The Bad Theresa May Rap

I'm not a rap artist but the words came to me this afternoon accompanied by a rap-like rhythm, so I figured I should write them down and share them... if (on the off-chance) any rap artists do want to record it please get in touch!  😎

The Bad Theresa May Rap

Theresa May's so strong and stable,
Her government snatches food from the table
Of working families whenever they are able
By saying that benefits just aren't available.

Theresa May's so stable and strong,
Says free school lunches are just wrong,
Just like Maggie who, when she came along,
Stole free school milk from the very very young.

Theresa May's so strong and stable,
Her DWP says all to work who're able,
Even the dying & those clearly incapable,
Assessed by ATOS even when unable.

Theresa May's so stable and strong,
Pensioners attacked on multiple prongs:
Bang goes the triple lock, that's just wrong,
Bye-bye winter fuel payment, going going gone.

Theresa May's so strong and stable,
Own all your own house - hah! whilst you're able,
Paying for social care might leave you a gable
And maybe even three legs on your table.

Theresa May's so stable and strong,
Selling off the NHS bits one by one,
To the highest bidder who has come along
Enforced private healthcare is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Theresa May's so strong and stable,
Wants to build grammar schools for the academically able,
Everyone else gets the scraps from the table,
Equality in education? Now that is a fable!

Theresa May's so stable and strong, 

Watched homeless figures rise for so long,
Did nowt about it, just ignore them among
All the others suffering cos they ain't strong.

Theresa May's so strong and stable,
In favour of hunters killing foxes when they're able
Chased to exhaustion by horses from the stable,
Hounds tearing them apart just like a rabble.

Theresa May's so stable and strong,
Published her manifesto, it's 88 pages long,
Nothing of substance in it hidden in among
The oft repeated words that she's stable and strong.

© Anne Nichols, 2017

Review: A Barnstorming Saga! The Rowan Tree by Robert W Fuller

The Rowan Tree, by Robert W Fuller

Powerful, thought-provoking, political, with a splash of romance, and the constancy of love and devotion to a cause: just the sort of book I love reading. This is, in my opinion, up there with the best. It was so absorbing that it has taken over my every spare moment this last week. As a Brit I had only a rudimentary knowledge of American politics, and found the detail fascinating and the whole very well-written. I know the author has written non-fiction before, but if this is his first fiction title I cannot wait to read his next one. I enjoyed being able to follow the whole narrative through a sixty-plus year timespan, seeing how each generation took the story forward. I could see this making a very good movie or TV mini-series. If I could give this more than 5 stars I would do!

Do you remember those plastic tulips with soap powder?

A chance sighting whilst searching the old census on a family history hunt triggered a memory from my childhood. The entry was for a man in St Luke's, Finsbury, Middlesex and his occupation was shown as  Traveller Artificial Flowers.  I was instantly transported back to my grannie's kitchen over 50 years ago. Grannie loved flowers and used to go to the town's annual flower show and buy up as many as she could afford. She adored dahlias and chrysanthemums best of all and would arrive home with armfuls of pompoms, buttons, and queen mum's hats (as we used to call them).  I would be pressed into service sat at the big kitchen table covered in newspaper to protect it from the damp of the flowers, removing the string and paper they were wrapped in, snipping the stems the right length for her big vases - always with a diagonal cut at the bottom of the stem to allow more water to be absorbed by each bloom.  Sometimes an earwig would run out from amongst the petals and I would shriek. She'd laugh and tell me not to be "ser daft", it wouldn't harm me, it'd be more "frit" (frightened) of me than I was of it.  I was never convinced and still dislike earwigs in the house. Once all the stems were trimmed and the blooms were arranged in their vases they would be displayed with great pride on the sideboard, and all the wrappings would be burned in the open fire.

Grannie only bought flowers when they were cheap, she'd go at the end of the show and buy up what other folks didn't want. In between times she had vases of plastic tulips on display instead.  Although I loved real flowers, especially the silky feel of the petals as I was trimming and preparing each stem, I didn't like the plastic tulips.  Back then artificial flowers were nothing like our modern ones. Now it is hard to tell fake from real at times, so much have they developed, but the plastic ones were a horrible thick plastic.  Yet, when I was a child they were everywhere, apparently women used to buy the soap powder just to get another tulip. I really disliked them!

I have been searching everywhere online for a picture of the tulips, and the only one I have found is this one, which makes them look nicer than I remember them...  I suspect these are later versions, not the very early 1960's ones I remember! There were also plastic daffodils, which must have been even worse as I don't remember Grannie having those at all!

However, I was incredibly surprised to discover, when reading an obituary online for the late husband of my friend Angela in New Zealand, that it was he who introduced these things to the world of marketing via his job at Lever Brothers in the early 1960's.  I had met Andrew, decades after his Lever Bros. days, when he was back in the UK for a family wedding and he and Angela stayed with us for a couple of days. Andrew and I enjoyed great political discussions during their stay, but there was no hint that he was the man responsible for those childhood horrors!