Year: 2012

The Iron Lady: a poem

Richard Purnell Uncategorized , , , , ,

Walking away from the Western Cemetery,
An exposed hill-top near the M25
Where the north London Jews choose to bury
their dead, I saw a bus stop poster of
a film called The Iron Lady with a picture
of my grandma on it. It was disconcerting
seeing her staring back at me, unsmilingly
looking me square in the eye, just an hour
after I’d watched the rabbi and his burly
assistant lower her body into the ground.
As I got closer to the poster I could see
it was Meryl Streep made-up as Margaret Thatcher,
but still the likeness to my Grandma
held true, sharing as she did the bouffant
hairdo, skin untouched by sun and the
‘lady is not for turning’ attitude
of the famous scourge of union men.

I’m taken back to when I was eight,
and my sister’s ten. We’re staying over
at grandma and grandad’s for the weekend.
We’re sat down at the dining table, staring
at fine-art place mats, with silver cutlery
set out with such precision it would satisfy
the most pernickety Swiss. Grandad sits
down, looking like an aged cat but not
quite as awake. Grandma brings in the soup,
the chicken soup, the Jewish chicken soup
which is the best thing on earth but also
a subtle way of saying : whoever
your father is, you’ll always be a Jew.

The conversational sparring starts:
Grandma asks us what we think about
Neil Kinnock’s chances of being elected.
My sister trots out the playground line that
“he’s gotta be better than that dreaded milk-snatcher.”
Grandma tells her that she should pronounce
her middle t’s better. Grandad agrees.
I say the soup is wonderful. Grandad agrees.
Grandma then asks us if we like the opera.
My sister says she prefers Madonna.
I say I’d love to hear some just as soon as
we’ve finished this marvellous dinner.
My sister kicks me hard on the shin.

At the end of the weekend, mum and dad
Pick us up in our brown Ford Cortina.
I stay quiet while my sister unleashes
a tirade against Grandma: she denounces
the demands placed upon her to be better spoken,
better dressed, more grown-up, less like herself,
and mum calmly says, “Whatever she did to you
It’s not half of what she put me through.”
And you can tell by her tone that it’s true.

Fifteen years later, I’m at the Royal
Opera House with grandma. She’s frail
And needs my arm to get to the seat
She got cheap with her disabled pass.
The opera begins: I understand little but
can see there are a lot of Russians on stage
singing at each other, and killing each other
and grandma, at a glance, seems pleased.
During one particularly savage scene
I give her hand a squeeze, and she squeezes too.
When the actors who’ve not yet been slain
take a break she unwraps fishcake sandwiches
which we share. The rye bread and fried salmon
Taste like the old country she clings to,
but I’ve never known. They taste, maybe,
like a token of love from a woman who
could sometimes be mistaken for the Iron Lady.

“Death is different.” Katie Price’s Sunday sermon

Richard Purnell Human rights , , , , , , , , ,
Britain's leading writer Katie Price

She is already the UK’s leading writer, with her novels, memoirs and style books a fixture on the bestseller lists.

But for a polymath such as Katie Price, whose only remaining literary rival is eighteenth century lexicographer Samuel Johnson, that was never going to be enough. Today, in the first-ever edition of the Sun on Sunday, she adds another string to an increasingly packed bow.

Yes, Katie Price has become a columnist. Combining razor-sharp political analysis with the common-sense wisdom of an ordinary mum, the column, entitled Katie Price, has it all.

The main piece is a hymn to family values, suggesting that it is bad parents who are to blame for Broken Britain, not bad schools. She outlines her theory thus:

“It doesn’t matter what school you go to – it’s family that really makes you who you are. I went to a state school – and look how well I’ve done. That’s because I had a sense of family.”

Anyone who saw Katie Price in her orange-skinned, multiple boob-jobbed heyday, slinging champagne down her neck whilst wearing little more than fake eyelashes and one of Alex Reid’s skirts couldn’t help but draw the conclusion that here was a woman who was achieving success through good, solid family values.

