Thursday 8 May 2008

Lamentation

This was going to be a post about the London Mayoral elections. Shakespearean I thought. ‘For god’s sake let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings,’ I thought some more. The scene takes place, ‘on the coast of the Thames, City Hall in view.’
“Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow in the bosom of the Earth.
Let’s chose executors, and talk of wills:
And yet not so,- for what can we bequeath,
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our land, our lives, and all are Boris-bloke’s,…”
Thus laments King Ken of Livingstone, Thrice Lord of City Hall,
Who by the vile treachery of the Witney Laird
And his suburban hoards from Henley
With their London pads,
Is once again deposed
To plot anew…..
But who comes here?

(enter: unknown ragged hoards, urban foxes - not from Henley, tousled swans, assorted water foul and swarm of flies.)

Fox, grinning broadly:
Good my Liege, fear not,
The red-coat hunters will never breach the bounds of our fair city!

Much ruffling of feathers among water foul. Ducks muttering darkly to one another and keeping a distance from red-coated hunter already in their midst.
Swan steps forward, clears throat:

Earl Fox, your gracious forbearance has been noted in this matter, and is gratefully acknowledged by my ladies in waiting, however, (voice begins to tremble slightly), we cannot be certain of the intentions of the urban hunter, not all of whom wear red coats. The Eastern Allies of the Henley Hoards have already plucked (she gulps, tears in her eyes), have already plucked my own good cuz, her Grace the Baroneess Swan of Tottenham from her nesting place in the Lea Valley, and, they say, made of her a banquet. This Boris-Bloke will never put a stop to such foul-treachery, indeed his views on hunting are well known and talked of in the coffee houses of suburbia.
We must repair to the rebel lands of Haringey and there take refuge and prepare to restore Fair City Hall to all who love the Thames and tributaries of London.

Fox, bowing deeply and avoiding eye-contact with ducks:

And so to Haringey, Good Swan, lead on.

Exeunt.

So, it has turned into a post about the treachery of the Henley Hoards
I’ll save the rest for another time. Meanwhile Earl Fox of Tottenham is on my shed roof in the right hand column and a hopeful looking rainbow over The Angel of Tottenham Green, near the den of Seven Sisters in the rebel lands of Haringey.

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