BASILDON BIMBETTE

 

Bimbette had to fill out a form

A task she found hard to perform

Finally, she only had one box to go

Where it said “sign here” she wrote Leo

FOREIGN POLICY

 

Why is it when I live in England

And I rarely drive very far

A bomb goes off in Bagdad

The insurance goes up on my car

WHAT A WASTE

 

Why in this modern world of computerisation

After thousands of years of advanced civilization

We haven’t shown any significant improvement

In the effective disposal of human excrement

LET THE TRAIN TAKE THE STRAIN

 

Railway staff are unhelpful

Generally

Stations are cold and dirty

Typically

At my local station

In Farncombe

When it’s unattended

They lock the waiting room

When it is open

And it’s a winter’s day

The fire switches off

After a ten second time delay

Trains are late

Or worse don’t come at all

Leaves on the track

The wrong kind of snowfall

All these things

Drive commuters mad

Even the plagues of Egypt

Weren’t so bad

A STRANGER IN A STRANGE TOWN

 

I walk down unfamiliar streets

Exploring, searching

I came upon a market square

Full of hubbub

Stall holders calling out their wares

Amidst the background noise of chatter

Babies’ cry and women gossip

An argument ensues

Between trader and punter

Words are exchanged

Just out of earshot

“Asylum seeker” was all I could make out

A trader or a punter?

I moved on

It was a typical spring day

Too hot for a coat

Too cold to go without

As I leave the market, I passed an office building

Smoker’s skulk outside

Social pariahs

Consigned to the gutter

With the other misfits and addicts

I pass people on mobiles

All talking loudly

I lose count of the number

Teenagers chatting

What on earth do they have to say?

Whatever! Bovvered?

I stop at a pavement café

To my left sit a party of French

I thought how apt it was

And how when the coalition went to war

To fight global terrorism

The French went to lunch

To my right sat a mixed group

A forty-something female

Holding court over a younger crowd

Celebrating a 22^nd birthday

The oldest in the group by some distance

Was obviously angling to put another notch in her headboard

On the farthest table sat

A party of downs syndrome sufferers

One kept blowing raspberries of admirable proportions

And another was doing chimp impressions

The birthday group obviously found them amusing

Remarking “he looked like Clyde from the Eastwood movie”

Why do people have to be so unkind?

A passerby said loudly

“Look at the window lickers”

What a vile world it can be

The waitress arrives

Complete with tattoos and multiple piecings

Wearing an ill-fitting skirt and blouse

Making her look like a badly stuffed pincushion

I’m sure she felt she was making a statement

Presumably to the fashion police.

She eventually took my order

Why can’t you just get a coffee anymore?

I continued my journey

Along the pavement

To avoid stopping at a red signal

A cyclist mounted the pavement

Scatting pedestrians in all directions

In response to calls

His reply was at best unarticulated

Mostly he just gesticulated

I decided to go back to the hotel

KENTISH HOLIDAY

 

My mum’s family were born and bred in Bermondsey, East London at a time when poor really meant poor and there was no welfare state safety net.

In those days you worked, or you went without and even if you did work you didn’t earn a lot and there was nothing left for luxuries.

For example, you didn’t have was a holiday there was no money for that.

No one got to go off to Benidorm for two weeks in the sun at the taxpayers’ expense like those on benefits today.

The closest thing the East Londoners got to a holiday was the three weeks in September spent in the Kent countryside picking hops.

Apart from the working men folk the whole family migrated to the Kent hop fields using whatever means of transport suited their pocket.

My Aunty Kay couldn’t afford the train or bus, so she walked.

It took her three days to walk, and she would sleep in the hedgerows or woods along the route, and she would work extra hard so she could afford the train home otherwise she walked back to Stepney as well.

They worked hard for three weeks every September picking the hop flowers and filling bushel baskets

My grandmother used the money to buy winter clothes for the kids and hopefully have enough left over to save a bob or two for Christmas

WHATS IN A NAME (25)

 

Did anyone hear Natasha Pyne?

I know we’ve all heard Victoria Wine?

Would anyone know will Jo Brand?

Does anyone know is Louise Bland?