I was writing poetry before bed last night, as I do, occasionally. I’ll spare you my efforts: the results are definitely not worth sharing. And before you get some great romantic notions, I was writing about Brexit and Ireland.
Why do that? Because like all art forms poetry is a way of trying to get a new angle on an issue. The need to find the right word is the challenge that I enjoy. In this case one word came crashing to the forefront of my thinking as a result. Brexit is, I realised, an exercise in disintegration. It’s a word with few positive connotations and it works perfectly.
There will be points for the best entries.
All Is Disintegration
1 The words of the Professor, the Spud of Murphy, Sage of Ely.
2 Disintegration of disintegrations, says the Professor,
disintegration of disintegrations! All is disintegration.
3 What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
4 A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the tax remains forever.
5 Candidly, all else is neoliberal sophistry.Elyesiastes 1
I met a traveller from an Anglian land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the fens. Near them, on the mud,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that taxed them and the mind that thought:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Taxymandias, fifth of professor:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
No chance of peerage remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level fens stretch far away.
Oops, should have read the brief properly. Didn’t put “disintegration” literally in there. But the statue has disintegrated, so that counts, right, right? Bueller? Bueller?
Dis integration iss gut, nein ?
Ver ve iss all vun,
and zee vun vorld fuehers
dismiss all varz fuer evig, ja !
Do you suppose Ritchie’s efforts ver any bedder zan ziss ?
My compliments to abacab too !
Look at all the European Integration
All around us a hybrid nation
I think I might need a vacation
Brexit, oh no! Disintegration
Disintegration
Then seven syllables here
Disintegration
The Sage of Ely is a is a joy for ever
His ignorance increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
Our Tim in words and the Sage asleep
To those who will him mock
With names such as Hugh Jarse and Mike Cock
Or Mike Hunt and C Minstaines
Or other names that take the piss
Of one who will them forever miss
Until that which will be celebrated by the nation
The Sage’s mental disintegration
(with many apologies to John Keats)
Disintegration
Makes a nation
As the Bruxelles Empire dissolves
The retainers whinge
In shades of dinge
While the rest of us evolve.
William Topaz McDearieme.
In far off Ely lives a man
Who counts himself a sage
Who warns disintegration is
Foul Brexit’s evil plan.
The inverse of a Tardis he
With his large corporation:
For while the outside’s pretty huge
His brain’s a tiny pea.
How many fens must a sage walk down
before he can call himself a Sir?
How many blogs must be done
Before he is laughed at enough ?
Yes, how many errors must the sage write
Before he disintegrates?
The answer my friend is blowin’ in his wind
The answer is blowin’ in his wind.
H/T to Zimmerman
And yes, I know, it loses something in the adaptation 🙂
Frankly Mr Murphy this position I’ve held,
It pays my way but it corrodes my soul,
…
I didn’t realise that you wrote poetry,
I didn’t realise you wrote such bloody awful poetry,
Oh, gives us your money.
Candidly
Because like all art forms poetry is a way of trying to get a new angle on an issue.
Oh yes, like all those wonderfully talented “artists” who protested the Iraq War by doing something utterly banal while reciting excerpts from a high-school debating class.
As my world disintegrates
And all the tax it generates
I need a stipend from my mates
But they won’t pay – the damned ingrates!
There once was a wanker named Murphy
Whose views on tax stirred controversy
On disintegration
He had a mentation
But turns out he’s wholly unworthy
A down market partial professore
Ponders in a shed in Ely.
His peerless thoughts disperse ungranted
Whence no seeds of doubt are planted.
The critics silenced, claims a victory:
Successive posts are contradictory?
It matters not! He shall ignore it –
This thinking thing is hard, he swore it
All made sense and fitted neatly
Till he typed it out and so he
Bangs the keyboard in frustration –
The would-be saviour of the nation’s
Schemes cannot be reconciled
With one another, though he piled
On years of posts on blogs and Twitter.
It is enough to make one bitter,
But candidly he must admit
They simply can’t be made to fit
Together. And so his vocation
Of economical perturbation –
He even once used an equation! –
All ends in disintegration.
