman for some tips)
“Because,” said the guy, “we only sell fish and chips.”
DAVID STEEL
At the time they had a pact, David Steel
Called up to David Owen with the following appeal:
“I’ve urgent business, tomorrow, in Drumnadrochit
- Can I have the day off from being in your pocket?”
ROD STEWART
Would that a young lady had replied to Rod Stewart:
“No - your body reminds me of suet!”
So that standing there, perplexed, he
Would have wished he hadn’t asked: “D’ya think I’m sexy?”
STING
“What inspires my lyrics? ,” said Sting,
“Well, the imagination’s triggered by any old thing :
For instance: I’d backed a horse, at three to one, on the nose,
And heard the commentator mention she was out of ‘Desert Rose’..”
KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN
“Nothing good’s come out of rock music - ” claimed Stockhausen,
(His line was that one shouldn’t let such schlock rouse one
- He’d heard enough four-four marching tunes in the Hitler Youth)
“Except, of course, Lennon’s Revolution Number Nine.”- (Strewth!)
DORIS STOKES
“The belief,” said Doris Stokes,
“That just because somebody croaks,
It doesn’t mean they’re beyond all communication,
Comforts the bereaved and provides me with remuneration.”
OLIVER STONE
“They want you to think,” claimed Oliver Stone,
“That it was done by Oswald and he was acting alone:
But it’s plain, when you look through all the smoke and mirrors, he
Was just the patsy for a crazy, right wing conspiracy.”
SHARON STONE
To avoid ‘doing a Sharon Stone’
(As this social faux pas is sometimes known)
Once you’re sitting comfortably, it doesn’t matter whether
You keep your legs crossed or knees close together.
TOM STOPPARD
“You will find, young lady,” said Tom Stoppard
“Understanding chaos theory is not hard
- All you have to do, is see my new play, dear:
Iterated functions are explained in ‘Arcadia’ ”
JACK STRAW
The son of Jack Straw
Was prevailed upon to score
By a Mirror reporter-cum-Circe
Who’d have had any teenage boy at her mercy.
BARBARA STREISAND
For someone who emotes like Barbara Streisand,
To be told to sing lyrics like ‘nice and
Easy does it every time’
Would, I think, be a bit of a crime.
MERYL STREEP
As a Stanislavskian exercise, Meryl Streep
Gave lifts to soldiers in her jeep
And told them that it flew a tricolour pennant
To commemorate her ruin by a French lieutenant.
KIM IL SUNG
To ginger up his image, Kim Il Sung
Indoctrinated North Koreans, using ideas from Jung,
So that, in stead of a grey, bureaucratic, party type,
They'd think they were looking at some fancy archetype.
QUENTIN TARANTINO
Quentin Tarantino
Hated changes being made to the Beano
- You should have heard the bleeping mother bleeper swear
When he heard that they’d axed Biffo the Bear!
JOHN TAVERNER
On John Taverner’s
Being told his fans were ravenous
For a new work, at high speed he wrote
His half-hour ‘Mystical variations on a single note.’
A. J. P. TAYLOR
“The terms of Unkiar Skelessi,” said A. J. P. Taylor,
“Made the sick man of Europe look even frailer.”
(In a TV talk that - goodness knows how - failed to bore,
On the diplomatic prelude to the Crimean War.)
ELIZABETH TAYLOR
When Elizabeth Taylor
Said she was afraid her nerve might fail her,
They assured her she wouldn’t actually have to clasp
The Asp.
NORMAN TEBBIT
“Those weren’t his words, aged colleague,” said Norman Tebbit,
“I fear you’re going deaf, as you grow old and decrepit:
Foot said I had the manners of a semi-housetrained polecat
- Not ‘the malice of a smelly, louse-brained mole rat’!”
MOTHER TERESA
"How to pay is no problem," announced Mother Teresa,
"We're happy to accept Mastercard or Visa
- So get down to those car boot sales and flog off your clutter,
Then donate the proceeds to our hospice in Calcutta."
