Poetry Corner

I couldn't resist this, lifted from today's Times column by Giles Coren, scion of the well-known North London family-owned humour-milling business:-

The Love Song of J. Alfred Blair

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Or upon a trolley in a corridor,
Which is hardly the Government’s fault,
The NHS we inherited was rubbish, you see,
And these things take time.
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
Which will be entirely deserted
When councils really get the hang of antisocial behaviour orders.
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question . . .
But the best thing is to ignore it,
And say something about economic growth.
. . . In the room the women come and go
Unless they’ve been slapped with an ASBO.