I vaguely recollect a story, maybe from the Bible, about a son and his father.  The nub of it was the two occasions the son had cried when his father had hit him.  The first time was when he was a child and because it hurt.  The second time was when he was a young man and it didn’t, signifying that his father was now weak and dying.

I have a personal recollection which mirrors this.

I can’t ...

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A thousand years will not expunge this stain

Nor sate the Devil’s craven appetite

All Glory to the People of Ukraine

He smiles as children speak their prayers in vain

And laughs as Death reaps Innocents in flight

A thousand years will not expunge this stain

Lamenting in excruciating pain

As only mothers, daughters or wives might

All Glory to the Women of Ukraine

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I've often heard Facebook described as an echo chamber.  But a better description by Stephen Fry is a "lavatory wall".

My intellect’s mapped out on Face Book

My wisdom, opinion and wit

In time to be thought of a Bible

The Great Works of Coopey as Writ.

I started my scholarship early

By scribbling on lavatory walls

Some say that I haven’t developed that much

Or pro...

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The kids bought me a year's subscription to Ancestry for my 70th birthday earlier this week. (I know what you're thinking; you're thinking "Surely not!").  I've spent a few happy hours researching my ancestry and I thought I'd post this poem about the night my grandma died.  Sarah Ann Hallam (1886-1970).

My mother was with her the night she died.

She’d sat a vigil in turn with her ...

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I thought I could afford her by mail order – she’s my Living Doll

I got the mag to send me bendy Wendy – their best Blow-Up Doll

She’s a gummy granny with a fanny and a real bum-hole

She’s my fornicating and fellating Blow-Up Doll.

I thought I’d better line her sweet vagina back at our hotel

But I overdid the lube with three full tubes of KY gel

When I went to grope she shot...

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We’re hoping to see you returning again

To give us your hard-earned bunce

So make sure that you gamble responsibly though

Don’t lose all your outlay at once.

The last thing we want for our business

Is a punter that goes to the wall

Depleting our customer numbers

And not good for cash-flow at all.

Our public position is “Take Control”

And “Gamble Responsibly” to...

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“John Coopey?”

“Yes. Can I help you?”

“Certainly, sir.  Would you mind stepping this way”

“I’m not with you.  What for?”

“It would be in your best interests to come quietly, sir.  We wouldn’t want to have to use the cuffs”

“Cuffs!?  What am I supposed to have done?”

“I’m afraid there’s been a complaint”

“About me ?  What complaint?”

“You are the John Coopey that posts on a ...

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A re-vamp of a George Formby classic tailored for Goole Open Mic next month.

Now I know I’m not handsome nor ever used to be

But the girls I like at Open Mic would not look twice at me

Now I see other fellas that’s as ugly as a frog

Holding hands with ladies in the hope they’ll get a snog

But if women like them like men like those

Why don’t women like me?

What can the att...

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I was watching that film with Kevin Costner the other night, “Dances with Wolves” when it occurred to me that Indian monikers (Red Indian, that is, not Asian Indian) hang on youthful vitality – “Runs with the Wind”, “Slayer of Bears”, “Popper of Pills” etc.

(As an aberrant departure from this train of thought I am perplexed by the dumping of “Red Indian” into the trash can marked “Political Cor...

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Well actually No.  It was “Days of Beer and Fags”.  My student days I’m talking about.

I was at Durham in the early 70’s where I “studied” Politics, among other things.

I’d applied to do History but asked as soon as I got there if I could swop to Philosophy and Politics.

“No problem” they said.

As it happens I failed the Philosophy 1st Year Exam.  Friends will no doubt find that astoni...

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(Written as I paid a visit there earlier this week.  Fellow old gits may recall The Temperance Seven's "Winchester Cathedral").

In Chester Cathedral

Bo-wody-o-do

I prayed for Ukraine,

Bo-wody-o-do

I prayed for the end of

Bo-wody-o-do

Their tears and their pain.

I lighted a candle

To end this insane

Blood letting and murder;

I prayed for Ukraine.

I...

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War!  Yeah.  Huh.

What is it Good For?

Absolutely Nothin’

Except for Boris Johnson.

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Whisper its name softly

And have some respect for the dying

Where once it was empty but boastful

It's now too weak to start trying

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We don’t need no Moderation

We don’t need no verse control

No literary prohibition

Exercised by Woke Patrol

Hey, Censor!  Leave our verse alone

The ghost of Mary Whitehouse stands guard over all.

Self-appointed, they defend us

Assiduous in moral toil

For fear a naughty word offend us

Which makes us all break out in boils

Hey, Censor!  Leave our verse alone

The...