VALENTINA TERESHKOVA
“Why are we in the sea?” said Valentina Tereshkova,
“And - I don’t believe it - those are the white cliffs of Dover!
But I heard the man distinctly told to plot our descent
So we came down just to the east of Tashkent!”
MARGARET THATCHER
Britain should have a statue of Thatcher,
As befits her historical stature,
In every square, park, town hall and large railway station
- Knocking their heads off would be such a fun recreation.
PAUL THEROUX
In one book of Paul Theroux’s
He wrote rude things about kangaroos,
Described Bondi Beach as no great place to surf
And met only yahoos, on a train going to Perth.
DYLAN THOMAS
As he was thrown out, Dylan Thomas
Ignored the fact that the barman was enormous
And decided to put up a fight,
Shouting: “I’ll not go gentle into that good night!”
PERCY THROWER
“That should attract painted ladies,” said Percy Thrower,
Then, dibble put away, he praised the diligent hoer,
Pulled up a ladysmock and said: “Tut, tut - that rose’s hips!
- Now, how myrtle likes to be bedded down: a few tips.”
TITO
“Uncle Jo,” said Marshal Tito,
“Operating some sort of veto
Over what we can do, we won’t have: we’re
Going to be an autonomous Yugoslavia.”
ALVIN TOFFLER
“When he realised,” said Alvin Toffler,
“People no longer thought the king’s touch cured scrofula,
It may well have caused a bit of unpleasant
Future shock to some eighteenth century peasant.”
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
"The ring going into the fiery crevasse," thought Tolkien,
"Will have to involve a melodramatic scene
- I can't just let the hobbit
Arrive there and lob it."
JAYNE TORVILLE
“For this bit,” Christopher Dean told Jayne Torville,
“I’ll be carrying you the way Keith Harris holds Orville
And then I’ll lift you high up and over,
Using my hand like that guy who does Gordon the Gopher.”
JOHN TRAVOLTA
In the middle of a film, starring John Travolta,
Of Christopher Marlowe’s ‘Jew of Malta’,
There was a rather odd scene where his Barabas
Led formation disco dancing to some track of Abba’s.
DAVID TRIMBLE
“In my own party,” said David Trimble
“I’m probably the most physically nimble
And, indeed, I’m far from being the puniest
Ulster politician - republican or unionist.”
FRANCOIS TRUFFAUT
I’ve never seen a film by Francois Truffaut
But intend very shortly to do so:
I was thinking of watching ‘Day for night’ but, then again,
Maybe I’ll catch his ‘La nuit Americaine.’
HARRY S. TRUMAN
“I know,” said Harry S. Truman,
“It sounds a bit inhuman
But nuking a Japanese city or two
Seemed, at the time, the right thing to do.”
TINA TURNER
When Tina Turner
(A keen amateur gurner)
Gained first prize at one face-pulling fest,
The crowd sang the chorus of ‘You’re simply the best.’
DESMOND TUTU
“The times Tutu One, and you, practise,” said Desmond Tutu
To Tutu Two: “Two-to-two to two-two: Tutu Two;
Two-two to two-two-two: Tutu One, are in the rota
On the dance school notice-board.- Hey! Isn’t that Pik Botha?”
SHANIA TWAIN
I told Shania Twain
I’d directed an acclaimed re-make of ‘Citizen Kane’
And was translating ‘Finnegans Wake’ into Dutch
- But it didn’t impress her much.
TWIGGY
Is it true that Twiggy
Could eat like a piggy,
But still look good dressed in a mini
Because her metabolism kept her skinny?
MIKE TYSON
The clash between Mike Tyson
And a North American bison
Was cancelled after a bout with a steer
In which he bit off a piece of the animal’s ear.
WALTER ULLBRICHT
The neighbours of Hadrian (unlike those of Walter Ullbricht)
Went in for saying things like: “braw, bricht, moonlicht,”
So, of course, (in contrast to what would happen in Berlin)
He built a wall to keep people out - not in.
