Saturday 5 May 2012

A lovely lady ;-)




Royal fever hit Exeter on Wednesday as our lovely Queen

visited the city!

And she really did look lovely.

What a credit she is to our country.

Long live the Queen!






I couldn't be there to greet her personally

as I was a tad unwell this week

but a representative from my family was there

to wave his flag and savour the flavour

of the atmosphere.

Well done Nich!! ;-)

No doubt there will be a much better report on his blog.







Meanwhile, this morning, as I ambled through the market place of my own town

of Newton Abbot,  I picked up this:






I opened it, only to be reminded that the Queen has visited the town


 on a couple of occasions, in the past.








And I think Jubilee fever is about to hit my town!

I've said this before and I'll say it again...Newton Abbot

on a Saturday morning is heaving!!

It is one popular little town.

The hustle and the bustle hit me

as I made a brief visit.

There were market stalls in the main street

and the town was alive!!

This has to be due to the hard work of the town development manager

Sally (Great name) Henley!

Well done that lady!!





Do you know, I'm finding myself coming over all

 excited about the Queen's Jubilee! ;-)




At the very least, I reckon a tea party

ought to be organised at Snippets Towers!

What say you, Mr Snippets?

;-)



Monday 30 April 2012



Slough

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.


*****

GCSE English Literature students have to analyse

 an unseen poem for part of their exam. 

Every year, I wonder who chooses these 'unseen' poems!

There's really no knowing what will come up in the exam

and in a way it doesn't really matter as long as the students

have a 'formula', so to speak .

Anyway, I've chosen this one to give to my students,

 to practise their unseen analysis.

Written in 1937, as a protest against the many factories which were

being built in Slough, the poem brought much protest

and Betjeman was rather unpopular with some, for daring

 to write such mockery!


If anyone knows Slough or indeed lives in the town

do let us know what it is really like!!

;-)


(Photo courtesy of Google images)