Saturday, February 27, 2010

Saturday Silly: Wernam-Hogg Lives!

So once again, it's Saturday and time for more hijinx. Here's a poem that's not great but not horrendous, either.




Slough
John Betjeman


Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!


Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.


Mess up the mess they call a town-
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.


And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:


And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.


But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.


It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead


And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.


In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.


Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.




It reminds me somewhat of Eliot's choruses from "The Rock," especially




In the City, we need no bells:
Let them waken the suburbs.
I journeyed to the suburbs, and there I was told:
We toil for six days, on the seventh we must motor
To Hindhead, or Maidenhead.
If the weather is foul we stay at home and read the papers.
In industrial districts, there I was told
Of economic laws.
In the pleasant countryside, there it seemed
That the country now is only fit for picnics.
And the Church does not seem to be wanted
In country or in suburbs; and in the town
Only for important weddings.




But the real reason I brought it up is this:









It's also pretty awesome that "The Office" actually used a throwaway reference to bogus-Tudor bars as a punch line. Earlier in the show Tim (Jim Halpert UK) discusses the night life in Slough and how there were only two or three places to go for a drink.


"There was, oh my God, a themed nightclub called Henry the Eighth's. This was incredible. It had the Anne Bol-inn Alley, this is true, as you went into the loo, there was a sign that said mind your head, nice, and underneath someone had written 'And don’t get your Hampton Court.'"


High culture is pop culture is high culture is pop culture is high...

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