CANTERBURY REVISITED

Hello again,

Welcome to another edition of The Autolycan.  A recent item about Geoffrey Chaucer caught my eye, and I thought I'd follow it up.  Renowned as a poet, Chaucer, who was born around 1340, was also at various times courtier, diplomat, Member of Parliament, Justice of the Peace and civil servant.  As a civil servant he was controller of lucrative London customs (see below.)  Clearly he was a man of many and varied talents and not somebody we should poke fun at.  Then again....

I hope you like this edition of The Autolycan, and if so do feel free to share with others who similarly might have nothing better to do!

CANTERBURY REVISITED

 

A 14th-century bureaucratic document requesting time off work for a civil servant has been identified as the only surviving handwriting of Geoffrey Chaucer, revered as the father of English literature.

While it was known that the individual seeking a leave of absence was the author of The Canterbury Tales – during his 12-year employment as controller of the London Wool Quay – the application was assumed to have been made on his behalf by a clerk.

Now a leading scholar argues that it was actually written by Chaucer and submitted by him for King Richard II’s approval.  Prof Richard Green, a Canadian academic, said: “This would be the only known example of his hand.”

                                                                                                The Guardian

 

 

Dear Your Majesty, 

Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
A pilgrimage from every shire’s end
Of Engelond to Benidorm doth wend
And lads from pubs from all parts of town -
From the Pilgrim’s Arms to the Rose and Crown
From the Dog and Duck and maybe at a push
A couple thrown out by that bloke at the Bush –
They each packs their bags and clears all the decks
For the sun and the sand and the booze and the sex!
They’ll be off pretty shortly, all flash and brash
And want me to go too so we’re all on the lash.
So it’s not that I’m keen to malinger or shirk
That I’m asking you, sire, for a fortnight off work.
Pray grant this request from your chief tax enforcer,
With kindest regards from me, Geoffrey Chaucer.

 
Dear Subject Chaucer,
 
Thanks for the chitty about a vacation
It looks like you want to succumb to temptation!
It’s OK by me but please send me a card
And when you come back you’ll work three times as hard!
And when you have gone far away from these borders
Try to remember I still give the orders!
My message to you before you all vanish
Is kick a few lumps out the uppity Spanish!
Those pilgrimage lads look a well dodgy crew,
But don’t you do nothing that I wouldn’t do!
They’re all a bit rough but please try to implore ‘em
‘Remember you’re Brits!   And behave with decorum!
Though I’m sure that you’ll come back a right bunch of wrecks
You go with the blessing of Ricardus Rex.

 
Dear Your Majesty,
 
Ta for the nod but these alcoholics
Are bound to be up for some high jinks and frolics.
Remember last year when it passed all belief
What happened in Riga and then Tenerife?
I seem to recall that the lads were all gallant
When we tried to hook up with some serious talent –
A hen do from Chingford who firstly ignored us
But then got more flirty which soon reassured us
Though a bit of a barney when I pulled the hen,
And you had to calm down some furious men
(Soz about that; it won’t happen again!)
 
Then a tale now each of these travellers tells
Bragging of conquests of young demoiselles,
Or regaling us all with unlikely accounts
Of knocking back booze in prodigious amounts,
Of smashing up cafés, insulting the locals,
Calling them bumpkins or peasants or yokels,
Or shouting and yelling a whole load of drivel
And attracting the lads from the Guardia Civil.
 
But one of the lads says this is all too abusive
Tells all of the others to be more inclusive,
Compassionate, tolerant, enlightened, mais oui!
And teaches us all to be sure we’re PC!
Equality rules! And thanks to this guide
I’m much more in touch with my feminine side!
My cup runneth over – it’s full to the brim,
Best wishes, Geoff Chaucer.  (Pronouns : he/him.)

 
Dear SUBJECT  Chaucer
 
He/him?  HE/HIM?? Are you having a laugh?
I’m appointed by God upon whose behalf
This liberal approach I must surely condemn,
Signed in dismay by Ricardus – HM!!

 
Dear Your Majesty
 
But……..
 
IF ME NO IFS AND BUT ME NO BUTS!!
I’m calling you back, you’re a right load of nuts!!
 
But sire,
 
Believe me, the scales just fell from our eyes,
I have to admit that was quite a surprise!
The lads are converted, they’re truly enthused,
No longer just rowdy, obnoxious and boozed
And want your support now for full civil rights
(And if you can swing it some help from your knights.)
Think of the future, your legacy heightened,
Remembered by all as a king who’s enlightened!
So will you sign up as a moral crusader?
You’d make a fantastic high powered persuader!
 
Alright then!  OK!! Your urging prevails,
But you must agree to add one to your Tales,
A Tale to exhilarate all gentlefolk -
The uplifting Tale of King Richard the Woke!!
 

