Yes, Chef!

Yes, Chef!

There’s nothing on telly these days,

Except for cookery shows,

And they’re all bitchin’ in the kitchen,

How many are there?  Nobody knows!

Somebody should tell ‘er, that Nigella,

To stop licking her fingers,

And they’re all bitchin’ in the kitchen,

Cos food pornography lingers.

It’s a shame-y, about Jamie,

A cheeky chappy, who’s always happy,

But they’re all bitchin’ in his kitchen,

About recipes that are too snappy.

I could fall, for Heston Blumenthal,

And be in luck, at The Fat Duck,

Cos they’re all bitchin’ in the kitchen,

But his snail porridge tastes rather….yuck!

I’d set at defiance, his gastronomic science,

And loudly scream, at bacon-and-egg ice-cream,

For they’re all bitchin’ in the kitchen,

Prices a nightmare, but food that’s a dream.

What do you do, with Michel Roux?

It’s very hard, to be Michelin-starred,

And they’re all bitchin’ in the kitchen,

Cos he’s French, to understand him is hard.

Myself I would plonk, beside Raymond Blanc,

Another Frenchman, I have to mention.

And they’re all bitchin’ in his kitchen,

When he uses sous-chefs as his henchmen.

I’m still smartin’, over James Martin,

Trying to be the best, with every celebrity guest,

Yes they’re all bitchin’ in the kitchen,

When he cooks his rare pigeon breast.

There’s pottage, in River Cottage,

They all have a ball, no portions are small,

For they’re all bitchin’ in the kitchen,

When Hugh Fearlessly Eats It All.

We’ll have ham, see, with Gordon Ramsey,

It’s absurd, when he’s carving a bird,

And they’re all bitchin’ in his kitchen,

When he gives them the F-word!

I’m still looking for genuine cooking,

Something to feed long-distance hikers,

I don’t want any bitchin’ in the kitchen,

When I run into the Hairy Bikers.

   

We’ve had haddock, with Fanny Craddock,

We were never annoyed, with Keith Floyd,

But now they’re all bitchin’ in the kitchen,

And the real workers are getting annoyed.

There’s a certain quality, about the cult of personality,

It’s not about who cooks, but more about looks,

And they’re all bitchin’ in the kitchen,

When the profit’s in coffee-table books.

See - I’m damned, if I care about brand,

It gets me stewed, and in a right mood,

No wonder they’re all bitchin’ in the kitchen,

It’s nothing to do with real food!

Look there – another range of cook-ware!

Am I really meant, to trust their endorsement?

That’s why they’re all bitchin’ in the kitchen,

That’s where the Marketing money all went!

No - what I really like best, is a good contest,

I go quite a load, for that John Torode,

And they’re all bitchin’ in the kitchen,

When their soufflés explode.

They use Neff, on Masterchef,

Contestants in apron and hat,

And they’re all twitchin’ in that kitchen,

Cos cooking doesn’t get harder than that!

 Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2019

Tree

Tree

A deep, vicious scar, inflecting upwards to the left

Revealing creaminess beneath the brown,

The scabrous bark broken in many places,

Scratches and marks amongst dark cladding,

And a trail of evidence leading backwards

Through severed wire, now fallen, rusting,

A shattered fence, scattered firewood,

And harsh, thick grooves in the greasy mud,

The grass churned, turned aside,

Straight black tracks, a slick of rubber on the road,

Evidence of speed and skid,

That can be measured and documented,

Needed for the accident report

And the inquests on these boys.

Sharp, hard metal once embedded,

That had cut and sliced and scythed its path

To leave disfigurement,

And lasting defacement.

Now a natural grave-marker,

An arboreal cenotaph,

Supporting fading floral tributes

In shining, glinting cellophane

Marking out the death-spot,

A shrine for grieving relatives,

And a rubbernecker’s magnet

Early hours, New Year’s morning,

A shape shifting at the edge of the wood,

A flash of feral eyes reflected in main-beams,

Suddenly frightened, fleeing,

Running out across their path

In the pitch-black night.

Then the swerving, screaming, screeching,

Smashing, crashing, careering,

And a hard and heavy, bloody impact.

