Whatever Happened to Greengage Jam?

It came to me
Quite suddenly,
As I lay in my bed –
That wholesome taste
That one-time graced
Our slices of white bread.
Rich and sweet,
‘Twas quite a treat
But, like the Dublin tram,
It’s had its day,
Gone on its way –
The pot of greengage jam.

Look on the shelf
In shops yourself,
There’s jams of every flavour.
Kiwi, plum,
Chrysanthemum,
To sample and to savour.
Blue ones, red ones,
Hard-to-spread ones,
Elderflower and yam.
Oh yes, there’s lots
Of jars and pots,
But not of greengage jam.

When did they stop
This luscious crop?
Quite sudden, or in stages?
Did harvests fail
Through snow and hail?
What happened to greengages?
Was there a coup
In Katmandu?
A putsch in Surinam?
Is civil war
The reason for
The lack of greengage jam?

This wondrous fruit
Of great repute
Just vanished when we blinked.
One day, ‘twas here.
The next, I fear,
It must have gone extinct.
The IFA
Has naught to say,
It shuts up like a clam.
Oh, was it weeds,
Or foul, foul deeds,
Snuffed out our greengage jam?

Whate’er the cause,
It’s time to pause,
And doff our caps with piety,
And bow the head
To mourn the spread
That’s lost unto society.
Technology
Means naught to me,
You can’t eat texts or spam.
It’s quite a cost
That we have lost
The taste of greengage jam.

East West Relations

The lovely Olga Sornov
Was the archetypal spawn of
The new, evolving Muscovite society.
She popped pills as big as Smarties
At the summer season parties
And she chose her lovers with great impropriety.

The blond and wealthy Olga
Had a dacha on the Volga,
With a butler and some horses in the stables,
And a wardrobe quite gigantic
Full of fashions transatlantic,
With all the very best designer labels.

But the Russian winter season
Is both party-less and freezin’,
And Olga did not need her social diary.
So she tried to get a visa
For Los Angeles and Pisa
But the Government rebutted her enquiry.

But then a circus came a-touring,
Which young Olga found alluring,
A cowboy circus all the way from Texas,
In which they rounded up some cattle,
And then staged a Wild West battle,
With an arrow piercing Custer’s solar plexus.

But the hero of this catchy
Little show was an apache,
Yes, Johnny Shotgun was a true blue Injun.
He was brave and lion-hearted,
Jet-black hair so neatly parted,
Performing feats of daring without whingein’.

And when Olga Sornov saw him
Cut the cowboys down before him,
She knew at once this was her opportunity
To exchange her frozen palace
For a mansion out in Dallas,
And therefore she pursued him with impunity.

Well, to shorten this long story,
And avoiding details gory,
Olga was successful in her venture,
Though some spiteful tongues quite snidely,
Whispered loudly, whispered widely,
That Johnny must have suffered from dementia.

They were married in St. Basil’s,
Where the architecture dazzles,
And Olga Sornov-Shotgun she became.
And the newly-hyphenated
New American now stated
“I always liked a double-barrelled name.”

An Uplifting Experience on the Way to Work

Listeners to the Creedon Show were asked to write in with "an uplifting experience on the way to work"

I leave the house at half past six,
Replete with tea and Weetabix,
And with a certain soupcon of self-pity.
Half-dazed I drive down country lanes,
Towards the tower blocks and cranes
That dominate the skyline of the city.

To keep myself awake, I note
Each fur and blood-bespattered coat
That contrasts with the enervating greenery.
There’s mice and cats and rats and crows
All laid out flat in sweet repose
To point accusing fingers at machinery.

The radio compounds the mood
With news of yet another feud,
And tragic stories all in quick succession.
And, as I near my place of work,
The car-horns seem to go berserk,
By which time I’m suffused by deep depression.

But, in the car park, I take stock
And gaze up at my tower block,
And rays of sunshine blow away the thunder.
It’s time now, near my journey’s end,
To go inside and then ascend
The famous Elevator of Great Wonder.

It’s spanking new, this tower block.
The lift, though, is an ancient crock
That once adorned an Eastern bloc apartment.
And every morning, squashed inside,
We take the feared white-knuckle ride
Up to the lofty inventory department.

Many people just can’t hack it,
Say it makes a fearful racket,
Others simply can’t abide the shaking.
But though our faces all turn white,
We clench our teeth and hold on tight,
And listen to the sound of stomachs quaking.

Penned in, like a herd of cattle,
Up and up and up we rattle,
Like a ride in Disneyworld, Orlando.
And yes, you’re right, there’s always one,
Pretending it’s firm ground he’s on,
Cool and unconcerned like Marlon Brando.