 

 ANAGRAM CORNER 

                                                   SIR (!) JACOB REES MOGG 

                                                    AS SCROOGE I BEG! - JRM

THE TILLS ARE ALIVE WITH THE POUNDS FOR BORIS

 Hello

Well, it's been a very long time since I last posted an edition of The Autolycan, so long in fact that I've almost forgotten how!  So I thought perhaps the best way of starting to resurrect it would be to take unashamed aim at what is in all honesty rather an easy target.  I hope you like it, if so I'll try to ease back in to writing again - I've missed doing it.  As ever, do pass it on to others if you think they would like it.

THE TILLS ARE ALIVE WITH THE POUNDS FOR BORIS

 

 

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes,

Girls with long tresses and fluttery lashes

Girls who are sexy with whom I have flings,

So long as they don’t think of exchanging rings!

 

One of the latter was Jenny Arcuri

Who came on my trade mission much to the fury

Of oddballs and weirdos and brash underlings

Like Lord of Impertinence – Mr Cummings!

 

Holidays paid for by Brownlow and friends

PPE contracts with great dividends!

Brown paper packages that go Ker-ching!!

This is what makes my life go with a swing!

 

When they shun me -

Overrun me -

When they melt away,

I simply remember my favourite things

And then lead myself astray!

 

Parties that went on inside Number Ten,

Nobody knowing just when to say ‘when’.

Elsewhere the lockdown and misery stings

But we carry on till the fat lady sings!

 

Turning the flat into somewhere quite handsome

Wallpaper rolls that each cost a King’s ransom,

Gaudy and pricey but I pull some strings

And Brownlow pops up to take care of these things!

 

Honours for cronies and mercy for chancers,

Cover ups so that you won’t find the answers

And Govey can wait for all time in the wings,

Now that is the best of my favourite things!

 

When MPs bite,

When the press stings

When I feel alone,

I picture myself – of the world I am King

And proudly ascend my throne!!

 

ANAGRAM CORNER 

WORLD KING BORIS

OR... BLOND WIG IRKS!

BREAKING NEWS - UPDATE!

 I posted recently about my accident and what happened in the first week thereafter.  A number of people were kind enough to compliment the piece and even to ask if there would be a follow up, since there would still be three weeks to go in hospital after I'd come round from the first operation.  I thought about that and decided I would have a crack at it, but that it would have to be a different sort of piece - a bit more reflective perhaps - since much of what happened during those three weeks was dull and repetitive, which doesn't make for a great read.  So what follows is a bit experimental.  I hope that if nothing else it'll help get me back into writing!

BREAKING NEWS - UPDATE!

I open my eyes and look around.  Familiar surroundings.  As comforting as a dentist's waiting room can be.  But…I AM NOT IN THE DENTIST’S WAITING ROOM!!  Might have fooled me once but not twice.   There are the same masked figures scurrying round though and three or four other beds containing patients that I’m fairly sure haven’t been put there by the dentist’s inadequacies.  This is definitely the recovery room so I must have had my second operation.  Yes, look, a nurse is trundling her machine up to take my blood pressure – a procedure with which I have grown all too familiar in the last three weeks.  She says something about a sandwich.  ‘Low blood pressure?’ I enquire knowledgeably.  She nods.  ‘Yes, but not as low as last time’ which makes me wonder just how low it had been.

It's now a fortnight since my first operation which was itself a week after the accident.  I try to take stock.  Family and friends of course have been brilliant, as has the NHS in taking care of me thus far.  But beyond that have I learnt anything – about myself or about the system that has taken over my life?  When I dispensed careers advice in a former life – a former century even – I talked a lot about nursing and the information and advice I passed on may well have been sound.  But it was probably about the wrong things to a large extent, or – to be kinder to myself – not enough about the right things.  The reality of twelve hour shifts on a busy ward full of demanding patients.  The older nurse with back problems who nonetheless struggled to help me in and out of bed.  The man in a nearby room who constantly called ‘Help me, please help me!’ then when one or more nurses responded to his cries yelled at them to get out.  ‘Get out!  Get out!!  Bang!!’  Was he miming shooting them?  Probably.  Fortunately he was there for only a couple of nights but long enough for me to find out that ward staff didn’t enter his room without security being present.  And then there’s their unrelenting focus on bowels which featured in very few – if any – of my careers guidance interviews.  The observation is not mine – it was made to me by a senior nurse.  ‘Yes,’ she remarked, ‘to be a good nurse you have to be fixated on what goes in one end and what comes out the other.’  The truth of this was borne in on me one day when my daughter was visiting and a lesser deity than the one who had carried out the first operation swept into the room with a backing pantheon of would-be deities.  They looked like a 60’s pop group – think Billy J Kramer with the Dakotas but without the screaming.  There must have been five or six people clustered round the bed when the curtain was swept aside to reveal a nurse who – oblivious to all else – announced her presence in a voice which stopped Billy J dead in his tracks. ‘Have you moved your bowels today?’ she demanded. The truthful answer – yes, but with great difficulty and to not much effect – seemed rather too much information for the assembled company so I merely nodded weakly and assured her I had.