And the creature dashes away

Through thick undergrowth,

Escaping into open fields

And looks back, its own heart still beating.

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2019

Greenwash-day Blues

Greenwash-day Blues (or why you shouldn’t believe Corporate PR about the environmental benefits they claim to bring).

“Beyond Petroleum” it’s called

That’s the latest moniker for BP,

I can’t understand it personally,

It just sounds like garbage to me.

It’s slick advertising you know

Where they’re adding a new sheen

They’re covering up the reality

And making loud claims that they’re green.

They spend more on their marketing

Than they do on their “green” actions

Their practices haven’t changed all that much

The difference is measured in fractions.

They’re spouting new words & new slogans

But to me it all sounds just like tosh

They’re not really eco-friendly

It’s just a new veneer of greenwash.

For the oil companies are ripping the earth

Working in every geography

This kind of coy covering up

Can only be called eco-pornography.

The factories poison the earth,

The airlines are polluting the sky.

It’s hard to live without oil or travel

But we’re going to have to try.

For the planet is coughing & choking

The natural world sits in pollution

We’ve got to find some much better ways

And look for sustainable solutions.

We all know that there’s a problem

And it’s bad enough being the cause

Without pretending to be helping

Whilst carrying on without any pause.

So let’s have some integrity and truth

In all of the verbal exchanges

Let’s not have more of this hogwash

But spend the budget on real changes.

And let’s stop this carbon-offset nonsense

We all know that it’s playing a game

It makes no tangible difference

And leaves the air choking just the same.

We can’t stop the cows & sheep farting

It’s just what they do all of the day

We need to find a better approach

We need to find an easier way.

  

It’s no good all of us doing our bit

With re-cycling our rubbish & waste

If big companies carry on just the same

Well – it sure leaves a bad taste.

The governments & the countries

Need to find a way to agree

It’s down to all of the big boys

Not just little you and me.

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2019

Waiting Room

Waiting Room

Here we are again, as you lie on the floor,

At the side of my chair, your lead lying slack,

Just one look at you, it’s no wonder

We were asked to sit at the back.

I felt it was the least that we could do,

Because you’re not too strong in the knees,

And they didn’t want the other pets put out,

Nor frightened, nor infected with fleas.

Cos now you’re old, and you’re toothless,

You’re half-deaf and you’re half-blind,

All of which I can put up with:

It’s the incontinence that I mind.

You’re becoming increasingly forgetful.

You just look puzzled, you old wretch.

And you stop half way to the stick:

You’ve forgotten what you were going to fetch.

You’ve become an economic burden,

And now that you’re not very well,

You’re neither use nor ornament.

And, on top of all that, you smell.

So here we are for your last journey,

The end of the road for you as a pet.

The life-force of you will soon be ended,

By that needle in the hands of the vet.

So don’t you look up at me like that,

With those big, brown, trusting eyes.

I’m sure you can see into my purpose,

This visit is one way – it can’t be disguised.

You’ve grown up with me and the children,

You’ve always been faithful and loyal.

You’ve put in your years of good service,

And to us you’ve been a friend quite royal.

Dammit, everybody loves you,

Though you’re a toothless old hound.

You’re just a part of the furniture -

I think that it’s time we turned round.

Let’s leave this deathly waiting room,

Let’s walk right out calm and steady.

You don’t need to be pushed into this,

We can do it when I’m finally ready.

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2019

Drivel From Devizes - Dateline Sunday 17th November 2019

Drivel From Devizes: Dateline – Sunday 17^th November 2019

Here is our weekly round-up of events from D-Town:

                                              

1.      The political heat was turned up more than a notch this week when the Loonie Left-Wing candidate for D-Town mayor promised high-speed broadband for all by 2030, together with a Facebook account, a Tindr account and an Instagram account.  Every child will receive something called an X-Box, a computer and a modem.  This was on the grounds that “being connected” was vital to life itself.  The Loonie Right-Wing candidate countered by offering free electricity, the Tree-Huggers offered free gas, and the Deluded Big-Dummies offered free water.  However, people in the north of the constituency pointed out that they’d had enough free water in the past two weeks to last a life-time, thank-you.