But most of us become alive,
As we ascend to ‘twenty-five’
With cobwebs blown away in violent fashion.
We pour out of the buckled door
Into the welcome corridor,
All ready to start working with a passion.

The ride in this demonic lift
That brings us to the twenty-fift’
Is borne by all our team quite resolutely.
To reach our goal and still survive
Makes sure we start the day alive.
An uplifting experience? Absolutely!

AA Roadwatch Part 3

He sat there in the traffic jam.
Oh God! His blood was boiling.
Before his eyes the red mist swam,
His engine needed oiling.

He hadn’t moved for half an hour,
Around him cars stood static.
Expression menacing and dour,
His fury was emphatic.

Beside him, in this ghostly scene,
Unfathomable and hellish,
A taximan began to clean
His outsized nose with relish.

The traffic light turned back to red
Way, way off in the distance.
He smote his fist against his head
And questioned God’s existence.

The flames of hell were once described
Long, long ago by Dante,
But Dublin gridlock, thus prescribed –
It really ups the ante.

Then, just as he’s about to burst,
And lose the plot completely,
A Navan accent, well-rehearsed
Comes tripping o’er him sweetly.

“There’s queues five miles from Carlow Town,
In Cahir, the traffic’s crawling.
In Waterford, the bridge fell down,
And Arklow is appalling.

‘The traffic lights are stuck on red
In Galway city centre.
The Jack Lynch Tunnel’s blocked, it’s said,
And not a car can enter.

‘In Cavan, hail and hurricanes
Have caused some road subsidence,
A landslide’s blocking several lanes –
Police are seeking guidance.

‘There’s spiders on the road in Naas,
Giraffes in Termonfeckin,
Traffic’s at a snail’s pace
Because of rubber-neckin.’”
Entranced he sat, spellbound by such
A ducet Navan accent,
His anger melted by its touch,
A spoken-word relaxant.

“Who cares about this curséd jam?”
He asked himself the question.
“Do I really give a damn
About this great congestion?

‘Why worry if your gasket breaks?
Why bow to apoplexy?
For Nicola Hudson even makes
The traffic news sound sexy.

‘She’s like a wet cloth on your brow,
A pint in scorching weather,
A swishy tail upon a cow,
Or all of them together.

Oh yes, the folly of my ways
Sweet Nicola has shown me.
And now the flames no longer blaze,
And nevermore will own me.”

Thus becalmed, with peace anew,
Plucked from the fires of Hades,
He ploughed serenely right into
The back of a Mercedes.

AA Roadwatch Part 2

A lorry on the motorway
With sixteen tons of fruit
Overturned dramatically
Whilst heading for Maynooth.

Into the resulting mess
A sugar lorry slammed.
Police put out a warning that
The motorway was jammed.

AA Roadwatch

Just outside the big school gates,
The accident occurred.
A little girl came off her skates,
So local people heard.
A tricycle came trundling by
And sadly failed to stop.
The driver kept his gleaming eye
Upon the ice-cream shop.
Calpol, Calpol, everywhere
Flowed from an upturned pram.
A boy with Marmite in his hair
Then added to the jam.
Local infants playing chase
Were tripped up in a flash,
And soothers strewn about the place
Caused three year olds to crash.
The mayhem was made more complete
When Mister Wippy called.
Several tots fell in the street
And uniformly bawled.
The hopscotch game was smeared with blood,
That like a river flowed.
The Gards in Limerick say you should
Avoid the Childers Road.

The Ballad of a Thwarted Pip

Some imitated Elvis, with the sideburns and the swagger,
Some grew their hair like Lennon, while some others favoured Jagger,
But me? I wasn’t very good at curling up my lip,
And so, from quite an early age, I yearned to be a Pip.

When me mam went out, I would push back the kitchen table,
Pretending I’d been signed up to the Motown Record label.
Gladys Knight on 45 would really let it rip,
And I’d be there behind her, doing vocals like a Pip.

I’d hear those sweet sounds coming down, and ‘cross the floor I’d glide,
Getting paid for staring at Queen Gladys’s backside.
In practised choreography, I’d wave my arms and skip,
Me sister in hysterics, as I tried to be a Pip.

I didn’t fancy carpentry, I wouldn’t be a plumber,
Completely unimpressed with selling ice-creams in the summer.
My teacher, looking worried, said I ought to get a grip,
And doubted I’d the qualities to make it as a Pip.

Possibly he had a point – for one thing I was white.
I had no sense of rhythm and my harmonies weren’t tight.
With glasses and mad acne, sure, I didn’t look too hip,
But still I held on to the dream that I’d become a Pip.