She was one of very many nurses and other ward staff I met and got to know who were of Afro-Caribbean descent, largely, I imagine, descendants of the Windrush generation.  At a rough guess a good three quarters were in this group whilst of the rest very few would have ticked the White British box on those ubiquitous ethnic monitoring forms everyone sends out.  The Royal London Hospital – and I suppose many others – simply wouldn’t function without them and they looked after me impeccably and for the most part cheerfully.  On the very few occasions they weren’t cheerful it was more than likely a reaction to my feeling at a low ebb.  But how could I fail to be moved by the nurse who attempted to take my blood pressure in the middle of the night without waking me up?  She almost managed it but not quite.  Or even more moved by the two or three who told me they would remember me in their prayers?  I have no doubt that they did.

I also learnt that hospital life consists of a very few flashes of elation, long periods of tedium and occasional moments when it would be easy to give in to despair.  The first of these followed the achievement of some landmark – an operation successfully completed or the first time I was able to take a few steps – white knuckles and all – clutching a Zimmer frame.  One small step for a man; one giant leap forward….  The body blow which was having the second operation postponed happened twice, both times late in the afternoon of the scheduled day.  The pre – operation routine started the evening before with nothing at all to eat or drink after about 9 o’clock and on both occasions I expected to be taken to theatre around lunchtime.  But the Royal London is a leading trauma hospital and patients coming in with life threatening conditions will jump the queue.  It sounds perfectly reasonable sitting here typing it but it feels a bit less so when you finally get the dreaded message about 4.30 or 5 o’clock, and realise that it’ll be another three or four days before there’s another chance.  As a result I stayed in hospital about a week longer than planned, but on the second occasion I was impressed to find that the senior surgeon made a point of coming to my room to apologise in person and explain what had happened.  It would have been easy to delegate that to the ward staff.  But on both occasions no meal had been ordered so it was back to sandwiches and chocolate bars.

I doubt if I learned as much from the periods of tedium as I might have done.  I was though surprised to discover that you can actually look forward to a trip to X ray as a means of breaking the day up, and also surprised that it’s not easy to make very positive use of the rather large amount of time you have on your hands.  Or, indeed, on your back.  Pain killers made sure I wasn’t in too much pain from the injury or the surgery, but didn’t seem to do a lot to ease the discomfort which comes from spending too long in bed – the back, the base of the spine and the bum are the pressure points which protest most vigorously and this of course makes it difficult to concentrate for any length of time on reading or writing.  Which doesn’t leave a lot other than emailing, crosswords and old episodes of Porridge and Yes, Minister – increasingly brilliant the older it gets – on iPlayer.  Oh, and my son kindly bought a subscription to BT Sport so I could compound my anguish by watching England’s Ashes humiliation.

Talking of Porridge, there’s an episode where the old hand Fletcher is schooling first timer Godber in the importance of savouring ‘little victories’ – small ways of beating the prison system.  Being in hospital for a few weeks is a bit like that – but in my case savouring moments of humour which puncture some of the unnerving intensity of being cocooned in an institution which largely runs your life for you.  I felt just like Fletcher, in fact, although the staff who dealt with me were much more benevolent than Mr McKay.  There was the catering lady who swept in early on the morning of a scheduled operation day to announce that she knew I was nil by mouth but what would I like for lunch?  Or there was the nurse who answered my call for assistance in the small hours of one morning when my back and coccyx were getting increasingly uncomfortable.  He did what he could to re-arrange pillows – I think I had five – and blankets to make things a bit more tolerable.  ‘Take it easy!’ he breezed as he left the room and I smiled at the incongruity.  For some time and because I was inactive I needed a daily injection in the stomach to prevent blood clotting.  The nurse who administered it would usually precede the injection with a bright smile and a ‘slight scratch coming!’, so it caused great hilarity when I said it for her one day although she was shaking with laughter somewhat alarmingly as the needle went in.  On another occasion though I did feel I ought to adopt a fatherly tone (grandfatherly?) with a young student who flashed the bright smile well enough as she had no doubt been trained to do but then changed the accepted form of words to ‘just a small prick!’  As gently as I could I suggested this wasn’t a good idea – I dread to think what Mr Get out! Get out!! Bang!! would have made of it – whereupon she momentarily looked blank, then seriously embarrassed and laughed nervously.  I was delighted that she turned up a day or two later saying she needed a witness statement from a patient for her training course and hoped I would provide her with one.  I decided not to mention the unfortunate choice of words.

