Category: Kevin Vose

(A harrier is an old-fashioned name for a cross country runner,
and some British athletic clubs still have the title)
I was a Liverpool Harrier, lean and toned to an inch,
then I became a pub drinker and married a woman
who could be described as the original penny pinch.

She loved to entertain with memories of lovers on a far shore,
but when I tried to boast of my athletic exploits she pointed to my pot belly, which had become too big to ignore.

In a vain attempt to boost my manhood I went to a disco,
where I vainly thought my cool haircut would impress the ‘birds’.
But my dancing feet did not respond as in days of youth.

Face the facts, I say to myself – you’re more
at home in the local doing the crossword, now ain’t that the truth?

So I went to the line dancing night at the Fiddlers Elbow,
to hear resident band The Chewbaccy Country Cousins lament –
‘Love can prove elusive, though it’s often at your finger tips.
Cowboys used to buy it for half a dollar,
then wake up, scratch themselves and exclaim,
‘I’ve got nits! Damn that whore!’

So I joined the line dancers, swinging my hips
Texan style to an old thymee beat,
reflecting – ‘Am I really past my sell-by-date?’

Then I escaped into an imaginary world of the Wild West,
where I, as a smooth-talking gambler with a wideawake
hat and a six gun, shot a crooked sheriff who tried to
throw me out of town.

For I had fallen for his intended – Sally – the owner of
the curiously named Broken Saddle Saloon.

We lived happily ever after in our little home in the west,
where she worshipped my body, and being an artist,
drew shapes on my distinctly un-hairy chest,
and after coitus, murmured in my ear,
‘I love older, down at heel men.’

But my dream ended abruptly when I woke up,
after She Who Must Be Obeyed shouted,
‘You’re talking to yourself again!’

So now, in an effort to gain solace in my dotage,
I joined fellow Old Farts Harriers to reminisce,
taking alcoholic solace at our local, the Duck And Partridge.

We laugh at the overweight chap and his dog doing a park run,
and sneer at so-called celebrities in fancy dress,
panting and grimacing, who say they are running for fun!

For we are the Old Farts Harriers who didn’t run
for money, but love (granted, we would have cashed in on
our talent, such as it was, but we weren’t fast enough).

So raise a glass to those old runners who used to be lean and toned to an inch.

I’ll settle back into my dreams of the Old West,
and imagine I’m married to Sally,
owner of the Broken Saddle Saloon,
and not her indoors with her tongue that would make a gunfighter flinch.

But like the old cowboys we’re too big to sit astride our horses
and chase the Injuns and outlaws.

Our bellies wobble and we suffer from flatus,
our personal best times fade into significance
compared to those who weren’t similarly blessed.

But we love to indulge ourselves, and recall when we
raced around cross country courses, up fells and down dales,
for we are the Old Farts Harriers,
please come and listen to our tall tales.

Abrofomitch, Saskovitch… do you get my drift?

Sorry for the repetitive rhymes, but we live in an uncertain,
dangerous world (you see I avoided that obvious one).

But according to BBC Radio Five Live,
discussing the football Euros campaign
goes before Brexit and its pitfalls,
in order of priority on its morning phone-in.

But was that a case of several own goals?

Steve What-do-you-Macallit scored a good one last night,
but did he go for a pint with the fans on the way out?

He probably wanted to, but he’s worth £100 a kilo,
the minders know that when he attempts to wield his Biro,
and sign some boy’s autograph.

Does he think about his disappointed face,
when he reclines in a communal bath \
(do they still have them?),
in the bowels of that new stadium,
with no posts to obscure the view?

They don’t make ’em like they used to.

But high above from his Wembley TV gantry,
a bored camera man can just about spot a rigid sentry,
in his bearskin hat, thronged by tourists outside Buckingham Palace.

Now there’s a funny place.

The King’s keeping remarkably quiet, which is unlike him…

Oh, I forgot, there’s an election on.