They knew that they had made it when they went to Motor City,
With records like “The Friendship Train” and also “Nitty Gritty.”
Her backing group weren’t quite in tune, but that was just a blip,
Their reputation would improve, when I became a Pip.

I bought the suit and shoes, so I’d be ready to impress,
And scoured the personal columns of New Musical Express.
I’d only get a single chance, I mustn’t let it slip.
Oh boy, would Glad be glad, when I applied to be a Pip!

Gladys’ star was rising, she was hailed in speech and prose,
But though I checked the ads each week, no vacancy arose.
It seemed as though she ran a very tight and loyal ship,
And I became quite doubtful that I’d ever be a Pip.

Vandellas? They just came and went, they dropped away like flies,
And every week I read about a Miracle’s demise.
But Gladys’ bum had some strange hold, I heard somebody quip,
For no-one that I heard of, ever ceased to be a Pip.

And then one day, I heard the news – a Pip was down with flu,
I bought my airline ticket, and I soared into the blue.
I didn’t have a second thought about the mammoth trip-
At last! This was my destiny! My chance to be a Pip!

But in the space of time it took to fly from coast to coast,
I heard a jumped-up wannabe had pipped me to the post.
The news cut me up badly like the flailing of a whip,
And I vowed that I’d get even with that interloping Pip.

I followed them around the States, with vengeance on my mind.
A woman scorned had never felt such fury unconfined.
My shoulder nearly buckled, as I carried round that chip
Of how I had been thwarted in my hopes of being a Pip.

And thus I say, Your Honour, I am guilty of this crime
Of putting powdered laxative in this man’s rum and lime.
So lead me out in manacles, and tear me off a strip –
I did it all for Gladys, and the dream of being a Pip.

On the Feast of St. Pancake

On the feast of St. Pancake, the kids push and shove,
And my wife is most cynically flattered.
They crowd round the mixture with eyes full of love,
And if spilt, then the whole lot get battered.

Some prefer sugar and some go for jam,
Preferring the sickly sweet filling.
I ought to have lemon, but sadly I am
Afflicted by taste-buds unwilling.

Each year we agree that this annual fare
Should be much more often repeated.
But our greatest intentions turn into despair,
And our quest for more pancakes defeated.

Each year we converse about pancakes of yore,
And examine each other’s traditions.
The difference between us then comes to the fore,
When viewed from respective positions.

She always had pancakes instead of her dinner,
While we hungry hippos had both.
Which kind of explains why my wife’s so much thinner,
And I am afflicted by sloth.

Keep the Lid On

If you do not put the lid upon the teapot,
Surprisingly, the tea will not stay hot.
Of this, there is no doubt,
The laws of science bear this out,
For all the heat escapes out of the pot.

And if there is no lagging in your attic,
The heat will all escape out of the roof.
To turn the boiler way up high
Will merely serve to heat the sky –
A physicist will offer ample proof.

Those fortunate enough to own a coupé,
Never leave the top down when it’s freezing,
For the wintry weather numbs
Feet and nose and ears and thumbs,
While the roof maintains a temperature that’s pleasing.

So use a little logic in cold weather,
When ice has frozen up your welcome mat,
For the remedy is clear
When it’s Baltic over here,
Go out and buy yourself a woollly hat.

Help!!

Valentine's Day again...

I knew I was in trouble from the moment I awoke,
Being such an unresponsive, unromantic bloke,
The soppy songs and sentiments all seem to touch a nerve,
Fancy having one whole day devoted just to lerve!

I came to work this morning like a jumpy, nervous sparrow,
Nervous, nay, quite petrified of Cupid’s fateful arrow.
Like a soldier under heavy fire, I had to dodge and swerve,
To get to my employment, quite unscathed by heavy lerve.

They’re all around us, everywhere, those big, red hearts and kisses,
The fulsome dedications to your husband and your missus.
Unashamed and unabashed, they shout their thoughts with verve,
Pitifully afflicted by this crazy thing called lerve.

The heart is such a marvellous thing, it serves to keep blood flowing,
It’s big and red and squishy and it helps to keep us going.
Beyond that brief description is the medical preserve –
Even famous surgeons cannot come to grips with lerve.

I don’t know much about it, they say ignorance is bliss,
Imagine all the smelly germs you get from one short kiss.
They say the art of romance is a long, slow learning curve –
I’d fail Foundation Level in the Junior Cert of Lerve.

I know I should have stayed in bed, avoided all the vehement
Bunnikins and Squidgeypants, and such terms of endearment.
I suppose these poor romantic fools all get what they deserve,
But must the rest of us endure this overdose of lerve?