Got the Bridget Jones, Love Actually, Four Weddings blues
Richard Curtis
How you hurt us
You know not surely
But you do
London's quiet
Reneé's diet
All this stuff
It's just not true
No-one's poor and no-one's hungry
Everyone has a central flat
Don't forget it snows at Christmas
How could you have forgotten that?
England is a picture postcard
A chocolate box, a pastel scene
Full of men like Hugh and Colin
Every high school prom queen's dream
The England I knew didn't match yours
It always rained more than it snowed
Hughs and Colins - all obnoxious
The spacious flats - all gone, been sold
Now you can say it's just a fiction
A happy world for Saturday night
But all those larks with perfect diction
Make for a strange unsettling sight
It's like the sixties never happened
The seventies, eighties, nineties too
England stuck in post-war limbo
Jolly chaps and work to do
I don't think you mean to do it
You seem a human sort of bloke
You were carried on a moment
But just saying 'fuck' is not a joke
So let's have no more Bridget Joneses
Let's have no more love times love
Whatever happened to Blackadder?
What would he make of this guff?
And look at all your charity work, sir
If you really care at all
Stop polluting life with drivel
False impressions, stories tall
So can you stop please
All this film cheese
Can you stop it
Kill it dead
England's story
Needs less glory
Honest hope
It needs instead
Grander than thou
Ah the lifestyle housing programme
That rather unrealistically
Makes everyone in Britain
Want their own castle
Moat
And computer-controlled audio-visual environment
Never mind the fact that
Many of us still live in
Council flats
Hovels owned by private landlords
And Bed & Breakfast establishments
(Drawbridges optional)
In June
Another light night draws curtains slowly
And we don’t enjoy it as we could
We’re not wandering the hilltops
Or cycling the coast road
Or watching the sun pour itself away
There’s so much more we could be doing
We know it all and yet
We’re tired, hemmed in by something
We watch TV – it’s never-ending
The sun falls unseen again, another day
Pay heed to the special need
Personally I need a lot of help with moving
I need public transport, I need constant soothing
I need my hand holding and I need some quiet time
These needs are special and these needs are mine
You might need a teacher, you might need a school
You might need some help with obeying a rule
You might have a thing about folding and drawers
Those needs are special and those needs are yours
I can't do sitting in well-behaved rows
Snobbery and claptrap get right up my nose
I'm not very good at just following a line
So many needs out there but these ones are mine
You might be allergic, you might be alone
You might need assistance from more than a phone
You might need a moment, a break, just a pause
Because all needs are special, especially yours
Save the trees (or else)
Blend in with the trees
Make use of their breadth
Think wild, no one sees
Rediscover some depth
Sycamores have keys
So that's where they're kept
Open wide the wood door
Remember what it's for
Self-help shortcuts
Let's save the £14.99
And learn to cure ourselves
We'll save a heap of time as well
And have more room on shelves
So (1) let's eat a balanced diet
That's not just sweets and fat
(2) Let's get some sleep at night
And (3) let's buy less tat
(4) Let's work quite hard
But (5) not too much
(6) Make sure we have some fun
Some laughter, treats and such
(7) Let's get some exercise
But (8) not overdo it
(9) Live in the here and now
There should be nothing to it
(10) Let's like where we live
Or work to make that so
(11) Ditch that Joneses thing
Comparisons can go
(12) Look in the mirror now
And who's that gorgeous creature?
(13) We can live with us
A semi-permanent feature
(14) Let's not bottle up
And (15) work guilt through
It's horrible to know yourself
But better to be true
(16) We must find a love
And (17) explore sex fully
(18) We should not be bullied
Or (19) be the bully
(20) Let's find clothes that suit
(21) Be kind to skin
(22) Watch less telly
Go out more and stay in
(23) Enjoy music
It's so good for the spirit
(24) Read a poem now and then
It's not that painful is it?
And (25) if we must
Rot our bodies and our brains
With too much recreation
Then there will be (26) pain
(27) Read widely
But avoid the self-help bibles
(28) They're a waste of space
Not very reliable
(29) Don't take advice
From the dense and glossy quacks
(30) Life gives lessons free
Let's read our own hardbacks
Cynical souls
A lot of hardworking people have spent a very long time
Teaching us, slowly, all that we know -
That change is pointless and humanity selfish,
That there is no limit to how low we can go.
We are useless, we’ve learned that, we’re not good at changes,
We don’t eat well or think well or learn from our past,
We don’t want clean energy and we like all those landfills,
We want lasting happiness and we want it so fast.
Oh horrible humans – so fickle, so loveless,
No patience, no tolerance, no fondness, no hope.
What will become of us now we’ve this knowledge?
Whatever the future, we know we won’t cope.
All poems by Rachel Fox (some time after 1997)
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