Anyway, I called the BBC to ask that
question posed in the first stanza, tongue-in-cheek,
but all they said was, ‘This is a serious programme.’

Last night, as I and the wife visited a pub to
watch the England V Serbia game,
I asked, ‘Are you showing the football?’

She looked surprised, ‘You don’t like soccer!’

The missus is Australian you see,
a country that have several games played with a ball.

There’s the two rugbys, League with it’s tackles
but without its rival, Union’s, line outs and mauls.

Then there’s Aussie Rules, though, ironically,
there’s less of them than in the latter code.

‘True,’ I acquiesced, ‘but it’s good for the economy,
for pub landlords love to hear the tills ring.

‘Anyway,’ I replied, ‘you’re an Aussie and don’t like rugger,
have I married a fraud?’

Racial stereotypes aside, England have scratched their itch,
but is football coming home​?

I’ll tell you one thing, even if it’s stuck halfway,
due to strikes, wars and humanitarian disasters,
BBC Radio Five Live will still talk about it on their phone-in.

There’s a guy, festioned with headphones, acting strange in the library.

He’s babbles in tune to whatever he’s tuned into, at the computer terminal.

Outside, a dog wags his tail while Billy no-mates watches the short skirts pass by.

He’s outside a club called Funny Girls,
and is confused, ’cos the skirts are filled with hairy legs,
making him wonder, ‘Am I hetro, homo, metro or bi?’

‘Well, I’m not interested,’ he muses, ‘in the skirt-wearers,
so I must be what used to be regarded as ‘normal’.’

But his former girl friend, Merrily Phipps,
who is on the autistic spectrum, now claims he must be homosexual.

For she sees everything in black and white, 
and at college had a blinkered approach to academic study,
though was a leading force in the theatrical society,
and enjoyed many a stage fight.

For Queen Lizz, known as the Virgin Queen,
was her favourite monarch,
but she was also fond of the ruler’s ladies-in-waiting,
who loved that wily creature the fox,
renowned in English folklore as Reynardine.

They even sang about it in the courtly parlour.

But now the waiting ladies’ are celestial beings, and, though status does not exist in Heaven,
still minister to their mistress’s toilet,
for ties of fiefdom are hard to break.

Meanwhile down on Earth, Billy no-mates wonders what will become of his strange lady friend, Merrily,
who’s now in the library looking at the strange guy
babbling at his computer.

Pointing to him, she asks Billy, ‘Is he schizophrenic?’

He answered, ‘Maybe like you, he’s on the spectrum.’

‘Oh, it’s getting crowded on there, what with generals, prime ministers and a virgin Her Majesty.’

Then the babbling man looks over at us, saying, 
‘I’m meeting Queen Elizabeth, not the one
in Buckingham Palace – but the so-called virginal
monarch of 17th-century fame – and her ladies’-in-waiting
at Funny Girls, where I’m the manager, tonight.’

Staring at him, as if he was mad, she exclaimed.
‘So there’ll be spirits in front of the bar, as well as behind it!’

‘Don’t mock,’ he shouted, ‘did you know that
club of funny men and women used to be the old Odeon, and is haunted?’

Merrily wondered about this, when she saw
Queen Lizzie dance with women who looked like men,
​​​​​​​and wondered whether this was some sort of fancy dress party,
while the waiting ladies asserted to her admirers,
‘You know, Lizzie’s not really virginal.

‘She was admired by male courtiers,
who loved her vain portraits and self admiration.’

‘Is she here?’ One woman asked.

‘Yes, she was dragged upstairs by fellow queens to teach them Elizabethan dancing.’

Meanwhile, the library guy, who was dancing the
foxtrot with one of Lizzie’s celestial ladies-in-waiting,
had finally stopped babbling.

Instead, he admitted to his ghostly dancing partner,
who was dressed as a vixen,
‘I babble too much I know, and annoy the
other library users with my muttering.’

‘Like young Merrily I am on the spectrum,
but I hope she’s looking for another man,
now her suitor Billy has lots of mates.’