BJORN ULVAEUS
It occurred to Bjorn Ulvaeus,
As he was watching ‘Amadeus’
That Frida might
Make a good Queen of the Night.
PETER USTINOV
“Loaded! - and with real cannon balls!" thought Peter Ustinov,
- Striking a light, he'd just accidentally loosed one off:
The shot flying from the gun and hitting with a thud,
A wall of the studio, in which they were filming 'Billy Budd'!
ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE
“Both sides are just sabre rattling” said Vajpayee
“And the possibilities of war are not large. Why, we
Could spark off Armageddon by doing something rash - we’re
Not going to push things that far, over Kashmir.”
FRANKIE VAUGHAN
Frankie Vaughan
Said: “I don’t like dusk or dawn
And find the appeal of noon, slight :
You can keep those times of day and just give me the moonlight.”
MICHAEL VENTRIS
“What gobbledegook,” said Michael Ventris,
“The language of this legal letter is!
It’s not just all Greek to me -
It might as well be written in Linear B!”
SID VICIOUS
Being fed in a Spanish eaterie, Sid Vicious
Didn’t exactly think the dishes looked delicious
And when told that bulls’ testicles were part of the spread,
“Never mind the bullocks!” is, I think, what he said.
GORE VIDAL
“I’ve nothing in common with Yankovitch.” said Gore Vidal,
Passing up a chance to meet Weird Al;
Nor did that performer of rock parodies see
Much point in talking to the author of ‘Washington DC.’
LECH WALESA
If it hadn’t been for the spelling bit, Lech Walesa
Would have passed the test for membership of Mensa:
He’d got ‘Jaruzelski’ and ‘Gdansk’ right, but not ‘Krzysztof ’
- And they failed him just for that! Boy, was he cheesed off !
ANDY WARHOL
“Lord Denning, why aren‘t you coming,” said Andy Warhol,
“To this mediaeval banquet? - they’re roasting a boar, whole.”
“I’ve been before and there was this jester who kept making digs,”
Replied the judge, “at men who like wearing silly, white wigs.”
DIONNE WARWICK
“The bit about let her paint an inch thick,” said Dionne Warwick,
“Must have got to me, when I heard that speech ‘alas, poor Yorick!’
- Now, after I wake up - before doing my make-up - it’s rum :
I pick up a skull and think: 'to this favour I must come'!”
EVELYN WAUGH
The only response a request to Evelyn Waugh
From his wife, that he go and answer the door
As she'd just got out of the bath, elicited,
Was: “Sorry, I’m too busy writing ‘Brideshead Revisited.”
AUBERON WAUGH
When a poodle bit Auberon Waugh,
As he was canvassing from door to door,
For a moment, he regretted being the smarty
Who’d founded the Dog Lovers’ Party.
JOHN WAYNE
Roles as military heroes, John Wayne
Refused to accept, again and again
- It would have looked bad, him having been Hollywood’s ‘Mister
Most-Conspicuous-Wartime-Non-Enlister.’
SIGOURNEY WEAVER
Sigourney Weaver
Wanted to be an operatic diva
- Something which, on screen, she could never be,
Because in space nobody can hear your top C.
PAUL WELLER
Planning his own funeral was something Paul Weller
Only did to prove he was a droll sort of fella
- And great was the mirth of friends and relatives, when they found
They’d be sitting in the chapel hearing ‘I’m going underground.’
ORSON WELLES
Working on a pet project, Orson Welles
Thought to himself: "Hell's bells!
- The money I've raised, so far, to make this film will
Run out before he even gets to tilt at a windmill!"
IRVINE WELSH
Of course, Irvine Welsh
Would never have snarled: “ ’ey, Jemmy! Yoush shmellsh!”
At a stranger, in a bar, late on a Saturday night
- But sometimes, in his writings, gave the impression he might.
