1966 and All That

Life is in

black-and-white:

Bumptious Bruce in

union-jack waistcoat

is backing Britain’s

rag-and-bone trade -

“ev’rybody aht”.

 

The drip-drip-drip

of parlour propaganda

is ubiquitous

on the twelve-inch screen

of the television-set

made out of the wood

that your granny polished

with Mansion House.

As if naming

it after Boris’s

future London residence

would let some of the shine

rub on.

 

We get “wakey-wakey!”

but no-one wakes up

to the closing mines

and the crap cars

and the Ferguson electricals

that will make Amstrad

junk look good

in un-blinkered hindsight.

 

The seaside trips

in the rain,

the dreadful-café culture

and no food after 8

in the evening, sir;

pickled-egg pub food

and smashed farmers

on market day

reeling home

from the all-day

Wednesday wassail.

 

And that van,

that fucking van,

with its coat-hanger aerial,

prowling the streets

looking for the unlicensed watcher

of public information films

like the one telling us

about them.

 

This is what I remember,

I do not want it back.