UKIP Weather Forecast: It’s Raining Men

A morning kiss between two consenting adults
will lead to drizzle on higher ground.
An area of blame will move in from the east
before drifting away and settling over Brussels.
Dark clouds are forming over the Midlands
following voluntary sexual intercourse
between two unmarried persons.
Temperatures will plummet as a result
of a man in Cumbria enthusiastically browsing
through a home furnishings catalogue.
The early sunshine in the Cotswolds
has been replaced by cloud after a man
spent a suspiciously long time grooming his facial hair.
The sun makes a brief appearance
after John Barrowman stubs his toe
on the corner of a wardrobe.

Compiled from tweets by @UkipWeather in response to UKIP Councillor David Silvester’s remarks linking bad weather to same-sex marriage. Submitted by Angi Holden.

It’s a long way to fall from a skittish horse

Horses are not meant to be sat upon.
Too high and fast. Large herbivores –
small brain, strong flight instinct.

The problem here (apart from an approaching rattly lorry,
narrow high-hedged lane, attempted evasive action
and two highly unexpected wheelie bins)
was more the equally small brain,
and total lack of skill or co-ordination,
on the part of the rider.

The lanes are normally very quiet.
We’d mostly been riding in the forest
(though that is full of scary squeaky branches,
suddenly erupting birds, unpredicted falling twigs).
Ah, but those are nature noises.

Machinery represents a threat of a different order:
a parked helicopter,
sabre-toothed bicycles.
And tractors. And buses.

Plastic carrier bags in hedges.
They are the most scary and dangerous of all.
They can eat a horse whole, apparently.

(From the Facebook discussion of some riding enthusiasts. Submitted by Angi Holden)

Madiba

I have walked that long road to freedom.
I have tried not to falter;
I have made missteps along the way.
But I have discovered the secret
that after climbing a great hill,
one only finds that
there are many more hills to climb.

I have taken a moment.

I learned that courage
was not the absence of fear,
but the triumph over it.
The brave man is not
he who does not feel afraid,
but he who conquers that fear.

Taken from a CNN article, “Mandela in his own words“, 26th June 2008. Submitted by Angi Holden.

The Rules

Trust no one.
Keep something back
Not everyone is subject to rules
Don’t walk away
Don’t let go of the cliff
There are clues everywhere
All rumours are true
Trust no one, least of all yourself
Don’t look back
There is no such thing as truth.

Taken from Meg Rosoff’s What I Was, 2007. Submitted by Angi Holden.

Making a mental pro-con list about winter

You can get a cold drink of water from the top,
without waiting for it to run cold.
Hats.
When it snows you can pretend it’s Narnia.
Putting the heating on,
feeling like you’re defeating winter!
Soup, hotpot, stew, all those slow cooker meals
you don’t make when it’s warm.

Dark nights, running in the rain,
moonlit walks up Shining Tor
(best with frost or ideally snow on ground),
sitting in the warm playing music
watchin the ‘weather’ outside,
wrapping up warm to go out,
drying out again when you’ve taken the dog out,
cold winter days up in the hills
with views across Cheshire.

It is acceptable, nay encouraged, to eat meals
that consist entirely of carbs and cheese.
Boots + woolly tights.
CRUMBLE.

Snuggling by the fire under a duvet
with a baileys hot chocolate
Sledges.
Your winter festival of choice.
Scarves and gloves. Snow.
Snowball fights with people who are too nice to play evilly.
Building snow creatures.
The snow silence. The icing look of it.

Hot chocolate. Marshmallows optional.
Haw frost on spiders’ webs.
And on the edges of leaves. And coating long grasses.
Oh, and the return of geese from warmer climates.

Moaning about the weather.

Taken from a Facebook discussion about the onset of winter. Some points omitted. Submitted by Angi Holden

What Goes Wrong With Poems

Tom once told me
a poem had to capture
his attention
in the first four lines.