Deja-EU’
We disintegrated you’
Through and through,
Deja-EU,
This is insane,
You tried to steal our money and our name,
Feeling your paws,
Groping like a bunch of whores,
From long ago,
How can it be,
We beat you scum so menee
Times before,
Hitlers a bore
Deja-Eu,
Could you be the trash
That we once knew,
Deja EU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV8TqqBYzO0
All those offerings made me smile, but abacab’s out in front.
The Murphatollah’s ‘poetry’ will be execrable. I can see him scribbling away dementedly like some self-obsessed adolescent — ignoring rhythm, rhyme and metre, with no sense of economy — as he expresses his multitude of resentments, bitternesses and obsessions….me, me, ME!
So, farewell, then, the EU.
Keith’s Mum says that Boris and Gove
Were wrong to diss integration.
E.J. Thribb (17 1/2)
Outstanding all.
And especially Abacab.
Surely Taxdemandius?
There was a tax expert from Ireland,
Who’s name wasn’t Richard Murphy,
Who isn’t an expert on anything,
Candidly.
Poor. Give me a grant and I can improve, for the betterment or mankind.
If you start a company
Do not take a salary
Try some tax efficiency
Dividends, no NIC
You can dodge tax just a bit
Wife gets shares, to income split
Liquidate and strip the cash
Tax free CGT’s a smash
All this worked just great for me
Fulcrum Publishing, hee hee
Others do this, then you see
It’s tax avoidance, so says me
Critics cry hypocrisy
But this is pure sophistry
Candidly I’m always right
Though most say my views are shite
Worstall fisks me every day
All my blogging torn away
Though I censor all debate
Disintegration is my fate
@TomJ – Taxdemandias – I wish I’d thought of that… 🙂
Best. Thread. Ever.
There was an accountant from Ely
Whose views were all touchily-feely
He wanted more taxes
But talked like the Axis
Like an own-label Chancellor Healey
Disintegration of the chains that bind people, as in the disintegration of the Soviet Empire.
Brexit = freedom.
Disintegration, candidly,
Awaits the UK polity.
I’m never wrong, I cannot err,
And many think I should be ‘Sir’.
Of course, y’know, I should be ‘Lord’,
If Corbyn were not so flawed!
My thoughts on the economy
Deserve a Brussels subsidy.
But Brexit means Arts East
For me: they will at least
Acclaim my inspired poetry
As renaissance genius – candidly!
The Sage of Ely, candidly,
would like to be a KCB.
While obvious to all his foes
He’s KGB right on the nose
Fat Cunt can see a
Labour Disintegration
Career Over
Alternatively:
Fat Cunt can see a
Labour Disintegration
Unemployed Fat Cunt
With apologies to W. Wordsworth, a little sonnet.
Milton!* Thou shouldst be living at this hour:
Norfolk hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of rampant cretins: scale of one to ten,
Spud’s a solid thirteen, in his tower
Of ivory (his shed) he bends his power
Such as it is, to mulct his fellow men
Of taxes that they do not owe and then
Bestow upon his cronies golden shower.
Thou mad’st it plain the four ways that we spend:
One’s own wealth on—heaven forfend—oneself
One’s coin on others: spending so, restrain,
Anothers’ coin on one: splash out, my friend,
And others’ cash on others: cast their pelf
To the winds, never to be seen again.
* Friedman
Disintegration is a bugger to work with. I shall probably need a double dactyl to do it justice.
Spirit is blighted,
Gold stars are spited,
And Ely finds no pleasure,
From Brexit’s keen measure.
.
“Candidly”, that’s one extra point,
And several more, for “sophist” and “toil”?
Cameron is hurt, deep displeasure
As friends abandon, to their spoil.
.
As neo-Tim does mock
The Sage will take stock.
What gain, from the pain
Of this Union amok.
.
Will now the left – disintegrate.
But wait, a spark of delight,
An idea does excite,
His star must rise – in a mass debate.
.
(yes, I’ll stick to the day job…)
@Tim Newman, October 17, 2016 at 10:06 am
As my world disintegrates
And all the tax it generates
I need a stipend from my mates
But they won’t pay – the damned ingrates!