‘Sorry to disappoint,’ she replied,
‘but those new ‘friends’ are all lovers of the female form.’

‘Oh dash it – well I’ll start babbling again, just to annoy him.’

‘Oh, don’t do that, by the way, you’re a lovely dancer.’

‘Why do you babble, are you worried about money,
is your club struggling with the cost of living?

‘For I’ve got a plan to produce publicity and thus boost your income.’

‘Why don’t I stalk the place in ghostly apparel?’

He started to babble with excitement at this, but quietened after a kiss.

In the morning the cleaner found them snoozing in the office,
with their discarded clothes draped over the computer terminal.

Oh, mysterious Miss Coffee Cutie,
what do you think of when sipping your daily brew,
in the morning after the doctor has done his rounds?

You sit entranced like a cute mouse, ears a-twitching to the many accents,
from Geordie, in the north east with its castle that’s always new,
and that shrill sound emanating from our most musical city – you’ve guessed it,
the dialect known as Scouse.

I know you claim to be a shape shifter, as you whispered this to me while we waited
to be admitted to the psychiatric unit.

You’re an odd one right enough, but be of good cheer and swing that crazy golf club,
in the gardens of dahlias, delphiniums and drooping fronds.

Sing to me in Chinese, like you did in that restaurant,
The Mucky Duck, whose owner claimed he was from Peking.

When we retired upstairs to his private apartment, after I slipped him a few quid,
your screams woke the dead, when you saw him peek in.

Afterwards, I laughed at your story-book adventures (at your age indeed!).

What a cast of characters, swimming rats, submarinal puppies off their lead,
and endangered newts in murky ponds, lambs carolling by roaring becks, 
those north-of-England streams which I think about every night after the nurse has given me that anxiety-reducing new drug, Sertraline.

But deep down you’re more than a bored former missus, obsessively telly watching in the TV room.

‘Bring back the classics!’ You cry, ‘Wot I was brought up on, 
like the Goons, with Sellers and his many voices, 
and that singing clown Harry Secombe, not to mention the puppeteer,
Michael Bentine.

‘A few of ’em were undoubtedly mentally ill, like us two.
Can I have another poppadom?’

‘Indeed’, I agree, ‘They were all as mad as a bag of frogs,
to think up those daft sketches, they must have had some fun making them.’

Yes, she nodded at me, ‘Considering some of them saw terrible deeds in the War.

‘It’s not surprising they became such a comic force, for laughter is great therapy.

‘Big Harry with his great voice and Michael, Peter and Spike, who talked his own language of Millaganese.’

‘Apparently Milligan was once resident in our temporary home, for the staff still talk about him.

‘He claimed to be a shifter of shapes, like me.

At this she rose, saying, ‘Oh, thanks for the nosh, but you better slip back over the hospital wall.

‘If you don’t see me I’ll have reverted to my favourite shape, the one I used to have great fun running around, 
before it all got too much, and I ended up sectioned in that place.’

After I returned from the toilet, the little lady had indeed disappeared,
as was her wont, and I wandered back to The Mucky Duck.

The owner said, with a leer, ‘You can have the back room tonight,
if you let me watch you two…’

Just then in streaked a cute mouse, and bit him on the a##se.

To my shock I recognised the rodent’s victim as my nurse, who was off duty.

Then the chef walked in, complaining that somone had nicked the cheese.

Of course, you know what happened next?
The mouse became Miss Coffee Cutie.

I wanted to be the Bob Dylan of Ealing, and make my mark,
as a disenchanted emigrant of that London borough,
but couldn’t play the mouth organ, and the guitar barely at all.

My old English da, who’d wed a woman from the Irish county of Co Donegal,
hated my singing, preferring the forgotten Lancashire tenor Tom Burke,
son of an Irish coal miner.

He even wrote a book about him called The Lancashire Caruso,
still available on Amazon, which is a bloody big river.

