Elegy at Closedown

The soaps depart, the newsmen, and the quizzes.

The weatherman has flown off on his kite,

The world's been cleared of Misters and of Mses

Letting the screen go blank for one more night

So I can think and see a little better

Rewind a twelve-month footage, frame by frame,

Piece out the plot, sort spirit from black letter,

And pass the blizzard of claim and counter-claim.

Which horror first: Somalia or the royals?

Stick-children overwhelmed by their own ribs,

Those wee Methuselahs of large betrayals

By . . . us? By warlords? Even unto His Nibs?

Let's not be righteous, overmuch. And let's

Not tell ourselves that no one was to blame.

United Nations prophets laid their bets

Long since; but we were playing the EC game,

You know, the Great One, much beloved of Kipling,

And Bush, Kohl, Major, Mitterrand; the one

Where oil and power ignite, and debts are crippling,

And there is nothing long-term under the sun.

April was the cruellest month. The pundits,

Pollsters, newshounds, said Labour couldn't lose;

Only a sado-masochistic set of bandits

Would vote themselves more years of self-abuse.

Ben Elton beamed. So did Neil and Glenda.

Triumphalism pumped the party up.

But on the day, the nation did a bender.

(So did Lynn Barber.) The old gang kept the cup.

No known psephologist was seen to offer

Intestines to the knife for being wrong.

So Neil and Hatters made their noble gesture.

Chris Patten had to make do with Hong Kong.

Elsewhere, great solemn affairs of state proceeded:

Wasim and Waqar pulverised our bails;

The Danes said No; Lymeswold cheese seceded;

Frankie and Benny handed in their dinner pails.

There might be 'cheap and cheerful' trains for typists,

Herr Freeman said, if enlightened entrepreneurs

Could join the willing queue of national rapists

And privatise the best that was BR's.

The World At One went on its way with Naughtie.

Desert Island Discs arrived at 50.

Ireland shrived itself of Charlie Haughey.

The Maxwell boys continued to be shifty.

In sport, our Nige at last was a world winner,

Knocking off all the Grand Prix with intent,

A will-he, won't-he, giant money-spinner

Who's gone to join Achilles in his tent.

(The other Nige, he of the spiffing Vivaldi,

Who's parlayed money out of Cockney vowels,

De-plummifying the fruity culturati,

Has also thrown in several platinum towels.)

At Wimbledon, alas, no one declasse

From Hull or Harlow hoisted up the Cup.

That was left to Steffi, and Agassi,

Who made the leap to Hero from Young Pup.

Transition time. Sing softer. Now for some

Thing completely different . . . namely David Mellor

The Minister of Fun, whose time was come

To be the nation's favourite funny feller

Caught with his pants down - O my carpe diem]

O arm's-length principle] O jolly old mores]

Here's morals by the score, if you can see 'em,

Here's one more classless product of the Tories

Helping himself, like Hooray-Heritage-Henries,

To England's pick 'n' mix of sex and power.

Soon media will entirely replace memories.

We'll Heritage the grace of David Gower.

Was ever a word (the H-word) baldly raped

Thus, since Margaret Thatcher and 'radical'?

Nothing in all our history escaped

The fibreglass-cum-fox-fur Heritage label.

It can't be long now till your money'll buy

Authentic re-enactments of the dead

Bloody Mary, gouging a Protestant eye,

And Henry Tudor rollicking in bed,

And English landlords starving out the Irish

And Fairfax spitting schism on his pikes

And Lord John throwing Indolence on the parish

And Norman setting slackers on their bikes . . .

Which brings us to the the coiffure of John Major

And, yup, the smiling head of President Bill,

Not one hair out of place, though that New Ager

Was credited with knowledge of the Pill

Which liberated Oxford in the Sixties

And gave the joint a whole new common cause

Until the feminists said it was a pricktease

And passed some rather complicated laws.

Good luck to him. The Ronnie-Maggie duo

Smiled Samuel Smiles's smile a mile too wide,

So blacks blew up Los Angeles with brio

And we joined in at Toxteth and Moss Side.

Now John is out to show us Thatcherism

With, um, a caring heart and human face.

If that means Clerkly Ken, and Lamontism,

I fear the lad is heading for disgrace.

And Labour has a brand-new team in situ,

Broad-bottomed barrister Smith, and beaver Brown,

All set to flash their Scottish IQs at you

And storm the southern fortress next time round.

Somalia, Bosnia, and Maastricht

Were three words seldom out of sight or mind.

Two stood for death, all had the best brains licked.

How to kickstart the heart of humankind,

Not to mention its morals, remained a riddle,

As did the Bogside, Soweto, the West Bank.

Gather ye roses, if you're not in the middle.

Or if you are, best hire the services of a tank

Or PR man. Or both. Pity poor Andy,

The roly-poly Prince, yoked to a hussy

Picked clean by the symbiosis of a randy

Royal-devouring pack of paparazzi

And the slavering jaws of the deferential punters

Who like their bread-and-circuses page one;

The telephoto lens has done for funsters

What the Winchester did for the Red Indian.

Worse was to come. Oh yes, insider-data:

Heir to the throne accused, in big fat book,

Of never giving to his inamorata

A tender, nuptial, or even a second look]

My God] That lovely princess left alone,

Nowt but her Walkman and a million dresses,

While His Absentness got on the telephone

Or practised speeches to his watercresses.

And then, O Lor, the fire] Gosh, what fine doins

Herself has had - decades will scarce abate 'em;

A horrid tax on relatives and ruins

Exacted highly infra dignitatem]

So public life continues on its slide

Paddy and David and Fergie and Squidgy and them

What never, no never, lets down the bloomin' side

Or loses its trousers over the ERM.

Who kept his up, a-raging all the while,

We learnt, was Philip Larkin in his letters,

Stumped for a line, so letting out his bile

On women, Lefties, blacks, and all his betters.

More bile, more godlessness, came from Iran,

Which upped the price on Salman Rushdie's head,

Playing Salome to the catch-as-catch-can

Irreversible realpolitik of the dead.

James Stirling left us with fine buildings for

An epitaph - though lovers of art we ain't.

And Bacon gave up his last metaphor,

Who predeceased a million times in paint.

Women got raped. The Garrick stayed exclusive.

Women got raped. Canary Wharf went bust.

Women got raped. The summer proved illusive.

MOMA's Matisses chorused 'We're a must]'

Just to complete an honourable clean sweep

Of business, manufacture, and employment,

The President of the Board of Makes-You-Weep

Stood up in the House, with evident enjoyment

Of his iron grasp of economic fact,

And told Hon Mems that, sadly, coal was de trop:

Whatever it was that the economy lacked

It wasn't coal; and therefore the pits must go.

The market-place is king. It will decide

Whether or no the country stands or falls.

Whoever might be for the chop, or on the slide,

My metaphysics is mine, and yours is balls.

And so another deathless year goes way

Beyond collective appre-, comprehension.

Not e'en Dan Maskell's final 'Oh, I say]'

Will fetch it back, or pay a Mirror pension.

Best lay this year to rest with rubber gloves.

Best cut the flowers and the obsequies.

More substance in our hate than in our loves.

Two words will do it. Obsequiousness and lies.