WIM WENDERS
Surely it’s not true that Wim Wenders
Liked going out on benders
And his film crew found this habit so infectious,
They went and drank dry every bar in Paris, Texas?
MORTIMER WHEELER
Sir Mortimer Wheeler
Thought: “What could be surrealler!”
When he found a layer stuffed with Samian ware,
Beneath the surface of Washington Square.
ALAN WHICKER
I’m sure if I were Alan Whicker
Over the years, I’d have got sicker and sicker
Of hearing it, until, in the end, I’d pretend to retch
Each time someone did the Python ‘Whicker Island’ sketch.
ANDREW WILES
Andrew Wiles
Said: “Of course, I’m all smiles
- You’d hardly expect me to feel glum
When I’ve, just this minute, proved Fermat’s Last Theorem.”
ROBBIE WILLIAMS
“Let’s get the gloves on!“ said Robbie Williams
- But if he thought this challenge would fill Liam’s
Heart with terror,
He was, I believe, making an egregious error.
SHIRLEY WILLIAMS
The career of Shirley Williams
Bore some resemblance to that of the Biblical Miriam’s:
Each is remembered for her part in a well known exodus
- And you can’t say that about most of the rest of us.
BRUCE WILLIS
At regular intervals, Bruce Willis
Would find it increasingly difficult to fill his
Favourite vest -
So he’d go down the gym and do more work on his chest.
HAROLD WILSON
“Now that we’ve devalued,” complained Harold Wilson,
“When I buy my favourite lager, an imported Pilsen
That’s really good stuff - I won’t hear anyone knock it -
I get fourteen per cent less, for the pound in my pocket!”
KATE WINSLET
Kate Winslet,
As she squeezed into a thirty-eight inch bust singlet,
Got on to her high horse and expatiated
On the folly of women who wish to look emaciated.
TOM WOLFE
Movie buff Violet Elizabeth Bott said to Tom Wolfe:
“Tell me about the marketth - all thothe bearth and thothe bullth.”
“Read my ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’, mind you - it is thick”
He replied - she said: ”That’th how I felt when I thaw the flick!”
STEVIE WONDER
“My ebony and ivory!” gasped Stevie Wonder,
His face like thunder,
“Quick - rush a piano tuner over, in a car, for me:
They’re playing together in perfect disharmony.”
JOHN WYNDHAM
“I’ve been sending my publishers,” said John Wyndham,
“Pitches for monsters and, to date, they’ve just binned them
- The whole business is making me livid :
And they’d better not do it, this time, with my triffid.”
TAMMY WYNETTE
To a fellow early music buff, Tammy Wynette
Said: “I’ll need soft and supple fingers to play this spinet:
May I rub my hands with some of that lanolin
That you keep on the stand by your mandolin?”
MALCOLM X
When someone told Malcolm X
How chromosomes determine sex:
“If I’d known that, at the time,” he said, with a sigh,
“I’d have changed my surname from Little to XY.”
DENG XIAOPING
“Despite its first nudist colony,” said Deng Xiaoping,
“You mustn’t refer to our capital as Peking
- Even though, I know, comedians will find it enraging
That all they can say is: ‘People are rushing to Beijing.’”
BORIS YELTSIN
When his generals informed Boris Yeltsin:
The cavalry had had, literally, to let their belts in,
If they wanted them to go on keeping up their jodhpurs,
He was so shocked, he needed a couple of vodkas.
LEE KUAN YEW
Gum was something Lee Kuan Yew
Didn’t want Singaporeans to chew
- Seeing people use the stuff made him so angry,
He’d try and have them chucked into that jail at Changi.
FRANK ZAPPA
Reckless tempi were a vice of Frank Zappa’s
(On some tracks he’d go like the clappers)
And none of the other Mothers of Invention
Dared object - he’d brook no dissension.
MAO ZEDONG
Mao Zedong
Thought there was nothing wrong
With the Cultural Revolution, nor would
He hear a word against the Great Leap Forward.
Labels: clerihews
