Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings and the Wolf

In the spirit of bad poetry I bring you :

Lines Written to a Friend on the Death of His Brother,
Caused by a Railway Train Running Over Him
Whilst He Was In a State of Inebriation

How oft alas my brother have I warned thee to beware
The horrid spells of guilt which led the drunkards' life to care;
But no! you heeded not the warning words I spoke with pain,
Your wretched soul that once was pure was bound as in a chain;
At length, one cold October, when the night was late and dark,
The awful doom came on which sank thy life's unsteady barque;
Thy mangled corpse upon the rails in frightful shape was found,
The ponderous train had killed thee as its heavy wheels went round.
And thus in dreadful form thou met'st a drunkard's awful death
And I, thy brother, mourn thy fate, and breathe a purer breath.

James Henry Powell

Take that McGonagall! Mine is better than that at least. All this has been sparked by reading Wish You Were Here: The Official Biography of Douglas Adams which is good but not that good - bit dry if you ask me. There is enough of interest to keep me going and maybe my disappointment is really because nothing can compare when Smokie Sings .... er .... to DNA's own writing. the bit in question is the fact that the name of the world's worst poet had to be changed from Paul Neil Milne Johnstone to the lovely Paula of the wonderful swans dirge viz.

The dead swans lay in the stagnant pool.
They lay. They rotted.
They turned
Around occasionally.
Bits of flesh dropped off them from
Time to time.
And sank into the pool's mire.
They also smelt a great deal.

Actually some of mine have been like that and quite of lot of modern poetry still is - Stephen Fry rants against it but then again he is channeling Keats and the whole emotional gang of his mates. None of mine for today - I am taking stock.

And so I return to the whole sorry mess that is the MMR debate. Jeni Barnett is no longer wibbling about MMR because she has taken down her blog post about the subject along with all the comments about it - though she may have had some help from Winston to manage this dangerously technological process. Comment number 6 on that link to Ms. Barnett is rather beautiful. Ben Goldacre over at Bad Science has had to take technical advice (though not from Winston I hope) because of the increase in bandwidth to his site. As part of that bandwidth I learn that an early day motion regarding the recent debate has been made. All seems to be below the radar of actual broadcast but what can you expect when the increased chatter is due to the apparent censorship of a radio show by the broadcaster of the show?

All of this is of course, an example of The Streisand Effect. Oh look! There's a chimmney!

I would put up the Free Speech Flag but I's a coward.