Almost since life began
I’ve been a dedicated fan
Of Terence “Spike” Milligan
(You know The Goons ‘n’ all)
It was he
In nineteen hundred and sixty three
Introduced me
To the great William McGonagall
(if you don’t know who he was, or your memory is a little bit sticky – follow this link and look him up in Wiki).
His disaster poetry – The Tay Bridge Disaster, Wreck of the Thomas Dryden in Pentland Firth, etc, etc – would hardly find a sympathetic audience today. Would this, for instance, meet with your approval?
“’Twas on the eleventh of March, two thousand and eleven,
More than twenty five thousand brave Japanese souls found themselves on their way to heaven."
If he were alive today, he would be limited to some of the great scandals of the day – can anyone provide me with an MP’s expenses verse, or a phone-hacking couplet? Maybe a few lines on the Libyan uprising or a Greek Financial Meltdown.
