A fictional response to the events described in "Last Christmas" by Wham

Last Christmas,  he quite fancied me
Without prior warning, he got down on one knee.
This year,  there won't be no tears
I'm staying away from George Michael

Last Christmas,  he quite fancied me
Without prior warning, he got down on one knee.
This year,  there won't be no tears
I'm staying away from George Michael

In front of my friends
By the town Christmas tree
He had to go and ruin it
Saying "Marry me"

I didn't want his heart then
And I don't want it now
I just wanted a quick fumble
He misread me somehow

Last Christmas,  he quite fancied me
Without prior warning, he got down on one knee.
This year,  there won't be no tears
I'm staying away from George Michael

Last Christmas,  he quite fancied me
Without prior warning, he got down on one knee.
This year,  there won't be no tears
I'm staying away from George Michael

A wintry scene
with the snow blowing in
A subtle white frosting
on his stubbly chin

His very tight shorts
in the cold - just not right
But at least it was so cold
They weren't too tight

Last Christmas,  he quite fancied me
Without prior warning, he got down on one knee.
This year,  there won't be no tears
I'm staying away from George Michael

Last Christmas,  he quite fancied me
Without prior warning, he got down on one knee.
This year,  there won't be no tears
I'm staying away from George Michael

A wintry scene
with the snow blowing in
A subtle white frosting
on his stubbly chin

I'm staying away from

I'm staying away from

George Michael

Swears we have shouted at Bob Burnquists whilst playing the 1999 classic Tony hawks pro skater

This one is rude

Munchbucket pussytwat
Shitbastard - shouted that.
Gitty git and just plain dick
Fucking bumquist bum poo prick
Twatty car and shit for face
Bloody tram - a shit disgrace
Playing Tony hawks we swear
More than polite folks could bear
Blistered thumbs are our reward
Burnquists ears burn - sorry Bob!

Elephants Like Burgers

This one was written a long time ago.  And reflects my own eating preferences of the time a lot more accurately than those of elephants.  It was nearly illustrated by someone that is good at such things .  But then it wasn't.  I still like it.

An elephant called Martin

went walking through the woods

looking for a corner shop

where he could buy some food

For elephants they don't like grass

or leaves, or nuts, or hay

No - Elephants like hot dogs

served with chips on a tray!

Elephants like burgers

served in twos and threes

much better than vegetables

or things that grow on trees

Martin found his corner shop

and bought a pastry slice

full of creamy ham and chicken

he thought it tasted nice

He followed it with lollipops

and lots and lots of sweets

mixed in with some ice cream

for elephants love treats!

An elephant called Martin

walked back through the wood

but Martin walked back slowly

as he was stuffed with food...

Magic briefly recaptured

Magic, briefly recaptured

Like the lights on my Granny's Christmas tree,

A thousand years old,  maybe,  like my dad,

in bright,  gaudy colours, unlike him,

So many colours,

All different,

All sparkling,

All looking so wonderful that I want to cram them in my mouth

For that is how I experience all the most amazing things

Where all the things that spark my brain happen,

I find myself,  with phone accidentally,  illicitly on,

Gliding down,  engines off,  to Edinburgh,  

the glorious glowing technicolour lights

filling some space at the back of my brain

with magic.

I am in my pyjamas,  insisting on seeing the tree in the dark,

with no ambient,

bland,

bulb light

to detract from it.

I recall how,  wishing to seem mature,  

I agreed with my mother that white lights were somehow more pure,

how I didn't feel I could tell her

I wanted a tree that looked like a thousand of the most beautifully synthetic fruit flavour sweets had been struck by lightning.

Grown ups don't want to experience their Christmas tree by putting it in their mouth.

That is why they are boring, wrong

They don't want to stand there

in their pyjamas,

holding onto a hand that dangles above their head,

seriously questioning in that head whether something so magically beautiful,

so perfectly designed,

could not taste delicious.

Questioning whether an opportunity to eat just one

Only one

Fairy light will come my way

A red one - that means strawberry

I like that,  strawberries never taste as good as bright red strawberry flavour things

Fruit pastilles are nothing if not slightly squishy fairy lights

Deprived of the electric

This boring quality of the grown ups

It may explain the surprisingly low rate

of Christmas tree-eating electrocution fatalities,

but the trade off doesn't strike me as a good deal.

The boy with the fairytale hair

In the streets of Calcutta, 
the girls often mutter
of the boy with the fairytale hair
His locks flow so freely
that the girls they all really
can do little but dream if they dare

And when he walks past 'em
their hearts beat so fast and
their breath it grows short in their chests
They toy with their tresses
and straighten their dresses
in hopes that he will be impressed

But the boy has no eyes for
the girls he'd be prize for
for their love he just feels no desire
The boy is a diddy
he is one daft wee kiddy
and his mind's set on something much higher

So the boy walks on by
with his eyes to the sky
missing girls who would chatter and flirt
He looks way up high
dreaming he'll some day fly
thinking how he will get that result

For the lad he has gathered
balsa wood thickly slathered
with lighter than air b&q helium paint
And each day he slaps more on
does our intrepid moron
and the fumes make his voice high and faint

And today he will try out
after offering devout
prayers to the one holy and high
his flying machine
powered solely by steam
if the paint can just be got to dry

But oh dear, our poor hero!
His chances are zero!
For he has forgotten one thing:
Our hero's physics are bitty
confused about gravity
of bad ideas, this lad, he is king

So before he departs
as his test flight he starts
which will end with a scream and a splat
Pity those poor wee girls
who fancied his curls
and didn't realise he was such a prat.