While Price’s longer works of penmanship are without doubt hard-hitting and thought-provoking, she has the ability to ‘get it said’ in remarkably concise fashion.

In a small piece on the left-hand column, just below an image of the correspondent in a demure below-the-knee blue dress, are words as wise as they are heartfelt. For it is here that she turns her felicitous pen to the tragic demise of pop star Whitney Houston, 48.

Katie is, like many of us, a huge Whitney fan. She had Houston’s music played at both her weddings, which shows a stubborn spirit which Churchill would admire.

Here I should let Katie take up the story:

“I felt so sad watching her funeral on TV because there should have been more dignity. I know I’ve lived a lot of my life in front of TV cameras – but death is different. Whitney’s funeral should have been a private affair, not a circus.”

It is Katie Price’s ability to get to the nub of the matter that separates her from lesser writers, such as William Hazlitt.

She rightly makes the not oft-made point that death, when compared with life, is different. There is simply no arguing with that kind of logic. It is inescapable, just like death itself.

Seven months after the demise of the News of the World left the millions people who read it every week without sustenance on a Sunday, it is heartening that Murdoch’s ready-made replacement contains such words of wisdom. While the Sun on Sunday inevitably lacks some of that vigour which only phone hacking can bring, with the advent of Katie’s (doric) column, one imagines that the readers will flock to News International’s newest newspaper in their droves.

Family values: Katie Price / Jordan

Is gangsta rap a force for good?

Richard Purnell Human rights, Poetry , , , , , , ,
Uncompromising and groundbreaking: NWA

*****

What rhymes with bigger?
What rhymes with trigger?
What rhymes with figure, jigga, gravedigger and cigarette?
What rhymes with the friend of Winnie the Pooh who wasn’t Eeyore, Christopher Robin or Piglet?

It’s a versatile word, yes, but the world would definitely be better if every rapper was banned from using his favourite epithet
It goes without saying that its flippant use in pop songs has got to be wrong
To spray the word like dirty fertiliser upon the earth
To use the term to wrap raps around is absurd
When we heard that if this word was spoken by black men
Their contribution would always be token

Right?

Maybe,
But why did Ice Cube name his band NWA and not BMEMWA:
Black Minority Ethnic Men With Attitude?
Could it be that he had learnt that men like him
Had spent 400 years not even being seen
So when he got up on the mic
Forgoed platitudes about the American Dream
Instead got heard by lacing his verse with savage language
So a racist could hear everything he was afraid of
From unrestrained hate through to pussy lust and gun love

This wasn’t high art
But vexed brothers blazing a path
Giving a generation of wordsmiths the chance
To exercise their first amendment right to rhyme tight
On worthy subjects like hoes, blunts and Smith & Wessons
Until rap became more all-American than John Wayne westerns
And 20 years after Straight Outta Compton
And two decades of relentlessly negative self-portraits of black men
America had such a low opinion of this race of untermensch
That they rejected a white war hero, and elected a black President

A poem about snow

Richard Purnell Poetry , ,

I have written a poem about snow. And, to prove it, here it is. I hope you enjoy it.

Southern Railway working around the clock to get the trains running

Cool and patient
I stand at the station
waiting for the commuter train which may or may not come.
The 7.54 has been cancelled
some say there’s still hope for the 8.17.

I’m cool. I’m patient.
I’ve been here too make any quick alterations,
too long for any big deviations.

Snow is falling,
gentle as a lover’s little finger stroking the back of my neck
which, through some sort of El Nino effect,
causes a loudspeaker to blast a harsh message
announcing the suspension of passenger services.

Shoulders slumped, curses muttered,
the wage slaves shuffle out
barking into phones about working from home
and when I’m left on the platform all alone
bend to gather a handful of snow
make a soft, sweet ball
take aim
and have a throw.