Twas Christmas Day in the workhouse
at the postscript to reform:
the occupants all huddled round
the telly to keep warm.
The youngest programme on the box
from forty years or more
depicted archetypes that they
had never seen before.
Dancing girls with kicking legs
and midgets with but one
paraded on the screen while
double-acts opined upon
the shortcomings of mothers-in-law,
rappers, and the twee
attempts to make us all believe
that we should be pc.
The Workhouse viewers stared in horror
as they now discerned
that all the things they thought so cruel
were said by those concerned
to help the People understand
that bad times came soon after
denial of the need to judge ourselves
in fits of laughter.
And all these stars from decades past,
they smiled from their eyes:
Ken Goodwin, Jasper Carrot,
Eric Morecambe, Ernie Wise….
there were no gender targets
nor the cringing euphemism,
no quotas for disabled gays,
no tracts on feminism:
no slogans praising fracking and
no loud robotic cries
insisting Brits were better off
and very soon the prize
for all those who were well-behaved
and loyal to dear Blighty
would find enrichment in a multi
cultural society
Where none of us must laugh at
a minority religion
or sing about birds in a pie
and upset every pigeon.
But all this forced equality
seemed mainly to be fuel
to justify the act
of seeming kind while being cruel.
So in the Neoliberal Home
for Banged-up Bloggers’ Kids
the sad inmates began to ask
why every day their bids
for forty minutes zero hours
employment in the sewer
seemed to earn them less and less –
and mean they all got fewer
opportunities to save some cash
then find a place to live
and not be told by overseers
that they must always give
eternal thanks for market forces
helping them get by
for surely without that they’d all
be on the streets and die –
or truly ghastly paedos from
the evil BBC
would snatch them up with promises
of buttered toast for tea.
“Those comics from the programmes past,”
said one child with delight
“although their jokes was incorrect
yer somehow fink they’re right”.
The Slog 