Andrew's Owed

A bard, however hard he tries

Grows flabby without exercise

But flabbier by far the hacks

Who spout before they've checked the facts

Because you've hurt my feelings I'll

Regurgitate a little bile

I do not like you, Mr Marr

With your amusing little car

And jaunty step on Sunday morning

To work: to give a good stiff fawning

To some slimy politician

Or celebrity beautician

They flock to you from Near and Far

I do not like you Mr Marr

I'm sorry, but your face is not

A pretty thing, you jug-eared Scot

Watery of eye and weak of chin

Thin hair scraped over pasty skin

Hunched forward with a whining leer

You simper in some starlet's ear

The girls like their reporters hot

I'm sorry, but your face is not

You preen before your flock to see

This weekend's mediocracy

And pimp their policy or book

Then let them wriggle off the hook

Or slither off to Hay on Wye*

And sneer at all the the hoi polloi**

Who dare to publish what they think 

In plebian dubdubdub, not ink

And what's a "Cauliflower Nose"?

We've never heard of one of those

I take an interest because 

I rather like my chiselled schnozz

It's clear that, after many years

Of taunts, you wouldn't mention ears

You seemed so nice, but all the while

Your soul was steeped in raging bile

And these crass comments that you rue

Are simply piping up "me too!"

It's only human, joining teams 

Around some new (or ancient) memes

Like laying down your daily siller

For Daily Mail or Daily Mirror
Or writing - give the world a laugh - 
A letter to the Telegraph

And did you read, before debunk

ing ruthlessly, young Penny Trunk?

CO and Michael Wade soar free

Or bask in Eclecticity 

So back to blighty's rain-swept shores

To Nicholas Bate and Charlie Stross***

My cozy corner of a world

That's multiplied a million fold

You jeer at pimpled youth with scurf

Have you not heard? The silver surf

You jeer at journals published new

We cannot all be Montesquieu

A cruel hist'ry will judge whether

Books self-published in limp leather

Bindings were a worse offence

Than blogging one's experience

No, what gets up your rosy neb

Is journalism on the web

For now the demos, in full cry

Tears down the lazy alibi:

"No matter what you said or heard

The facts are these, the printed word"

Yes, what you hate, you jaded hack

Is, now your victims answer back.

*All right then, Cheltenham if you must
Some other Festival of Dust


** The Guardian made me opine

The Telegraph, for once, is fine

***If you've just time for one I'd rate

Bright shards of wisdom: Nicholas Bate