Bootstraps and bicycles

It takes practice, and effort,  but can't you see? 

You need to apply,  be successful like me! 

You need to try harder,  and work longer hours, 

Just like us that grew up in ivory towers

Just grease up your elbows and get stuck on in

Underactive thyroid? Just will yourself thin! 

Just jump on your bike and go searching for work

While tugging your bootstraps - you don't want to shirk 

Your responsibility to work two more jobs

On zero hours contracts, you're not lazy slobs

The work it is out there,  just take it from me

Just keep looking harder,  and soon you will be

With graft and with effort,  with good honest sweat

Seeing less of your kids,  but you'll have no regrets

You'll teach them a lesson,  of what effort gets

A minimum wage that can't cover your rent

A pension that might pay if you don't die first

An old age still working,  to slack is the worst

A home that is cold - you're not active enough

You're just going soft,  need to be far more tough

Work hard till you're eighty, if then still alive

put off your retirement till age eighty-five 

And show all these youngsters what a work ethic is

Blame hardship on foreigners - they're taking the piss! 

Or those who get benefits - they're just idle scum

Watch Jeremy Kyle,  while scratching their bum

Just don't blame bosses who create the wealth

And kindly share some out -  no thought for their self

Benevolent heroes,  are our CEOs

They invest really hard,  so stay on your toes

They have to cut costs,  so sorry,  you're sacked

Just try harder next time, and it is a fact

That you could get rich, beyond your wildest dreams 

Your wallet so stuffed,  it'll burst at the seams

If we just make it cheaper,  to hire and to fire

If we break all the unions,  your pay will be higher

We'll just cut your wages,  for a few years just now

boost dividends this year but then we'll somehow 

Make you so much richer, in a few years hence

But sorry,  not next year,  it's too big an expense

Our poor shareholders need big dividends

On their confidence,  our country depends! 

So suffer for Britain,  for a few years more

Stop saying you're broke,  you dull left wing bore

It's all labour's fault,  nowt to do with the banks

bankers need their bonuses, so we pay them, with thanks

It's nothing to do with the rich, not at all

We must protect them, if their stocks fall

Our system is super, just look and see

Our system makes folk rich,  like my friends and me!

On having reached the Maule Monument above Tarfside finally, after six years

False summits tease
with hopes of triumph
gentle slopes from afar
rearrange,
gain new gradient
steepen
as valiant heroes
stumble up.

The transcendent hills
hitherto too daunting
for hungover me
finally conquered by
my imminence

Which by the time
specified
felt very imminent
indeed.

Dry mooths slaikit
by unchilled beer
our heroes savour
view won,  breathe
victor's fresh air
and wish
they had brought
more beer.

Fragments I've had in my head

Not a thing as such - the below have been stuck in my head for a while and I thought writing them down might clear it out and let me do something else...

Detour down Buttars Loan

Cherry blossom blooms doon Buttars Loan
Sharp, shocking pink shows white walls up
The sunshine pretends a summer not yet come
And my thoughts turn, tumble, to love once more

Meds

A rushing brain calmed down by capsule
Red in hue and high in strength
can't compensate for dampened ardour
or fingers frozen in dead of night

They like silence

They like silence

Our rulers, they like silence. 
It suits them, serves their purpose 
the silent anonymity of those our rulers slew
denies the existence of our fallen
pretends they never were. 

The memory of those our rulers
could only silence in death
is a memory we hold dear
cherish, seek to recover
to give us strength today

And now we raise our voices
for those who cannot speak
we sing our songs of struggle
of solidarity, of freedom and truth
and give their memory life

Written in memory of those who vanished, but were not forgotten, 

from Tarancon and elsewhere.

The following translation is the work of Máximo Molina Gutiérrez, whose work in and around Tarancon to recover and preserve the memory of those who were killed is inspirational. 

LES GUSTA EL SILENCIO

A nuestros gobernantes, les gusta el silencio

Les viene bien, les sirve a sus fines

El anonimato silencioso de aquellos que los gobernantes mataron

niega la existencia de nuestros caídos,

pretende que nunca fueron.

La memoria de aquellos, que nuestros gobernantes

solo pudieron silenciar con la muerte,

es una memoria querida por nosotros

estimada, que buscamos recuperar

para que nos de fuerza hoy.

Y ahora levantamos nuestras voces

por aquellos que no pueden hablar,

cantamos nuestras canciones de lucha

de solidaridad, de libertad de verdad

Y le damos vida a su memoria.

Escrito en memoria de aquellos que desaparecieron, pero que no han sido olvidados,

de Tarancón, y de cualquier otro lugar.

No no, no, no, no no. (How you get old as a child of the nineties)

The cultural references of our youth age us
We continue in time, then they catch us out
Italia '90 was a quarter of a century ago
Many yesterdays have past since The Day Today
Fallen heroes fill the news, found out
And yet I still feel me.
No Limit was released in 1993.
And now I feel old.