Wins my vote
Mike Och, Mike Hunt were once my fans
Chakrabourti also ran
Then she got a peerage,
And I’m stuck in steerage
Time to suck up to Erdogan.
Crap, I know. But getting chakrabourti into scansion deserves a bonus point?
“Laeviculus”, by E. J. Murphy (17 1/2)
Out of the shed that shelters me,
Pour my missives to the nation
Which now in form of poetry
Prophesy disintegration
Scant care give I to online trolls
And candidly do I disdain
The outcome of those silly polls
The smart were clearly for Remain
Beyond this looming Brexit farce
Comes who knows what, but never fear:
I’ll pull some nonsense out my arse
And tout it as my big idea.
And if next day I should have spun
One-eighty and gainsaid my word
I contain multitudes and none
Shall force me to obey the herd.
No Latin verse yet, I see.
Anyway, perhaps we can release this as an anthology in tribute to the Great Man?
Well, Rob, I could get it started:
Pedicabo ego vos, Murphy, et irrumabo…
Pedicabo ego vos, Murphy, et irrumabo…
Very clever. *respect*
Off topic…But is BiCR an engineer?
Curiously, some of the brightest (and also the thickest!) people I knew in my five years at university were engineers. The average engineer was boring and dull; but the talented engineer was often extraordinary, and a wonderful companion – full of challenging (if, perhaps, politically misconceived) solutions to problems.
Excluding lecturers, one of the brightest chaps I knew at Oxford was studying engineering, with a strong interest in philosophy and renaissance polyphony.
Yep, I’m a software engineer.
Theo: one of the brightest chaps I knew at Oxford was studying engineering, with a strong interest in philosophy and renaissance polyphony.
I take my hat off to you (and him). I only ever came across that type in episodes of Inspector Morse.
envoi
When Murphy writes about himself
While with his muse cavorting
We might describe this candidly
As cunt by cunt reporting.
TMB
And his knowledge of ancient Greek was remarkable. He knew not only Homer but also Appollonius Rhodius. In our anti-elitist age, polymaths are not welcome. Sadly.
BiCR
If I hadn’t sold my company , I’d hire you. Long may you, prosper.
If you want a happy nation
Best not diss integration
Theo,
I’ve had Motorola, Symbian, Android, iPhone and even Windows Mobile; does that count as polyphony?
Theophrastus: too kind, sir.
The Sad Tale of a Tax Fan (apologies to H.A. Field)
Young Richie M was thirty-three
or somewhere thereabouts, when he,
Began to show in diverse ways
the early phases of being crazed,
For thinking the amount of tax,
Should be at the absolute max,
He started with a shitty blog,
To type the rubbish that he’d flog,
and although his wife made it clear
“Oh do be careful Richie dear,
Oh dear oh dear what should I do
if anyone tried to sue”
Which Richie M could hardly know
and sometimes candidly told her so.
It didn’t check his zeal a bit,
‘Til Ashcroft put a dent in it.
It really would astonish you,
To hear of how few things he knew,
He guessed the cause and got it wrong
Of every fad that came along,
He got confused twixt revenue
EBIT and even BBQ,,
his ignorance was not just tax,
but almost any kind of facts.
Now when a boy thinks day and night,
Of taxing things with all his might,
He gets affected in the head,
(this went on in Murphy’s shed),
He spewed long rants on his site TRUK,
Vile, stupid, useless muck,
His sycophants would coo and crow,
Dissenters were forced to go,
And then he did it, he invented QE,
Peoples, Green, and more, all crappy.
He called himself a tax expert,
With the Labour party began to flirt,
To his detractors he used to sneer,
You’ll be sorry when I’m a peer.
And then one day an oily smell,
Hung round him and he wasn’t well,
“That’s odd he said, I wonder why
not even Corbyn hears my cry”,
He stopped being a Labour whore,
And became instead a professor,
So if at times your college course
Does not make sense or even worse
Holds a train-wreck fascination,
It’s due to Murphy’s disintegration.
@Theophrastus, what era were you up? I did engineering there from 99-03.
There was also a massive split between the academically-bright engineers who could do all the maths without breaking a mental sweat but couldn’t reason spatially or be pragmatic, and those of us (like me) that found the more complex bits of the maths baffling.