Or perhaps it wasn’t four.
Perhaps it was within
the first twenty words.
Or perhaps I can’t remember
precisely what he said
and am wilfully recreating
the memory.

But I am sure he spoke
about our shared expectation
that poetry (Poetry),
that finest form of writing,

should do something
dynamic early on.

(From What goes wrong with poems. Submitted by Angi Holden)

Perfect Parents

You know the sort.

He’s baking organic vegetable snacks
while she’s teaching the two-year-old
how to count in Catalan.
They organised the right school
moments after conception.
They know everything,
you know nothing.

Their baby has never cried,
never thrown up on the hire car,
it never even really seemed to be a baby at all,
more like a middle-aged Archers’ fan
hidden in a macrame shawl.

A glass of white wine the size of Greenland
has been poured, it’s late in the evening,
they’re coming across the room to share
some of their worldly wisdom,
to pass on the secrets of their special way.
They want to give you the benefit of their expertise.
You don’t want to do it like that…

And they just can’t resist giving you
that little special bit of advice
picked up from an old French villager.

Just learn how to say non.

Taken from a BBC article, 10 types of irritating advice for parents, 28 June 2013. Submitted by Angi Holden.

I hope…

I hope you always get your squash to water ratio wrong;
the new carpet in your office means that you constantly get static shocks;
you approach someone in the street and you both move to the same side
and the top comes off your salt pot and you get too much on your chips –
not loads, just too much for them to be nice.

I hope you’re offered a Revel and get the coffee one;
the next delivery you’re to receive between 8am-6pm arrives at 5.59;
in the middle of the night you need a wee, and in the dark end up standing on a lego brick
and you make toast one day, really looking forward to toast and jam,
and don’t have any jam.

I hope you accidentally get given a foreign coin in your change;
you discover the milk is off only once you’ve added it to your tea;
you can’t play your favourite pentatonic song because you’ve removed the black keys
and you ask for The Wicker Man on dvd for your birthday
and get the Nicolas Cage remake.

I hope your tattoo artist can’t spell Britain.

Selected from tweets with the hashtag #Edlmisfortunes. Semicolons have been added to the first two lines of each stanza; ‘and’ has been added to the beginning of line 4. Submitted by Angi Holden.

I do like a pleasure every now and again

Sometimes I eat that ‘plastic’ ham or cheese singles.
I’ve also read some really (so-called) trashy books.
I have a fondness for Harry Styles and quite like Cheryl Cole.

I must be pretty thick and uneducated,
or so it would seem, despite the fact that
I often eat in ‘high-end’ restaurants,
read (so-called) literary fiction
and regularly go to the theatre.

I don’t want to read 50 Shades,
but don’t give a monkey’s poop who else reads it.
Read what you like I say, just accept that maybe
I don’t want to read it. I have no interest
in reading Austen, Trollope, Eliot or Dickens either –
so my disinterest crosses many boundaries!

As yet, I have not watched Gogglebox,
but I expect that if I do, I may be hooked.

My cranberry sauce usually comes from B&M.
I have cider in the salad drawer,
and I also like my red wine cold – yes, cold –
and usually the bottle has a screw top!

There are loads of books that I don’t want to read,
things that I don’t want to watch
and places that I don’t want to eat in.
However, lots of people do – and surely that’s fine?

I like my life, my food and my books to be diverse.

Text from a friend’s facebook status, and from her responses to other people’s comments on it. Submitted by Angi Holden.

Glance sideways

Glance sideways into the wings,
and you see the tacky preparations
for the triumphant public event.

You see your beautiful suit deconstructed,
the tailor’s chalk lines, the unsecured seams.
You see that your life is a charade,
that the scenery is cardboard,
that the paint is peeling,
the red carpet fraying

and if you linger you will notice the oily devotion
fade from the faces of your subjects,
and you will see their retreating backs
as they turn up their collars
and button their coats

and walk away into real life.

(From Royal Bodies by Hilary Mantel. Submitted by Angi Holden)