One thing that had increasingly intrigued me was the question of how I was going to travel the couple of hundred miles to get home.  Unable to walk more than a few steps and then only with a Zimmer frame I didn’t much fancy the Hammersmith and City Line from Whitechapel, change at King’s Cross for the main line to Hull.  I mentioned this to one or two people who frowned and talked about how they would ‘repatriate’ me – a wonderful phrase that I thought they must have picked up at a seminar led by Priti Patel.  It turned out eventually that I was to be ‘repatriated’ by means of a fully equipped NHS emergency ambulance with a crew of two, all provided free of charge by the NHS.  Not only that, but I was to be repatriated with a perching stool and a commode that couldn’t be transported by the same ambulance and had to be entrusted to a separate courier.

Come the much anticipated day of the journey and I found out what it was like to feel elation, boredom, despair then elation again all on the same day and all at a high degree of intensity.  I hadn’t had to manage such powerful conflicting emotions since the days of parenting small children.  At first I was dressed and ready to be driven home quite early in the morning – real clothes after four weeks in hospital gowns! - then it was put back to eleven o’clock, then about two o’clock.  By about four o’clock and with no information as to what was going on – or wasn’t going on – I was convinced nothing was going to happen that day and that I was going to be stuck in hospital indefinitely with Covid numbers rising and staff shortages meaning that nobody would be available to take me home any time soon.  Murder was close to being done, but it wouldn’t have looked good to have to ask my intended victim for help in getting me out of bed first.

Then finally at about half past four and without warning a man and a woman showed up wearing the uniform of the Kent Ambulance Service.  They’d come to take me home, they said, although clearly didn’t know where Hull was and were a bit taken aback to find how far they’d got to go, a journey of fully five hours.  When we stopped at Watford Gap services the driver asked if I was in much pain and looked pleased when I said it was getting worse. ‘Oh good’ he said, and catching my look of surprise added ‘it’s just that if you are in pain my boss has cleared me to drive on a blue light.’  I’m sure he was pleased for themselves as much as for me, knowing that after dropping me they would have to drive the ambulance back to Maidstone in Kent, a journey of some 225 miles.  And so after four weeks I arrived back in Hull in a blaze of blue lights and with two tone horns blaring. 

‘It’ll give the neighbours something to talk about’ I said.

She smiled. 

‘It always does’ she said.

 

BREAKING NEWS

 Hello

It's been a very long time since I last posted an edition of The Autolycan and I must say I've missed it.  When the pandemic struck I found it very hard to summon the enthusiasm to write the sort of stuff I generally do - in particular it struck me that whimsy might go down very badly if it arrived in someone's inbox in time to coincide with some truly dreadful news.  I was considering whether to restart the blog when something else intervened.  This is the story of that something else, how it began and where it had taken me after about one week.  I won't say I hope you enjoy it because it's not really that sort of thing - it's rather different from my usual style! - but I hope you find it interesting. 

BREAKING NEWS

I open my eyes and look around. I'm in the dentist's waiting room. Familiar surroundings. As comforting as a dentist's waiting room can be. A bit busier than usual. I wonder why. Someone in a white coat and wearing a mask bustles silently past with a clipboard, then bustles silently back again. Odd. The receptionist is always very chatty and not given to bustling anywhere. New? No matter. Must be some time since I last went to the dentist because procedures have clearly changed a bit. Don't remember them taking your blood pressure in the waiting room before, but another masked figure now looms up and does just that, looks briefly concerned, asks if I would like a sandwich and when I say I would says she'll see what she can do. I've never got that far before, not even with the chatty receptionist. More figures hurrying purposefully, some with clipboards or iPads, some with mysterious bits of equipment. What's that about?  Never mind.

She returns. 'I've brought you an egg mayo and a cheese and tomato.' She watches approvingly as I eat. As I do so I look round and notice for the first time that the waiting room is larger than I remember and there are several beds round the walls; some of the dentist's other patients occupy some of them. A man with a stethoscope round his neck approaches and asks if I'm feeling OK, nodding sagely when I say I am. 'Good' he says 'we'll have you back on the ward just as soon as your blood pressure has stabilised. It's been a bit low, you see. It's why we wanted you to eat something.'

At long last it dawns on me this isn't the dentist's waiting room and I try to think back through clinging fog about the last few days. It must have been a week or so ago – Friday 19^th November - that Olwen and I had caught the train from Hull to London to go to see our daughter who lives in Croydon. This includes walking through from King's Cross to St Pancras to transfer to the Croydon train. Somewhere near the taxi rank I caught my foot, tripped and fell, my right side bearing the brunt of the fall. I felt a bit shaken up but there was no real pain. Had there been an ominous cracking sound though? Humanity sometimes gets a bit of a bad press for being callous or unfeeling but the admittedly small sample of it that immediately rushed to my assistance was anything but. One man took charge of the situation and wouldn't let others help me up until he'd satisfied himself that I wasn't in pain and was ready to make the attempt. Several strong arms then hauled me upright and supported me as I gingerly attempted to put weight on my right leg. I couldn't.