2.      And in a ground-breaking TV interview, thought to have been personally authorised by his mum, the bloke who lives in the Big House on the High Street, was seen to commit PR hari-kari by confessing that he couldn’t remember anything about going out with that girl at No. 43 when she was allegedly only 17.  Challenged in detail about various allegations relating to his three-year affair with the girl, he confessed to not remembering, being such a fool, kicking himself, letting the side down, punching himself in the mouth, being too honourable, failing to be a role model to his privileged children, and a number of other vomit-inducing indiscretions.  On the other hand, he was able to remember with eye-watering clarity, on some of the dates mentioned, going out for pizza and the exact toppings he had selected.  The biggest revelation came towards the end, when he shamefully confessed that he had in fact added pineapple to one pizza in order to create something referred to as a Hawaiian.

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2019

Bags

Bags

Black plastic sacks, bin-liner packs

Flapping, slapping in the bitter breeze

Stacked untidily, racked at random

Untied tops flopping open

Dropping random contents

Blowing about in the wind

A growing contribution

Revealing overflowing innards

Spilling like guts onto the pavement

Filling up this rank and rented doorway

People step around such rubbish on the ground

A nocturnal delivery secretly unloaded

Un-booted under cover of darkness

No ceremony in its disposal

Dumped like a dead body for someone else to find

To pick up and pick over

To carefully sort, and store and show

Hoping to sell for trifling sums

Making useful profit in the charity shop

From this seeming careless drop

And is this all there is to show?

Are these the careful collected works

The years of prized possessions

The sum total of a life gathered together

Then placed here by a grieving spouse?

Cherished memories thoughtfully put aside

Assembled, valued, sorted, sifted into different piles

Delivered with generous motivation

And charitable intention?

Or else the results of a hurried clearance?

To a doorway closer than the dump

An all-night reception for recycling

A problem easily offloaded, no questions asked

Out of sight, out of mind

A rapid sweeping together

Of unwanted things that meant a lot

To someone once

Or unbearable reminders

With their odours and associations

That can no longer be endured?

 Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2019

History Lesson

History Lesson

As the first oven door opens she has to go outside

To recover herself, and fight back the tears,

As if the enormity of the crime,

The wickedness of it, the evil itself, still lives here,

And the smell somehow lingers

Within the charnel house, where the bodies baked,

In those early days before the numbers grew too many.

She comes back in again, re-joins the tour,

Sees the bloody Birkenau production-line of murder

Its branch-line running right inside the camp,

Past guard-houses, towers, miles of razor-wire,

Its empty block-houses bearing silent witness

She can see the selection process,

A mere matter of seconds,

Watches them shamble over to the showers,

Undressing, stripping, leaving everything behind

To be collected later, or so they think,

Herded together, the door slamming shut,

Then the screams, the panic, the fear,

A roof-top trap-door opening,

And the casual dropping of the Zyklon,

The guards waiting for silence,

Before dragging out the bodies to the fire-pits.

Her legs are shaky, she thinks she will faint,

Standing inside the blackened walls,

Imagines how it happened, smells the vapour,

Sees where history was made,

In desperate pursuit of a final solution,

To wipe undesirables from the face of the Earth.

To Canada then, to bear witness,

To the residues of countless victims,

Cardboard cartons of personal papers,

Glass boxes full of shoes, of clothing, of toys,

Of teeth, of hair and human bones,

Recoverable substances for the Reich.

Exhibitions, reconstructions, documents,

Photographs, testimonies, memories,

The deniers overwhelmingly denied.

Feels these school-children rush past her,

Shouting at each other, and into their phones,

Crisp packets rustling, coke cans drained,

Laughing and joking, cat-calling,

Oblivious to this living lesson

Unaware of eugenics and euthanasia,

Ignorant of this inhumanity,

And for whom the holocaust has little meaning.

