I am writing this entry because I am supposed to be doing my work-out but it is freezing and I don’t want to so I am procrastinating. Anyway, back in London, when I worked for a disastrous organisation called CISI, I and some of my colleagues developped a coping mechanism to help maintain our sanity though the tedium and madness: Haiku. The ancient Japanese form of poetry where the only rule is that stanzas be formed of three lines – of 5 syllables, then 7 syllables and then 5 syllables. It was a useful way of killing time and distracting ourselves from the misery.
Below are some of the ones I came up with at the time, along with a new set, in honour of the UK’s current nightmare government. Enjoy.
Swine Flu
Swine flu in London
Scared of commuter sneezes
Mass hysteria
My Old Job
Apt that they spelt it
Proffessionalism
Always makes me smile
Tim Crannigan likes
Sending out all-staff emails
But no-one reads them
Paper jammed again
Machine, one of us must die
I hate you so much
Thou shalt not do x
And neither shalt thou do y
Massive pettiness
Simon Culhane’s ties
Are an assault on the eyes
Where does he find them?
I hate the City
A million angry people
Trapped in a square mile
Friday Afternoon
The sun is shining
Well, through the patches of cloud
English summertime
My drinking hat’s on
And the bars are all open
Come on 5 o’clock
Our empire was built
On a foundation of tea
Put the kettle on
4pm Friday
Motivation destroyer
Is that clock broken?
Coalition government
You poor commoners:
Give me all of your money
And the rich? Exempt
We’ll fix the country
Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut
Oops – that’s buggered it
Nick Clegg – what an arse
Shaft all of England’s students
Who needs graduates?
Cameron and Nick Clegg
See what else they can destroy
You voted for them
Lib Dems sold their souls
For a rare taste of power
Let’s hope it chokes them
The public sector
Serves no purpose anyway
What’s that? It does? Oh
Low-income family?
Then let’s kick you while you’re down
It hurts, doesn’t it?
We like Lord Ashdown
Tax exemptions for the rich
Sounds just fine to us
Oxford uni prick
Nice to be a millionaire
Oily little toad
We don’t see what’s wrong
With taking all of your jobs
Then taxing you more
Calling all the poor,
Disabled and out-of-work
Watch us make things worse…
The students hate us
But that doesn’t worry us
Police have truncheons