The Weekly Muse

By Martin Newell

A curlew calls across the marsh,

The winter sun hits forty watts

And halfway into Janiveer

The gale ratchets up a gear.

I curse the dog who drags me here.

Meanwhile in Norfolk, up the coast,

A sandbank yields an eerie find:

A `Stonehenge of the sea' turns up,

Its ancient oak stumps left behind

For awestruck archaeologists,

A thing akin to striking gold,

The temple of our ancient dead,

A humbling four millennia old.

The upturned oak tree at its heart,

A world turned upside down maybe,

Salutes the next one thousands years

And gives up to the ravening sea...

Now if a certain Greenwich site

Gets cash with such apparent ease,

Then shouldn't `Sea-henge' be preserved?

Your answers on a postcard please.

No sit-at-home, Ann Widdecombe,

MP for Maidstone and the Weald,

According to the recent press

A closet saint, has been revealed

As helping homeless in spare time,

Dispensing coffee and advice.

An image-wrecking headline that:

Ex-Minister Found `Rather Nice'.

Speaking of which, Portillo then

Was featured this week on TV

As railway buff and decent bloke -

Does not compute. Or is it me?

When former Tory ministers

Start looking good, it makes me think

Some rival poet with a grudge

Is putting something in my drink.

Robin Cook, Robin Cook

Riding through the mire

Robin Cook, Robin Cook

With his pants on his fire

His ex wrote a book

Ooh let's have a look

Robin Cook, Robin Cook, Robin Cook

McLibel Two, McDonald's Ten:

Let's have those damages again!

The verdict is, it's rather rash

To sue two people with no cash.

Americans can never grasp

The underdog appeal which lies

In thwarting corporate arrogance.

And by the way, it's chips, not fries.