{"id":11466,"date":"2020-06-27T13:44:38","date_gmt":"2020-06-27T13:44:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/?p=11466"},"modified":"2026-04-18T19:34:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T19:34:31","slug":"if-you-didnt-laugh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/2020\/06\/if-you-didnt-laugh\/","title":{"rendered":"If you didn’t laugh"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Smiley<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n


His used underpants went in the fridge and the ham in the washing machine  
The door key went in the teapot and the teabag into his jeans  
Ben Todger: Remember Not to Worry <\/strong><\/pre>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Got to laugh, eh? So as we teeter on the edge of what used to be the Silly Season, we do. Sort of.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our thanks to Ben Todger (a pen-name),  who has turned his pen to poetry in retirement from the news desk, for this Sceptical poetry post.  The well travelled Todger is disarming company.  You’ll find him on a bar stool in the local, grappling with the madnesses of the moment, lighting the blue touch paper with mischief aforethought. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of Corona\u2019s Report he says: \u201cI wanted to upset everybody, including myself. Half the problem with the world is that half the people take themselves too seriously. The other half don’t take themselves seriously enough.The Alzheimer’s one (Remember Not to Worry)<\/strong> was written with that time in mind that most sentient beings experience: the moment in the creaking early hours when you stir and fear “what if?\u201d Then you realise you can only laugh at dread.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Corona’s Report<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
We used to point our fingers in scorn\nAt a failing and deluded beast\nOur scheming brainwashed enemy\nThe evil empire in the East\n\nTheir dangerous despots made bad laws\nDissidents dangled in the breeze\nInformers sold their neighbours out\nTheir country was wracked by a dreaded disease\n\nWell one's arrived here, or so we're told\nObey the rules of the mighty state\nBe obedient while there's time\nOr you could simply end up late\n\nSo people complied in respectful droves\nWent inside and shut their doors\nBelieving what their betters said\nObeying requests and ignoring the flaws\n\nStatistics took over and fortunes were told\nScientists joined up to save the day\nPoliticians hid behind graphs\nDon't do as we do; do as we say\n\nIt all began to fall apart when Cummings\nAnd Sage statisticians starred\nExperts and scientists all agreed\nYou can't have an inch - take well over a yard\n\nHippocrates, daddy of them all\nWouldn't have had a cure or hope\nNor did his doctor disciples, so\nThey simply prescribed wet hands and soap\n\nWhy keep digits scrubbed and safe?\nInstructions shouldn't be needed a lot\nAs it turns out they damn well were\nHow to wash their hands fools clean forgot\n\nDerbyshire coppers dyed a lake\nCambridge's Plod were filled with bile\nThey helped to ruin Trinity lawn\nThen deigned to bully a Tesco aisle\n\nDrones beat wasps to a Peak picnic\nThe Welsh told visitors not to go there\nSturgeon's Scots craved independence\nWhat people wish for they should beware\n\nLudicrous Hancock took TV briefings\nWith scripted questions and fake malice\nHe answered people backed by hindsight\nWith petulance from a poison chalice\n\nA trio like rabbits caught in headlights\nPublic glare that troubled their hearts\nWhen the experts saw their guesses fail\nThey simply produced alternative charts\n\nPeople in lockdown missed lots of things\nBeer and bars; staying prim lost its art\nBut at five o'clock on the telly\nThe podium manikins still looked smart\n\nYou knew things had grown ridiculous\nWhen Blair's Goebels and Cummings were vying\nThen Alastair Campbell dared to come out\nTo blatantly say someone else was lying ????\n\nWhile we were still busy laughing\n(The unbalanced fool left us honking)\nA not-so-super injunction was made:\nA Boris decree put a ban on bonking ????\n\nAs pandemic panickers stayed in situ\nExperts and pundits ranted and nattered\nPolice were ordered to guard a statue\nBecause vandals discovered that black lives mattered\n\nBristol police had abandoned their duty\nThe Thunberg quislings didn't waver\nThey took sides again to ignore the law\nAnd kneel on the neck of a metal slaver\n\nEveryone turned off the BBC\nTheir entertainers twisted the news\nThey didn't try to report the facts\nSimply crossed their legs and exposed their views\n\nMedical experts settled old score\nDom drove a car to test his eyes\nGovernment hustlers ignored their own edicts\nHad sex then ejaculated lies\n\nTape marks went down outside food stores\nWhere the queues were measured and formal\nThen as soon as customers got inside\nThey jostled and bumped each other as normal\n\nBut when evening fell, dark forces stirred\nIn furtive street and window frame\nCurtain-twitching neighbourhood spies\nPut Securitate and Stasi to shame\n\nPupils were meant to return to class\nBut the teachers wouldn't go back to school\nHeads and truants all agreed\nThere's a good chance to reinstate union rule\n\nA doomed generation, the Leftists roared\nA privilege charter - or some such\nConsidering how our rulers behaved\nPosh education doesn't help much\n\nFurloughed parents were split on the issue\nRedundancy threatened to end on the skids\nKeep taking the money or back to employment\nBut who was there to look after the kids?