‘Don’t give up on your dreams,’ he would say, ‘Tom is watching over you.’
He was a great wit, my old man, cracking jokes like the above,
and writing panto scripts, while my ma went out to nurse.
All the patients loved little Philomena, from the town of Ballybofey,
who often read my tea leaves, saying, ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
I can see you being talked about by musical greats,
so don’t worry that your teachers said you were thick.’

God love her, she was right, and it came about thus.

Ma had helped her erring cousin, Michael, the family’s black sheep,
who was a terrible boozer, encouraging him to sing his humorous songs,
to American tourists in Dublin and Limerick.

I stayed with him in Donegal’s Glencolumbkille, that folk village still
clinging to the Gaelic tongue, hoping some of his skill would rub off,
where he dressed as a harp-playing fairy – well, the Americans liked it.
He sang in a packed Slattery’s bar, backed by yours truly on guitar,
which got a laugh, even before he opened his mouth.

His offering went thus:
‘O’Halloran’s donkey carried a monkey,
and they starred in Murphy’s travelling circus,
but the jungle creature sneezed and covered his mount with mucous,
so a naughty ape bestowed a kiss, then ran her a bath.

‘She expected to be seduced, among the soapy suds,
but all he got was a hit over the head with a funny-shaped duck.’

A few boos rang out, but a party of students laughed fit to burst,
and it proved popular on the underground Alternative Songs Network.

So I gave up my ambition to be a pretend Dylan,
and formed a comical duo with my uncle,
coached by my ma, who’d often quipped, ‘I never understood why you wanted to
sing like that fellow Bob, his voice is like rusty nails on a metal floor.’

We had some success on the festival circuit, but after we stupidly released
a song called The Busker, were threatened with civil prosecution,
by a famous duo, whose name rhymes with carbuncle.

My uncle ran off to Donegal, with a false beard,
dispensing fairy tales in Glencolumbkille, but I stuck it out,
and would often, waking from a troubled sleep, ponder my fate,
until one night I met the spirit of my da’s hero, Tom Burke.

‘Hello, to you,’ he said, sitting on my bed, ‘son of the man who restored my reputation,
don’t take to the bottle like me, when faced with creditors and legal robbers.

‘Go for a walk in the park, and don’t worry about any pursuing legal eagle,
representing that famous harmonious duo.’

So off I went and, to my shock, saw a man carrying a barking little animal,
chased by a distinguished-looking chap, who shouted,
‘Stop that fellow, he’s nicking my dog!’

So I stuck my foot out, and the athletic canine leapt out of his kidnapper’s grasp,
into the arms of his owner, a famous lawyer called Gervase Gabriel.

He sobbed with relief, ‘Thank you for rescuing little Rufus.
Being of a rare breed, he would have proved quite valuable, to pet peddlers.

‘Come, let us go to Flattery’s where I’ll buy you a pint of stout.’

He told me how he’d championed the downtrodden; indeed he’d saved his wife,
Marie Bulstrode-Blog, from being deported back to El Salvador,
for singing songs criticizing a US president whom everyone calls a right chump.

Chased by the CIA, Gervase enlisted the help of elder brother, Bunty Bullingham-blog,
or Bloggers, to his chums, who, as a former agent of Her Majesty’s Secret Service,
hated the Americans for outing him as gay, constituting, according to them,
‘An obvious threat to the UK-US alliance.’

Marie kissed Gervase’s cheek, telling me, ‘It doesn’t matter that we’re officially married,
he’s homo-erotical or bi-something, so has a soft spot for the marginalised.

‘Darling, I’m glad you invited your fellow pupil, Bloggers,
to our wedding, which we never consummated,’ bestowing me a knowing look.

Her English wasn’t fully conversational, but still managed to praise Gervase’s legal expertise.

‘It was fate I suppose, or the grace of God, that he spotted me playing the chirango,
that little Latin American guitar.

‘He said it reminded him of a singer from England, called George Formby,
who toured south Africa with his wife Beryl, encountering hatred for their
stance against racial prejudice, while delighting fans with
his consummate playing of the banjo-ukulele.