A wheelchair materialised from King's Cross and when we said we were on our way to St Pancras I was wheeled across to their first aid room. I had fallen between the two stations and a lively debate now ensued as to whether King's Cross or St Pancras should take responsibility for me.  St Pancras lost, whereupon King's Cross triumphantly demanded his wheelchair back. I was transferred from one wheelchair to another and began a long wait for an ambulance. Four and a half hours, they said, so it was a relief when one turned up after only about three and a half. Anything but a relief though as the realisation hit me that pain or no pain I was completely unable to move my right leg.

I liked the ambulance crew. Professional and sympathetic they splinted my right leg to my left and were alarmed by the way the right foot wanted to roll outwards. I got an accurate diagnosis there and then from those two. 'I don't think you've broken your hip,' one of them said 'I think it's something else. Could well be your pelvis.' I might have blanched a little at that, and he immediately changed the subject. 'By the way,' he went on 'I hope those aren't new or expensive trousers because the nurse who prepares you for X ray will probably have to cut them off.' But she didn't, and when I mentioned the crew's warning I was rewarded with a huge grin. 'They didn't know you gonna get Mary!' she chuckled.

Following an excruciating couple of hours when I was manhandled between wheelchairs and stretchers for X rays and a scan I was admitted to University College Hospital's A and E ward for the night, an enlightening experience had I been in the mood to appreciate it. A woman opposite spent most of the night groaning, calling for help and declaring that she was going to die. A young man in the next bed had a loud consultation with doctors in the small hours during which he confirmed that he'd been having intercourse when the accident happened. Involuntarily, I boggled. I boggled a bit more when they asked if there was a lot of blood and he agreed that indeed there was. It was then their turn to boggle when they asked if he was taking any prescribed medication and he replied 'yes, methadone.' Another young man in the corner who looked scarcely capable of movement of any kind was being closely guarded – well, guarded – by a couple of bored-looking prison officers who spent the entire time fiddling with their mobile phones.

Happily, I was soon moved from the A and E ward and wound up in a single room where the main distraction was a frequent loud crashing sound which could be heard at any time of the day or night and which I eventually discovered emanated from an ancient dumb waiter protesting at being coerced into service. Its joints sounded in worse condition than mine. I stayed there for a couple of days, during which time two young doctors breezed in, excitedly clutching a mobile phone . 'We've got your X rays here!' they announced, gesticulating at the screen in a most animated fashion. 'Impressive!' They pointed to what they claimed was my pelvis although it could equally have been a blurred map of the London Underground. They grew confidential. 'Fascinating,' one of them breathed ' you normally only see that as a result of high speed impacts like car crashes. Not from just falling over.' I had visions of being Stunna of the Week on the cover of The Lancet. They interrupted my reverie and brought me back to Earth. 'Sorry,' they added 'it'll be a long job.'

The hospital which specialises in this kind of repair work is the Royal London in Whitechapel and I was duly transferred. Think of the Blind Beggar pub just down the road - the haunt of the Kray twins who specialised in invasive procedures of an altogether different sort in the 1960s. Building work at the Royal London meant that the crew who took me were briefly unable to find the way in for stretcher cases and I spent some minutes on my back in the car park contemplating the night sky. Once they'd found the right lift – not easy in the Royal London – I was taken to my own room where a day or two later I was visited by a man who was clearly regarded in the hospital as some kind of deity. 'If you were going to do this you've chosen the right place to do it,' he intoned, as a row of breathless acolytes behind him took awe-struck notes. 'We are the leading hospital in the UK for this type of injury' he went on, not entirely modestly, 'and in fact get surgeons visiting from all over the world to see what we do.' I didn't feel especially lucky although in a way I suppose I was. He confirmed the ambulance guy's diagnosis. 'You haven't broken your hip' he said 'you've forced the femur up into the pelvis where it's smashed the socket' - he peered indulgently over his glasses, '- we call it the acetabulum – that it's supposed to fit into. We've developed a two stage process for dealing with this – firstly we go in and repair the acetabulum with plate and screws, but this will promote arthritis in the hip so to forestall that we go in again a week or so later and conduct a full hip replacement.' I hadn't previously realised that your head can spin and your mind go blank at the same time.

The first operation was scheduled to take place about a week after the accident during which time I could probably have come close to despair, not least because I was quite unable to get out of bed. I got through it thanks to constant love and support – and visits, COVID notwithstanding – from my family and seemingly endless messages from friends both in this country and abroad. My phone and my tablet became absolute lifelines. Olwen began clocking up the first few hundred of what must eventually have turned into a couple of thousand or more miles on trains.