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I was commissioned to write the theme tune for this franchise.  I was unsuccessful; they went for John Williams's "Hedwig's Theme".  No matter; I am comforted in the knowledge that mine was the far superior.  A second re-post (but you can't get enough of quality).

There was a girl that he adored

He planned to brag that he had scored

But we all know the bounder never got her;

He ne...

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It was my dad’s invention; leastways he never told me he’d heard of it some place else.

Picture a load of lousy rotten kids around a cake. 

How to cut it up so no-one complained they’d got a small piece?

Answer?  Fred’s Formula.

Kid No.1 is about to cut the first slice.

“Aha” you say, “the greedy little git will cut himself a big one”.

He might.

But enter Fred’s Formula.

“...

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You’ve seen this happen times before

You’ve read the script, you know the score

You know it’s coming once again

From Heung-min Son to Harry Kane.

The ever-present threat is there

It’s peril to ignore this pair

A quick glance up – the pass is on

From Harry Kane to Heung-min Son.

From England and from South Korea

Respect for them then turns to fear

Their curre...

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This was one of the formative experiences of my early years and compulsive viewing on the telly for kids of my age in the 1960’s.

It was a “sci-fi” featuring an American nuclear submarine (a super-sub before the days of Liverpool’s David Fairclough).  It was called Seaview, which always struck us as a bit odd; why call an American nuclear submarine after a B&B in Filey?

Anyway, despite not r...

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For Sale:

Two-bedroomed bungalow.  Town centre location.  Three downstairs rooms.  Small garden with its own Grade II listed building.

I expect prospective buyers would not anticipate the Grade II Listed building would be a public pissoire in their front garden.

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Endless, endless skies

Seas of rippling golden wheat

The yellow and blue

Shadrach and Meshach

Kharkov the new Babylon

Spirit doesn’t burn

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From this distance that post-Edwardian world seems locked in a time of slow serenity.

Privileged scholars in whites punting down the Cam

Horse-drawn carriages in sepia brown trotting down the Mall

Flat-capped men smoking outside the factory gates

Nothing could change their world.

And we?

We thumb our Playstations

Saunter around garden centres

Share the gossip at the sc...

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When war was fun. A re-post.

A chant I have not heard for almost 60 years.

Playtime was fun and frightening and formative at primary School.  It was a Boys School and play reflected that.

Ad hoc games of football were being played up and down and across the yard.  Picture Manchester United playing Manchester City at Old Trafford while Tottenham played Arsenal across the pitch and sev...

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It's never the wrong time for a delicately constructed villanelle.

I’m pretty sure it was them old Spam Fritters

From out the freezer – 6 months out of date

Which caused my present painful bout of squitters.

I hear your childish sniggers and your titters

While you make fun of something that I ate

I tell you though it must have been Spam Fritters

I’ve often eaten...

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For a long time now I’ve been more than comfortable with the targeted pop-up adverts thrown at me over the internet.  But whereas I once used to have my pick of Ukrainian beauties desperately seeking good-looking dudes like me for husbands, I now attract more age-related ads. – “Release Your Pension” and such like.

However I am even more appreciative of TV ads more recently doing the same.  Aft...

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Spectating on in impotence we wring our hands in vain

While patriotic blood will spill on soil of steppe and plain;

It’s left unto the partisans and Cossacks of Ukraine

To resurrect the ghost of Taras Bulba.

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I see you’ll all be taking more time off from work this June

For this you’re in Her Majesty’s debt

But now that I’m retired and don’t need to go to work

That’s another bloody day off I won’t get.

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To clear misunderstanding and pretence of false grandstanding

Let me state quite candidly I’ve got no time for cats;

If this your hopes should shatter I still think

“Cats’ Lives Matter”

And find myself on Tiddles’ side and not that other twat.

I saw it on the telly where some chap gave one some welly

He thought it was hilarious and gortled at his joke;

But it’s him I’d li...

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Critics of my many masterpieces have described them as "mere doggerel".  I disagree.  I aspire to "mere doggerel".

Come gather people wherever you roam

And admit that my parodies made you all groan

You’ve suffered them bravely and stifled your moans

But secretly felt they were mangy

But now I’m relenting; I’d like to atone

For my rhymes they are a-changin’.

The blogs...

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Lay me in this sacred cavern

By the softly surfing sea

Let that dank and distant whisper

Ease in me this fatal fire.

Tell the Beast I bear no malice

She and I are of one flesh

Mine to gorge the gulls and shore crabs

Hers to feed my bretheren.

Can you hear the Old Folk calling

From the shadows of the cave?

In the surf that swells the sea-shore?

In the crying of the ...

