Clerihew: Richard Sharp
Richard Sharp Likes to whinge and to carp That report was bad luck Now off he can fuck
Issues and campaigns: The media
Newspapers! Telly! All that stuff! Corporate ones that drive you up the wall; maybe some better ones that make you think …
Be Reasonable
We’d like you to strike when it doesn’t disrupt us when it won’t interrupt us going about our daily life We’d like you to strike when it won’t cause strife when no-one will notice Please don’t misquote us Of course … Read more
Video: Babyface
Janine performs her poem ‘Babyface’ in Cambridge in 2016.
Everybody Needs Good Strikers
Bring out the braziers on Ramsay Street, close down the kitchen and turn up the heat No more exploitation of the workers’ labours – the staff are going on strike in Neighbours! The ranks of the workers’ movement swell as … Read more
The Reason I Fight
Janine Booth reviews ‘The Reason I Jump’ I don’t watch many documentaries about autism, and on the rare occasion when I sit down to watch one, I am overwhelmed with a sense of dread. So much rubbish is said on … Read more
Free Zhang Zhan!
China jails citizen journalist for Wuhan reports Four years in jail for citizen reporter Who spread the news from virus-struck Wuhan Her mother cries in court to lose her daughter She showed the world the sickness, did Zhang Zhan So … Read more
Clerihew: Julie Burchill
Julie Burchill Will fight them on the beaches like Churchill She’s been cancelled and silenced by opinion shapers She’ll tell you all about it in the national newspapers pic: Pete Linforth at Pixabay
Let Them Be Heroes
Teachers say: Let Daily Mail writers be heroes Let them walk naked through war zones Let them battle with an invisible enemy Let them fall on the battlefield in even greater numbers than they already have Safe in the knowledge … Read more
What a Croc
A response to an appallingly bigoted cartoon (pictured) which appeared in the Morning Star. An oversight has come to light our usual process transgressed, broke apart and through the cracks crept a carnivorous cold-blooded cartoon a hand-drawn saurian, fawning, crawling, … Read more
A Bad Night for Ashleigh
Hi there, it’s Ashleigh from the Daily Mail I’ve smelled a story I’m on the trail I want to sound street and your tweets are sick, mate I’m getting desperate for some clickbait Hi there, it’s Ashleigh … Read more
Product Displacement
I peeled back the adverts and found a beautiful town Waiting at the bus stop I stilled the rotating displays and pasted timetables and useful information in their place I restored all the lamp posts to their role as posts bearing … Read more
Sunday Times: Janine is a “self-identified Marxist socialist-feminist”
<Sarcasm alert> Today, in an astonishing piece of investigative journalism, the Sunday Times shocks the world with the revelation, based entirely on material already in the public sphere, that I am really quite left wing and that other left-wing members of … Read more
The SubStandard Love Song
Tom Newton Dunn, oh Tom Newton Dunn In charge of political views at The Sun Trying to say it’s all spiffing great fun When you lost an election you thought you had won #sundaypolitics [With apologies to John Betjeman’s The … Read more
The Daily Mail Guide to Recognising Wildfowl
Swans are ‘majestic’, the monarch owns them Geese on the other hand are ‘loathsome’. Geese migrate and know their rights While swans are English, snooty and white.
On The Show Today
“If a man ever raised his hand to me I’d be gone.” Roars and applause from the studio audience Put the shame-faced guest in her place And the waves of clapping Wash the blame From him to her
Babyface
You don’t look small and cute enough Your upper lip has grown some fluff You look quite tall and rather tough You show the scars of sleeping rough You look so foreign, feral, wild You don’t look like a child … Read more
Queen Vic (Let’s Do It)
Today is Queen Elizabeth’s 90th birthday, and the media is awash with fawning coverage. Yesterday, queen of entertainment Victoria Wood died. This is a respectful reworking of Victoria Wood’s classic Ballad of Freda and Barry (Let’s Do It). Freda and … Read more
Haiku: Special Offer
Spend three quid at Spar Get free Sun: What can I buy For two ninety-nine?
Haiku: Low Standards
Evening Standard It’s free of charge but still not Value for money
A Sonnet for Saga
‘Sonnet’ means ‘little song’; Saga Noren is the (autistic) lead character in Swedish/Danish crime drama The Bridge. A little song across a Bridge to link A multi-neuro-lingual Tower of Babel Two tongues, two countries, varied ways to think On fire … Read more