Around lunchtime on 26^th November – except it wasn't lunch time for me having been nil by mouth since the previous evening – I was wheeled down to the operating theatre. To my surprise I was awake until I was inside the theatre itself and could see the table, the lights and a battery of bafflingly incomprehensible equipment. A kindly anaesthetist ambled across for a chat and I recognised him as the one who'd come to see me earlier in the day. He'd stunned me then by asking if I'd like to be sufficiently awake during the operation to be aware of what was going on. I'd mulled that one over for very nearly a nano-second before telling him that I didn't think I was as brave as that and was relieved to discover that most people felt the same. He smiled. 'Look away now' he murmured gently as he slid a needle into the back of my hand. I did so and blinked.

I open my eyes a split second later and look around. I'm in the dentist's waiting room. Familiar surroundings. As comforting as a dentist's waiting room can be....

A CHICAGO CABARET

Hello, and welcome to this special lockdown edition of The Autolycan. You've probably noticed that newspapers and magazines are full of helpful suggestions for things to do in lockdown, and The Autolycan is no exception! So in this edition we're going to make an earworm. Or two. It's all about songs from the movies – well, two particular movies – Cabaret and Chicago. But you've got to do some work this time, because in order to make the songs come alive you've got to add the music to the words. You can do this alone, in the family, in your bubble, round the piano, from your balcony, in a street get-together with neighbours (properly distanced of course!) - the list is endless! If you've forgotten the music to any of these songs, I've included links to relevant YouTube clips at the end. Enjoy your earworm!

A CHICAGO CABARET

or

LET'S MAKE AN EARWORM!

CAST

Emcee : Dominic Cummings

Sally Bowles : Boris Johnson

Mama Morton : Donald Trump

Roxie Hart : Michael Gove

Amos Hart : Dominic Raab

Billy Flynn : Rishi Sunak

SYNOPSIS

Roxie Hart and Sally Bowles are both desperate to be Prime Minister, and both are quite happy to stab their rival in the back to prevent her succeeding. When the post falls vacant, Sally employs Roxie's former assistant – Emcee – to run her campaign and subsequently act as power behind the throne. But her premiership turns farcical when she is required to deal with a major pandemic. So, come to the cabaret.......

********************************************************************************************************

Emcee

Fick dich! Fous toi! Fuck off!

Sally recruited me and then snuck off.

I must say, it makes me mad

That they call me her senior SPAD

When truth be told and quite bizarrely

I'm happy to be called Svengali!

I've mastered political survival

I used to boss Roxie – Sally's rival.

From loyalty I'm wholly free

And rules don't apply to me

Even when some stupid arse'll

Track my trip to Barnard Castle!

Meine damen und herren, mes dames et messieurs, ladies and gentlemen. I introduce to you my protegé, Sally Bowles, who wants to tell you how much she wanted to be a Prime Minister! You don't believe that someone like Sally can possibly be Prime Minister? Well, with me in charge she can! 

Sally Bowles/Boris Johnson

Maybe this time, I will triumph,

Victor ludorum, I'll be first!

Maybe this time - it must be my time! -

Rivals will be accursed!

I'll get sworn in, fast,

Destiny met at last.

Not a minion any more

But the guy at the top of the very top drawer.

Everybody loves old Boris

So everybody loves me!

Boris PM! Boris happy!

That's what I long to be!

I'm entitled, went to Eton,

I'm the right sort of cove!

I'll inherit, I am Chosen....

I am destined.....

To kick the shit out of Gove!

Emcee

And now, ladies and gentlemen. With Sally in post as Prime Minister, she looks across the ocean to renew a Special Relationship with the Baron of Bombast, the King of Chaos, the Leader of the Free World....... well, that's what it says here....

Mama Moreton/Donald Trump

Got a little motto, just right for a Brit,

Try to mess with Donald,

He'll treat you just like shit!

There's a lot of favours you're equipped to do,

You do one for Donald,

Then another, too!

Chlorinated chicken, hormone treated beef,

You say you won't accept it.

Just bow down to the chief!

I don't like opposition, especially from you,

Disagree with Donald,

You'll disappear from view!

So what's the one conclusion, unless you tell me yes?

Donald puts the boot in –

And takes the NHS!

Emcee

And now, ladies und gentlemen. They say you shouldn't make enemies on the way up – you might meet them again on the way down. But they never said that to Sally.... and Roxie Hart has not forgotten......

Roxie Hart/Michael Gove

The name on everybody's lips, it shoulda been – Govey!

The name right at your fingertips, it shoulda been – Govey!

I wanna be a superstar, that means having my name up in lights -

I'd be on telly every day, but Boris thinks it's his by rights!

The virus needs a fall guy - ain't a-gonna be Govey

Who says betrayal's not an art?

And if I have to take the flak

Who's gonna stab him in the back?

