There’s nothing left for it. Someone’s got to sort this mess out. Here’s my catchy slogan:
No harassment claims!
No smear campaigns!
No previous experience!
I already have some ringing endorsements.
“I will RESIGN from Britain if it doesn’t happen.” – Johann Hari, columnist and author
“You have my full support, Luke, but only if you promise to make a mockery of the whole process. No, sorry. They’ve already managed that. Luke Wright for Pope.” Tim Turnbull, Forward Prize Nominee
“You’re not Martin Bell and you’re not having a new white suit.” My wife
Join my Facebook group. I want to get at least 297, which is the number of people who voted for Ruth in the election. So come and join me. Last night I had about 4 times as many people in my group than Arvind Mehrotra had in his. Tee-hee.
I went on More4 News to talk about the whole silly mess and gave them this poem:
Schmoxford Schmair of Schmoetry
So, poetry’s silly season commences;
fine sensibilities, yet out of their senses.
Professors wielding unwieldy defenses,
seemingly frightened of splinters from fences.
The media’s desperate for me to condense it,
I’ll admit that at first I was quite apprehensive –
peel poetry’s paint and find many offenses –
so here’s hoping the papers don’t print our expenses.
All was going fine but before reading the poem I tried my hand at false modesty. When I’m a bit embarrassed by the trashiness of one of my verses I say something like: “I’m going to lower the tone a bit,” or “I’m going to dumb everything down now.” Yesterday this came out as “I’ll just dumb it down for you.” Which basically sound like I was saying: “you plebs, would n’t understand this poem, so I shall translate.” That’s not what I meant. That’ll teach me to be all self-depreciating. Hopefully the video won’t appear on line.
I rang my mum afterwards to see how badly it came across.
“Um, I knew what you were trying to say, darling.”
“Was it really bad?”
“No, you get a little bit better everytime and one day you’ll be, y’know really quite good.”
Good ol’ mum. No yes men around me. Maybe we can change that. Calling all sycophants. Let’s take the chair!