For all the aging punks . With apologies to Elvis Costello.

Oh I just don't know where to begin:

we don't want it forever

so it's now or never.

We should keep them hanging on

till the investors have gone

and make sure they can’t get in

without a police chaperone.

chorus:

Because accidents will happen

if we let the frackers win

and we’ll all be the vi...

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Yesterday

all my troubles seemed so far away

then Third Energy came to say

that my house sits on Bowland Shale. 

Suddenly

mine’s not half the house it used to be.

There's an earthquake rolling under me

triggered by Third Energy.

How they messed up so 

I don’t know

they did not say.

They did something wrong 

now a pong 

comes from the mains.

...

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I set off on a ramble through the Forest of Bowland

binoculars at the ready, a bird book to hand.

I hope to see some species that don't breed in the lowlands,

hen harriers and short eared owls, quartering the land.  

My list has pipits, crows and jackdaws,

grouse in surplus but no raptors.

I tick off golden plover, curlew and wheatear

but where are the skydancers? 

THEY'RE ...

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with apologies to Janis Joplin

Oh Lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz.

Ma friends are all truck drivers ah must make amends

by blowin' clouds of black smoke from ma supercharged back end.

Oh Lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz.

Oh Lord won't you fiddle me the exhaust test readin's down

so ah can poison ma neighbors as ah drive around,

belchin' nitrous oxide all a...

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June will be the end of May!

The 9th will be a celebration day.

We'll dance in the streets of the whole U.K.

Let's make June the end of May!

When she came no one expected

she'd hit us with a rock hard Brexit,

so show the lady to the exit.

Let's make June the end of May!

June will be the end of May!

We'll halt the NHS decay

and give the nurses proper pay.

...

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I scan the paper and I'm smitten
by a headline: someone's written
"The happiest place to live in Britain
is here in Harrogate."

I sip my fresh brewed Yorkshire Tea,
gaze at the Stray where glorious trees
ripple sedately in the breeze
and I wonder "What's so great?"

Every town surely has beds filled with flowers,
a grand Turkish Bath with a dome and towers,
mineral springs and clean w...

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Let's unite in peace and make a plan:
a wily plan of mutual respect
to counteract the hatred in this man.
Let's do everything he won't expect!

We won't let goads and bigotry divide us
- let's evoke what World War II has taught us.
Don't let's patronise - let women guide us
when he slights our mothers, sisters, daughters.

And when he flays the vulnerable with derision 
let's answer bac...

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