Life style
You are what you eat,
so if you dine at Gavroche,
you are a fat-cat.
You are what you drive,
so if you have a personal number plate,
you are a sad prat.
You are where you live,
So, if you live in a mansion,
you are a parasitic aristocrat
You are what you do,
so if you are a manager,
you are an overpaid twat.
You are what you say,
so if you are a politician
you are a control-freak brat
If you are what you are,
without power and wealth,
you are where its at.
DOWN THE PUB
Went down the pub las' niqht
Its called The Pirate's Wreck.
Used to be the Railway Inn
but now its a discotheque.
Went for a pint,to have a chat.
It was nice and quiet at seven
until they turned the juke-box up.
We were screaming by eleven.
The Landlord has banned us from singing
telling jokes,trying to be funny.
He wants us to play the machines
'cos that's how he makes his money.
Profits are made from the market
of youngsters with money to spend.
They aim to push the rest of us out
by driving us round the bend.
Its ethnic cleansing,really,
drowning our sighs and cries
preventing us from talking.
Individualise, anaesthetise.
But,there's still real pubs
where I retreat,to a quiet place,
talk and plot,and organise
to recover our stolen space.
So, le's get our act together,
to reclaim our rights.
Pull the plug on their jukebox
and switch on all the lights.
Isn't Digital TV great?
I can watch all sorts of channels,
entertainment, sport, music videos,
films, cartoons and news,
day and night, over and over again.
I can see the latest massacre crisis
from America, Africa or Eastern Europe
and zap over to hip-hop and back,
enjoy a bizarre clash of cultures.
I can watch bland people
try to sell me things I don't want
holidays I can't afford,
and a view of the world that I don't believe.
I can be wrapped in nostalgia
by old films and soaps
taken back in time
to a false memory.
I can watch World-Wide-Wrestling,
the ultimate TV kitsch,
its aggressive symbolism
dressed up as a sports soap
I can watch repeats from ten years ago,
twenty years ago, from before I was born,
back to last week or yesterday,
repeating my life in shortening images.
I can do all these things because
digital TV is their vision of freedom,
guaranteed by the free market
and governed by their agenda.
Isn't it great, digital telly?
Er,no.
Post-modern News
Once, being modern was the News,
but now the News is the News.
Page after page of the News
consistently recycles old News.
The News has become self-referential,
narcissistically self-reverential,
a dumbed-down media
feeding its own tedia.
The News is no longer new,
and its not what is true.
There are no alternative views
in our rulers' News,
just what they choose
to tighten down the screws.
Fashion is the new reality
as the Mass Media is the totality,
of an ever-descending whirpool,
chasing cool after cool.
Our rulers' technology
is the new ideology.
Its philosophy is demeaning,
Post-modernism has no meaning
and as, day follows night,
the power of the right
of control and wealth,
subverts and smothers, by stealth,
our people's imagination,
as they control our destination.
Marshal McLuhan, you were right,
our rulers now own the right
to mould our whole world view,
to decide, for us, what is true.
The Medium is the message
or is that the massage?
The news is about their power
It dominates every hour,
and there are no futures
for us mere creatures
who cling to our sanity,
our day-to-day reality,
and confront their domination
with our own imagination.