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I sat in a well-known coffee house today and conducted my own little survey while I supped mine of customers wearing masks as they entered.  Three wore them, 23 didn’t.

You can catch anything you want

At Alice’s Restaurant;

Signs placed on the entrance ask

“Kindly please wear your mask”;

These polite requests simply all fell flat

Customers that entered seemed to think “Fuck ...

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It’s all the rage these days – the outcry against bullying.  Everyone has stories of them being bullied; but no-one was a bully.  Curious that, isn’t it?

Well I was.

Don’t get me wrong, I was bullied too, but that’s not the entire thrust of this post.

Grammar school was a rich vein to mine for this.  “Quad-ing” some kid’s cap was an early example.  Second and third year boys would prowl t...

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I was 10 years old the last time.

I didn’t understand but my mam and dad were terrified.

It was Game Theory played out to perfection by the Kennedy brothers and, less commonly acknowledged, by Nikita Khrushchev.

At any rate, history records it as a “game”.  If the outcome had been different perhaps it would not be viewed as such – if, indeed, there were any of us left to have “history”.

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I used to try at Christmas Do’s

To sit beside some loser,

A woman who was desperate

With morals even looser;

With luck I’d get my end away

At worst that I might goose her.

These days I try to sit beside

A woman who’s much thinner

And if I manage this I’ll think

That I am on a winner;

Cos greedy sods like me all know

She’ll not eat all her dinner.

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I read about the bombings of civilians in Iraq

In Yemen or in Syria or similar attack

The carnage and the horror that rained down from overhead

Because, though, they weren’t English they were only slightly dead.

I well recall those Chinese workers who picked shells that day

Toiling for their gangmasters by light on Morecambe Bay

Who’d underestimate too late how fast the tide...

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This is dead boring.

I saw that film in ’59 that’s called “Some Like It Hot”

With Marilyn Monroe – pure movie gold;

But in the interests of diversity these days we’ve got

To recognise that there’s “Some Like It Cold”.

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It’s occurred to me recently how enormously impressive is the range in design of corkscrews.

I managed for years with a conventional one; one-pieced with a T-bar, as I still have on my penknife.

But now I may choose between those with a collar and side-arms, those which lever on the bottle’s neck or even those which inject gas to pop the cork out.  There’s the Raymond Blanc, the rechargeable...

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Who’s Sorry Now? Who’s Sorry Now?

Who tries to lie his way out any how?

Who ridicules we plebs and fools

By breaking his own laws and rules?

Is this the end? Shafted by friends?

Is this your terminal bow?

Run out of laughs? Too many gaffes?

Too late that you’re sorry now.

You hope and pray the facts that Sue Gray

Finds out about last May keep your exit away

“Why ...

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We trudged round Designer Outlet

A day full of dull misery

I’d sampled a few cups of coffee

Which meant that I needed a pee.

I nipped to the public convenience

And read all the ads on the wall

Avoiding the one on Viagra

(A bloke was in the next stall).

But then as I left the urinals

I heard from the Ladies next door

The sound of a Dyson Airblade

Making its motorise...

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To the sensibilities of our cossetted ears this was grisly business.  To those watching, though, this was a thing of glory – a glory greater than battle, glory which brought men close to the gods.

The Mace of Sol was older than the stories of the Old Folk – a thigh bone from a great beast, of which the Elders spoke but none could recall, for such beasts were no more.

The Mace was held high i...

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Young girl

Get outta my life

This royal scandal’s causing such strife;

I’m a toff, girl

Just bugger off, girl.

You say you met me when much younger,

When you were only 17

And when we danced together close I’d get

And dripped with sweat

You say that I should now come clean.

Young girl……….

You say I’m friends with Jeffrey Epstein

The allegation make...

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If you don’t believe the quacks,

Go ahead – don’t have the vaxx

And choose against sound common sense;

But choice, of course, has consequence;

Reference that Djokovic

Who’s going home –

          Yeah, life’s a bitch.

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It’s Me.

And I’m not talking about spiritual fulfilment or happiness or inner peace or any of that tree-hugging stuff.  I’m talking about money.

I say this because I cannot think of a single material thing I want, let alone need.

But let me put this into some context for you.

Yes, I have my own house, a car, caravan, take holidays when I want etc.  But this is only a fraction of my “pr...

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He worked the prison garden and always quite alone

For fear of those reprisals that prisoners deal their own;

He could not tell the police, the courts, for reasons had he none,

Not even to himself could he explain what he had done;

So vacantly he tends his plot and lives each day somehow

And nurtures his geraniums which are his babies now

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The archives have been deleted apart from January’s of each year. 

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