Roxie 'Govey' Hart!

Emcee

But then ladies und gentlemen, Sally falls ill with a mystery virus and somebody has to take over. Roxie sees her chance, but no, Sally wants not Roxie Hart but Amos Hart, probably because most people don't have a clue who he is!

Amos Hart/Dominic Raab

If someone stood in for the boss

Most folks would give a sort of toss

And if he answered PMQs

You'd notice him.

If someone gave the wrong advice

Was found to be quite imprecise

But still gave loads of interviews

You'd notice him.

Sunak and Hancock often get a break

Even Patel – though that's hard to take

I don't know how I manage to stay sane

No recognition of my Megabrain!

Megabrain

Mr Megabrain

Not that I'm too vain

Mr Megabrain

I can shout and bellow

Be tough or mellow

And no-one gives a damn!

Megabrain

Mr Megabrain

Couldn't be more plain

Mr Megabrain

I've got credentials

Cover the essentials

And no-one gives a damn!

Emcee

But, ladies and gentlemen, the virus takes hold! People die in their thousands! Businesses close, jobs are lost, the economy......... ah, the economy......... what can we do about the economy, it will need a a financial wizard, a necromancer, a sorcerer........

Billy Flynn/Rishi Sunak

Give 'em the young Dishy Rishi

Dishy Rishi 'em!

Give 'em an act with lots of glittering

They'll never know how much you're frittering.

Give 'em the old business rate relief

Hug and comfort 'em

How can they argue if they've got the cash?

Why not dispel their sorrow – most of it -

Though you will have to borrow most of it?

Dishy Rishi 'em

With a lot of panache!

Give 'em the old four fifths furlough

Dishy Rishi 'em!

Though their concerns are only workaday

Everyone loves a mortgage holiday!

Give 'em the chance to put off payments,

Blind and dazzle 'em

When you're in trouble find someone to blame!

Make sure they feel both wined and dined

Though later you'll have to rob them blind

Dishy Rishi 'em

And you can bask in the fame!

Emcee

And that concludes our show, ladies and gentlemen! But always remember that just like these fine folks here, you can like the life you're living, you can live the life you like, because life is just a cabaret old chum! Good night!

********************************************************************************************************

Clips can be found at

Wilkommen : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBlB8RAJEEc

Maybe This Time : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMpSQV1-bsA

When You're Good to Mama : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy6j2LUyh24

Roxie : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-_HTUapDQo

Mr Cellophane : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKHzTtr_lNk&t=196s

Razzle Dazzle : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByeXMGqapnU

TALKING TURKEY

Hello, and welcome to an edition of The Autolycan which almost but not quite steers clear of coronavirus.  This one follows on from a delightful headline about Charles Dickens which the Guardian printed some time ago.  Apparently he and Thackeray, who had been friendly for years despite the huge difference in their social class, had a bit of a spat in later life, hence the invective.

Please feel free to pass this on to anyone who you feel might like it and/or want a bit of cheering up in present circumstances!

TALKING TURKEY

Charles Dickens's final Christmas turkey lost by Great Western Railway

Rediscovered letter records that 30lb bird was despatched by train but transferred to a replacement coach service that caught fire.