‘Yes,’ I concurred, ‘he was a Lancashire lad, like my dad’s hero, Tom Burke.’

I told him my tale, and he advised, ‘You should stimulate public sympathy.’
So I took up my guitar and mouth organ, backed by my uncle, in disguise,
with Fran joining us on our daily street concerts, strumming her little instrument.

We sang, ‘We’ve been sold down the river, but we’re not all a’quiver,
for all we did was a silly parody, and I’m sure Paul and Art wouldn’t mind,
as, although some might not agree, we’re one of a kind.’

The media, sensing a good feel-good story, promoted our cause,
and who should find out about our plight, but a star of rock and folk, christened Robert Zimmerman.

He popped in Flattery’s Bar, saying, ‘I’ve had a word with those two famous singers,
and they’ve called off the law, but only if you support them on tour.

‘You’ll be the comical warm-up act, for you really are the worst pretend Bob Dylan,
of anywhere, never mind Ealing.’

‘Oh, can you ask that lady, the one with a double-barrelled name,
if she’ll play on my next album?’

That night I again met the ghost of that forgotten singer my father had championed,
and said ‘Thanks for looking out for me, you old soak.’

He laughed and sang, I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen and The Mountains of Mourne,
which woke up Marie, who accompanied him on her little chirango,
and I fell asleep to the tenor voice of Tom Burke, The Lancashire Caruso.

A downcast little woman from war-torn Sudan, who had landed
on a raft from across the sea, beamed an almighty grin, when she was greeted by Kenny, a kangaroo, saying, ‘Thank you, for welcoming me, a refugee.

‘My name is Miss Bullafleyo Kooazis.

‘Don’t hang about, you lovely animal, for I’m being chased by an Australia For Us’ possee.’

Kenny beckoned to his midriff, and she jumped in his extra large pouch.

Due to a frugal diet, she just about fitted in, and the ‘roo jumped so high, they were hidden by a low-lying coastal cloud, a phenomenal peculiar to that kind of beach.

I sat up at the arrival of this pretty guest, to my temporary base, a hidden oasis.

She looked vaguely familiar, so I offered her eucalyptus wine, and the sultry desert air rang with laughter, as I clumsily demonstrated how to suck the juice of a melon.

‘Have we met before?’ She asked, ‘You may not recognise me, as I’ve lost my curly hair.’

Cursed with a bad memory, I answered, ‘I wouldn’t have forgotten your lovely countenance!’

She seemed to believe my cover story, that I was a professor of Cultural Diversity from Melbourne.

Then an aboriginal choir sang, backed by a didgeridoo orchestra,
so I asked, ‘Fancy a dance?’, and we stepped out, quickly drawing an audience.

Bullafleyo laughed, ‘I never thought I’d do this when I came to Australia.’

Later that evening, tribal chief, The Mighty Mungoo, told me, ‘I’m glad we allowed you to visit us, as an observer of indigenous tribal systems.

‘You may wonder what a sophisticated man like me is doing here.

‘Well, I left the outback as a very intelligent boy, attending the University of Bulla Blot.

‘I was recruited by the AIA (Australian Intelligence Agency), and sent to instruct the CIA (you guessed it, the US Intelligence lot), oh, how I hate those acronyms.

‘Maybe they thought my brown skin would make them look politically correct, or PC, oh dear, that’s another – you know, an acronym.

‘I was asked to teach the American spooks an ancient code, based on aboriginal methods of speech.

‘But it was used to infiltrate a Red Indian tribe, The Bigred-Mottledfoot who, long ago, had travelled to this land.

‘Given sanctuary by my forebears, they used bow and arrows to repel invaders,
who were seeking to enslave natives, at the battle of Mocassin-Middlebleech.

‘I left the agency and, after revealing their dirty deeds in a book, A Spy With a Conscious, I learned my old bosses were after me, so fled to this remote place.’

He suddenly tensed himself, as I dug out my Glock handgun to shoot Mighty Mungoo.

