Poetic Licence

The New Britspeak by Martin Newell Illustration: Shane McGowan

This decade has given us new words such as himbo and Bobbitt, and acronyms such as Nimby and Sinbad (single income, no boyfriend and absolutely desperate).

A Glossary for the Nineties, which explains new Britspeak, is published this month

The pinnacle of cynical

For disco, work and media

Britspeak as she's broken

But nastier and greedier

Welded to the language

As quick as gum to pavement

Newly minted coinage

Of soundbite-as-enslavement

Literary Lego

For the witless in denial

To pigeonhole contemporaries

By status and by style

Pizza-parlour platitudes

Certified as "funny"

Tragic little terms of use

For humans, jobs and money

Commandeered from comics

For sofa spuds and slackers

Overused by overdogs

And radio station backers

Stolen in election spins

By earnest guys in braces

For happy-clappy candidates

With polytechnic faces

Pret-a-porter phrases

For the person in a hurry

Guffed out by an ad-man

After beer and balti curry

Sprinkled on the word hoard

Like chocolate vermicelli

Bobbitt! Ha, ha, geddit? Laugh?

I nearly smashed the telly