gingerheid
Established Member
- Joined
- 2 Apr 2006
- Messages
- 1,718
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6936871.stm
I wonder how she will live up to the great poetic history associated with the GWR, and what the poetry will be like.
Could it be something like (with apologies to John Betjemen):
Come friendly bombs fall on the trains to Slough
They aren't fit for humans now
There isn't room to move an eyebrow
Overcrowding fills their breadth
Come bombs, and blow to smithereens
Those airless bright machines
Squashed men, squashed women, squashed children, squashed teens
Squashed minds, squashed like death
Mess up the mess they call a train to town
A ticket for ninety-seven pound down
And once an day a naff breakdown
For another ten years.
And get that man with franchise win
Who'll always charge lots and always weigh in
Who washes his repulsive skin
In commuter's tears
And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to choke
Passengers in his boring dirty joke
And make his trains well
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 time lost from the go slow,
It's not their fault they often dont know
When theyll get home to Maidenhead
And talk of family and mates in bars
In various standard class cars
And cant look up and see the stars
But stand and wait instead.
In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives wait in their arm chair
And cry out in despair
And watch paint dry and wail.
Come, friendly bombs and fall on the trains to Slough
To get them ready for improvement somehow.
Cabbages are running them now;
The performance target did fail.
I wonder how she will live up to the great poetic history associated with the GWR, and what the poetry will be like.
Could it be something like (with apologies to John Betjemen):
Come friendly bombs fall on the trains to Slough
They aren't fit for humans now
There isn't room to move an eyebrow
Overcrowding fills their breadth
Come bombs, and blow to smithereens
Those airless bright machines
Squashed men, squashed women, squashed children, squashed teens
Squashed minds, squashed like death
Mess up the mess they call a train to town
A ticket for ninety-seven pound down
And once an day a naff breakdown
For another ten years.
And get that man with franchise win
Who'll always charge lots and always weigh in
Who washes his repulsive skin
In commuter's tears
And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to choke
Passengers in his boring dirty joke
And make his trains well
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 time lost from the go slow,
It's not their fault they often dont know
When theyll get home to Maidenhead
And talk of family and mates in bars
In various standard class cars
And cant look up and see the stars
But stand and wait instead.
In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives wait in their arm chair
And cry out in despair
And watch paint dry and wail.
Come, friendly bombs and fall on the trains to Slough
To get them ready for improvement somehow.
Cabbages are running them now;
The performance target did fail.