The Guardian

To : The Freight Manager, Great Western Railway

…..but I didn't get no satisfaction there neither, so I thought I know best go straight to the top, get it sorted, know what I mean, whole thing goes back about a month now when I was ordering my Christmas turkey as per normal up the butcher's when he says it's got to come GWR from Ross-on-Wye, 'Ross-on-Wye?' I says 'that's bloody miles away, what's that all about then?' and he goes 'you won't hardly credit this, Mr D, it's got something to do with introducing competition across the network, improving standards and driving down costs for the benefit of the consumer' and I says 'don't give me none of that crap about driving down costs, I'm old enough to remember the Tolpuddle Martyrs, dash my wig!' and anyway how can I be a bloody consumer if I've got nothing to consume on account of you've lost it, and I don't want none of that bullshit about failing on this occasion to meet our normal high standards, it's not that long since you people half killed me in that train crash, nasty business, losing my turkey is just adding insult to injury, the gilt on the gingerbread as you might say though probably not, metaphor never was my strong point, although the guilt of the injured head was definitely yours, ha ha, I'm better on puns, OK, not that much better, but I can do witty stuff you know, how about “there are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best part”, that's one of mine, I was thinking of that old fool Thackeray at the time, William Makepeace Thackeray, that is – Makepeace? - I mean what kind of family calls their bloody kid Makepeace, final nail in the coffin of nominative determinism if you ask me, toffee-nosed twerp never did try to make peace with me after that time we fell out, probably realised he was out of his league, I mean Vanity Fair, is that it?, I could go on but where was I, oh yes, my turkey, or rather the lack of it, I mean you lot up GWR can do difficult stuff like Box Tunnel, and fair dos, that wasn't easy but you can't find my bloody turkey, well, I'm saying 'turkey' but the despatch note says it's a thirty pound job, must have come from that farm just outside Hinkley Point, probably got four legs, five even, to weigh as much as that, what's Mrs D going to do with a thirty pounder, it'll never fit in the oven, we'll be eating turkey sandwiches till Easter when the kids will turn their noses up and gorge themselves stupid on chocolate instead, can't be good for them, and what if it's got one of them viruses, bird flu was it last time?, salmonella?, good job it's the whole bird not just the crown or it might get coronavirus, corona – crown, geddit?, just my little joke, and why you have to take it off the train and stick it on a replacement coach service beats me, have you any idea how much sheer dread is conjured up in the head of the average punter by the phrase 'replacement coach service', catching fire is the least of it, anyhow, seems to me that there's an opportunity there for a bit of a graft, know what I mean, substitute my thirty pounder for a smaller one, then transfer that back to a train somewhere else and swap it for a chicken, by the time it gets here I'd be lucky to get a bloody quail, have you ever tried feeding, what - eight kids is it plus God knows how many grandchildren, I lose count - off a quail, now I'm not saying for definite that's what happened and to be fair I didn't never get no quail which would have proved it but you can't help wondering, anyway I'll tell you what, I had this great idea see, you know I said I'd got all these grandkids, well I said to them let's have a bit of a competition, prize for the winner, how about making up a story explaining how GWR come to lose my bloody turkey, well, swearing, Mrs D don't like that and gives me one of her blackest looks, and the Devil himself don't have blacker ones, but fair enough, I hold my hand up, but anyway it was a kind of challenge to the kids to use their imagination, now I know I shouldn't really have asked little Augustus, kid's got a very dark side, very dark, always has had, and he come up with some quite chilling stuff about the bird being stolen and taken to Stonehenge where it was sacrificed on the Heel Stone at midnight and its heart buried at the dead centre of the circle, then various other bits buried under different what-do-you-call-'ems – the ones like goalposts except they can't be 'cos they didn't have football then - trilithons, that's it, and when they chanted some black magic incantations all the bits were resurrected and came together again as a Freight Manager, ha ha, no sorry, he didn't really put that, he put vampire, but you see what I mean about him, very odd for a kid his age, he's only seven, but anyway I give first prize to little Emily who come up with a heart-rending tale about Rudolph falling sick at the last minute, Santa didn't know how he was going to get round, when my turkey puts its wing up and says let me take Rudolph's place, I'm sure I've got the strength after all I am a thirty bloody pounder – and you simply wouldn't believe the trouble I got in for that off Mrs D, there are no words - but anyway Tallulah Turkey, don't ask me where she got Tallulah from, kids eh?, gets harnessed up at the front and just about gets round before collapsing of exhaustion and pleading piteously that someone should come and say sorry to me for ruining my Christmas dinner, then lies down and gobbles her last, what a talent that kid's got, bloody sight better than that plodding oaf Thackeray, he couldn't never have thought of that, but getting back to the competition I gave a special commendation to young Charles who come up with quite a promising story, needs a bit doing to it to smarten it up a bit, but good for his age, anyway in his story there was a miserable old skinflint, he called him Scrooge but I'm sure an old pro like me could think of a better name than that, and Scrooge is mean and horrible to a bloke called Cratchit who works for him, no idea where he gets these names from, and Cratchit has a disabled kid, well he would, wouldn't he, and Scrooge gets visited by three ghosts, puts the fear of God up him, so on Christmas morning he sees the error of his ways, yells at some passing kid to go and buy a massive turkey and take it round to the Cratchits - perhaps I'd better have a word with him about just how easy it is to buy a turkey on Christmas morning - anyway, when it gets to Cratchit it turns out to be mine, apparently the ghosts had seen to that, Cratchit whistles up Scrooge and me and the kids and I tell them all to come here with the bird and we'll have Christmas dinner at our place, all works out a treat if a bit late by then, story full of holes of course but see what I mean about the lad having a bit of promise, oh by the way, sorry about no full stops, my publisher says there's a national shortage- I expect you've lost them as well, have you? - and can I get by with commas, semi colons and colons, 'semi colons and colons?' I said, 'who uses them?' then I remembered its Vanity Fair colon followed by some subtitle, he's probably been panic buying colons and semi colons, got cupboards full, just the sort who would have, anyway, I got to go now, so I just want to say I got great expectations that you will sort this turkey business out for me, we're having a hard time without it in what is a bit of a bleak house

Yours ever



Charles Dickens 

ANAGRAM CORNER

Haven't done one of these for a while, but didn't want to let the moment pass 

O! CORONAVIRUS BITES ME!

BORIS VENOMOUS : I TRACE!