However, maybe I shouldn’t have first alerted him, by declaring,
‘Sorry to use an acronym, but the CIA sent me to carry out a sentence for treason.

‘Which is silly, considering you’re not American – in fact, you’re a native Australian.

‘Gosh, that was a mouthful.’

About to fire, I was punched by Kenny the kangaroo.

Reeling from his blow, Mungoo’s burly wife, Sugamush Saddledell, picked me up,
saying ‘Don’t try anything, I learned karate from my hubbie, and once, with one chop,
knocked down my police cell wall, where I’d been thrown by a racist cop.’

Bullafleyo then joined in the verbal assault.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I came across you in Greece, where I landed, hidden in a strange, glowing patch of seaweed, thus escaping the secret police.

‘The Greeks call that marine phenomenon Aqua Mellaflish, meaning ‘I shall save you’, which it did, by keeping me afloat.

‘You, cleverly disguised as a beachcomber, offered me a bed in your beach hut.

‘But I spotted a secret radio, during your obsequious pillow talk.’

‘Gazing at the stars behind a Cullabungus bush, I overheard Mungoo’s confession,
and suspected you were not academical, excuse my English, in fact, you’re an undercover hitman.’

I threw myself on their mercy, and am now an aboriginal native, my skin mottled black by the sun.

So, if my past employers come looking for their failed assassin, they might not recognise him.

However, they may hear about the tribal wedding of a fake professor and his Sudanese sweetheart, truly an unlikely marriage, blessed by The Mighty Mungoo.

But beware showing too much curiosity, you vengeful US intelligence operatives, or you’ll be knocked out by a punch from Kenny the kangaroo.

As a child I dreamt of attending an elite public school, like Eton,
but my parents sent me to Mulchester Marton,
which was much cheaper.

There, my beautiful drama teacher Delphine Duvall, encouraged me to become an actor.

I listened entranced as she reminisced about her birthplace in Carcassonne,
with its mediaeval streets echoing to the ghosts of armour-clad knights,
but instead of playing a noble in Midsummer Night’s Dream,
I was cast as that beloved fool Bottom, and looked a right chump
in hose and tights.

Joining me was Mick Mulcahy, whose father was as an Irish TD (Tánaiste) and rugby player, 
who, during his time as Taoiseach, was embroiled in a scandal involving iron-induced beetroot,
which he claimed would boost the Irish rugby team’s strength,
but all it did was make them belch.

Mick had inherited his dad’s cheek,
and boasted ‘My da’s a quare character, and that’s a fact.’

He would finish every sentence with that Irish expression, believing it added to his charm.

Keen to be his pal, for all the girls flocked to him,
I eagerly accepted an invite to his home, in Ireland’s Co. Kerry.

I entertained everyone at the ceili with that classic Irish song, 
Take Me Home Again Kathleen,
prompting Mick’s sister Orla to give me a seductive smile.

But when I called her ‘a sweet colleen’, she angrily declared,
‘I’m not some country girl, but a modern woman, studying
philosophy at Trinity College, Dublin.’

Severely sozzled, I determined to show her, but made a fool of myself
by drunkenly asking all the girls for a dance.

Alas, I woke to find Mick and his dad laughing over photographs of me in my underpants,
and was blackmailed into joining him in a plan to restore his father’s reputation.

He arranged for the county’s famous coastal attraction, friendly dolphin Funny Fingle Fergie,
to give Mick and I a ride, believing the publicity would boost tourism.

But a media storm, sparked by a protest by the Society To Protect Sea Mammals,
alerted our headmaster, Frederick Forth-Floodflace,
who promised to punish his naughty pupils.

Miss Duvall pleaded our case, but when she took the drama
class on a march against the war in Vietnam, her fate was sealed,
and all three of us left Mulchester Marton.

I suppose you’re wondering what happened to this motley crew?
Well, Mulcahy Senior wrote his autobiography, Forward Passes and Political Mauls,
signing copies beneath a poster of him, surrounded by naked teammates,
hiding their modesty with rugby balls.