\n\nCecil Rhodes' Oxford likeness was doomed\nBut why stop at effigies and looks?\nWhy not let mobs demolish the college?\nAnd after that exercise, start burning books\n\nAmidst this mayhem and rioting\nSocial distancing didn't matter a lot\nSome most in peril massed in protest\nIt seemed maybe they were losing the plot\n\nWorst virus scare the world had known\nWhen health and safety were being hit\nSupposed sane people were choosing to fight\nOver models of corpses on which pigeons shit\n\nOne paper above all encouraged the rabble\nTo destroy the statues. Had it gone mad?\nIts founder had preyed upon slaves and child labour\nHypocrisy? What? The Grauniad?\n\nFacebook and Twitter abandoned reality\nA sop for retard silly-billies\nHarry Potter's bloody wand\nCouldn't make women be born with willies\n\nAnd where was Boris all this time?\nThe prolific dad spent a long time in bed\nIll with the virus, lucky not dead\nDidn't even molest the nurses (it's said)\n\nThe only thing missing in this mess\nWas something to thwart an avenger's aim\nThough it's a sickness and nobody's fault\nIt's still good to have somebody to blame\n\nOur system allows everyone to judge\nDemocracy is really cool\nWe don't realise that they're all the same\nParties just divide and fool\n\nSo after this plague has come and gone\nWhen we're destitute and out of fun\nThe Starmerists can plot revenge\nAnd be in charge for the next big one\n\n<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Remember Not To Worry<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
His used underpants went in the fridge and the ham in the washing machine<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The door key went in the teapot and the teabag into his jeans<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He rushed to answer the doorbell when he heard the microwave ping<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And he went to the next room constantly but never remembered a thing<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He turned off the outside light at dusk so his daughter wouldn\u2019t take fright<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then wandered into the kitchen to leave the tap on all night<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He heard someone saying stupid old man and assumed they were talking parrots<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then he quaffed detergent for lemonade and found that it contained carrots<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He used the stairs for something a lot but pretty soon stepped down<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then when he wondered why he\u2019d gone he only came up with a frown<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When he went out for the paper he came back with a loaf of bread<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And he took his book to the cleaners and his shirt to the library instead<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He sublimely used the rubbish bin when he went to send a letter<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And when he\u2019d posted the cat litter the mail didn\u2019t smell any better<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His wife fretted about Alzheimer\u2019s and really worried a lot<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So did he occasionally<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But mostly he forgot<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ben Todger<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Featured image: Jaybot<\/a> ‘Probably for Captain Tom, but we enjoyed it too’  CC BY-SA 2.0<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cI wanted to upset everybody, including myself. Half the problem with the world is that half the people take themselves too seriously. The other half don’t take themselves seriously enough.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":11525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[604,478],"class_list":["post-11466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-covid-19","tag-lockdown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11466"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18669,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11466\/revisions\/18669"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}