Pub laureate

Moved by both the sense of occasion and the promise of alcohol, confessional Twitter scribe mikeisbrill penned a birthday poem in honour of Yours Truly.

I think you’ll agree it’s very good, although with a little too much emphasis on my advanced age. I think you’ll also agree that it renders me very unemployable to anyone capable of using Google, and that I may need to change my name my deed poll to avoid fielding awkward questions.

Now, please…for the love of God, read Mike’s blog. He’s pretty desperate for more traffic and is now threatening to saturate the internet with photos of his naked form.

Speed sonnet challenge

My good friend Rollo recently challenged me to write a poem on a train journey (in between Sudoku and eating a squashed sandwich). The briefing: A silly sonnet on the theme of disappointment and more specifically, burnt Christmas dinner.

***

Duck
for Hector

We’re sat in stony silence when a bell
rings out. Ding dong. The takeaway arrives
Mum’s burnt the bird. She can’t cook very well
I peer inside the oven and I find
the poor turkey; a crisp black lump of coal
Its Yuletide destiny- a cremation
by stove. My sister cries into her bowl
over egg-fried rice, a Hoisin ocean
drowns the duck. It’s not the bird we’d have liked
to masticate over at Christmas time.
The crackers pulled, we argue and we fight
in paper crowns. We let the insults fly,
but if our household got on well together,
a duck for Christmas dinner wouldn’t matter.