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2019

Pot Roast Of Lamb Shoulder

Recipe for: POT ROAST OF LAMB SHOULDER

Ingredients:

• 1 boned shoulder of lamb
• ½ tsp ground cumin
• ½ tsp ground black pepper
• 2 tblsp fresh mint, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• Juice of ½ lemon
• Salt
• 2-3 tblsp olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 large carrot, diced
• 1 small glass white wine or water

 Method:

1. lay the boned shoulder out flat & trim off as much excess fat from the skin side as possible
2. turn cut-side up.  Scatter the cumin, pepper, mint, garlic & salt over the surface
3. drizzle over the lemon juice
4. roll the joint up tightly, in a spiral, and secure with cooking string
5. in a large, heavy pan, just big enough to take the joint, heat 2 tblsps of oil and brown the joint all over
6. take out the lamb & set aside
7. throw in the onion & carrot, sautéing until lightly browned
8. turn the heat down very low, spread the vegetables evenly over the bottom of the pan to form a bed, and place the joint on top
9. pour over the wine or water, and season with salt & pepper
10. cover tightly & cook over a very low heat for 1½ to 2 hours, turning the lamb every ¾ hour or so, until very tender
11. rest the lamb in a warm oven for 15 minutes before slicing
12. strain the juices & serve with the lamb

 What else you need to know:

1. you may need a little more liquid – check from time to time that the lamb is not drying out

Reunion

Reunion

So long since I’d seen him, the old dog,

Lost contact for so many years,

The wonders of social networking,

It’d be good to go for a few beers.

He was always the life and soul,

Forever laughing and joking,

Causing lots of trouble at college,

Partying, drinking and smoking.

The leader of the old gang,

When getting drunk wasn’t a crime,

Leading us all a merry dance,

And always up for a good time.

Doing no work, skipping lectures,

Essays usually handed in late,

Always knew how far he could push it,

Lousy student, but a cracking good mate.

Perhaps my imagination

Had done something strange

And built up the expectation,

Left me unprepared for the change,

As I turned up far too early,

And the time for reunion neared,

For I could hardly recognise him,

When he finally appeared.

We got through the pleasantries –

I’m sure you know what I mean –

How was each of us doing?

Really?  How long had it been?

Each of us eying the other,

Looking for any tell-tale signs,

Eyes less sparkling, thinner on top,

Hollower cheeks, wrinkles and lines.

Just a Coke please, no longer drinking,

Gave up smoking decades ago,

Marriage didn’t suit him, no children,

On his own for ten years or so.

Down on his luck, out of a job,

A crazy catalogue of strife,

And at a complete loss to explain

The vicissitudes of his life.

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2020

Insomnia

Insomnia

Twisting, tossing, turning,

Side to side, over and over

Restless limbs chasing round the bed

Fighting to find perfect position

Moving, itching, fidgeting

Exhausted and desperate to fall

Into the deep abyss

Where nothingness starts

And the conscious goes amiss

Too cold, then sticking-hot

No ticking-tock of the clock

But hours crawling by, moments only creeping

As if Time might have stopped

Sharp, red digits standing still

How slowly they change, from one to another

But remain implacable, accusing

The mind wanders where it will

Chasing off down rabbit-holes

Following tunnels and corridors

Leading nowhere

Floating, wandering

Falling slowly past cliff-faces rocky and steep

Never quite reaching

Never getting there

Never hitting bottom

Night-time has a density

An unchanging, unyielding quality

Never ending, giving nothing in return

Silent, dark, impenetrably deep

Eyes and body both yearn and ache

Pursuing elusive snatches of sleep

The brain rattles on chuntering, chattering

An ever-running engine ticking over, never stalling

Too busy, too many things to do

Names to remember, tasks not to forget

Slowing down finally, it seems

To a new steady rhythm, a gentle quiet

Regular heartbeat, softer breathing

Heading at last toward dreams

Then suddenly racing and speeding again                                                                   

Around the next corner, solving another puzzle

Remembering names, thinking about tomorrow

Tired, so desperately tired                                                                                           

Another tangle of blankets and sheets

Fighting the covers, thrashing around

Gasping and grasping for rest

Snatching at hope after hope

That somehow the torment will end

Then, quite suddenly, an alarm ringing

New light piercing, a Dawn Chorus of singing

Night, it seems, has stolen away

And bedraggled, be-drowsled

Not calm, not even rested

Head still aching and throbbing

It’s time to start the next day

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2019