Delphine lectured at a Los Angeles University, but annoyed Britain’s Prime Minister,
by condeming the English public school system.

He called in a few favours, and she was charged with anti-American activity.
Meanwhile, Mick had emigrated to California in pursuit of her,
and I followed like a little dog, sniffing after him in the LA fog.

But when he tried to involve me in his scheme to make a million
with his revolutionary breakfast food, Paddy’s Porridge,
I warned him it wouldn’t work, saying, ‘They won’t fall for your silly trick, you fool!’

I disappeared, hanging around Delphine’s university campus,
dressed as a Beatnik, trying to look cool.

Mick did manage to hoodwink a film company into buying his crazy cereal,
claiming it would produce actors with incredible personalities.

However, he got the ingredients mixed up – psychologists were puzzled by a
sudden outburst of severe shyness, and the movie moguls threatened to sue,
and engaged Theodore Fixitup, a top legal eagle.

Delphine finally realised that the Irish youth, like his dad, was not to be trusted,
so I hid her in my beach hideout, until we could leave under false passports.

I was by this time fluent in French and, posing as Delphine’s brother Antoine,
travelled to Carcassonne, where I starred in a historical re-enactment show,
Mighty Knights of Medieval France.

A talent scout saw me, and I was recruited to Paris’s Academie of Performance.

Delphine beamed with delight, for I’d fnally learned how to act.

Mick’s sister got quite jealous, saying ‘I don’t believe it!’

But he assured her, ‘He’s a star, and that’s a fact!’

A cowboy came calling, John Wayne was his name.

He brought with him General Custer, whom he’d played in a film,
about brave deeds in the Old West.

‘Wait a minute, general,’ I said, ‘didn’t you die at The Battle of Little Big Horn, in 1876?’

But his agent said, ‘That was a conspiracy started by those native Indians,
the Oglala Sioux, represented by the great grandson of Chief Crazy Horse,
who claimed a decisive victory over General Armstrong Custer,
that much lauded soldier and American hero.’

‘We are contemplating legal action.’

I couldn’t help but comment, ‘So you’re gonna sue the Sioux?’

I’m now in considerable pain after going to a
fancy dress party dressed as Chief Crazy Horse,
where I received a kick up the ass, from John Wayne,
who didn’t like being reminded of that pesky Injun.

‘Nobody likes to be reminded of their mistakes,’
I thought, massaging my sore buttock.

Over in England tourists flock to Buckingham Palace
for a glimpse of the Royal Family, who still wave at the faithful,
trying to forget about a son who’d gone to America,
after falling foul of unofficial protocol.

Rumour has it he’s writing another book.

Meanwhile, according to a press release, old soldiers are living
in his palatial home while he sleeps in an Indian tipi in the
wild reaches of Montana, where discredited historians still
claim the Indians won a great victory, on the slopes they called Greasy Grass.

You know, where Hollywood said Custer had his last stand?

So hold the front page!

However, US schools won’t teach about an American defeat,
but you can hear the facts told in song by Prancing Pony, an old Indian sage,
who told a watching reporter, dressed in a fake buffalo-skin coat,
that the former royal is his biggest fan.

The latter, emerging from under his ethnic canopy,
was amazed to see John Wayne.

‘Hello, did you come by Stagecoach?’ he asked, in an attempt at humour.

‘Oh, that was my first cowboy movie,’ Big John answered with a grin, ‘no,
by private jet – I’ve come to join you,’ he declared, ‘in this new world of reality TV.’

‘You and your wife seem to be struggling at it though,’ he said,
the wind tearing at his Stetson hat.

Then the woman herself emerged, dressed down in a 1,000-dollar skirt,
and asked, ‘Any chance of a bath?’

‘No sweetheart, we’ve gone native.’

She tried to look cheerful, but said, ‘Oh well, we need the money,
and I’ve a good physique, so I’ll have to lump it and bathe in the river.

‘By the way, where’s the TV camera?’