We hail Benjamin Zephyr Zodiac, a vibrant new voice for these troubled times

As my readership includes most of the frightfully busy people who run this country, I imagine that many of you miss out the comments section - you tend to speed-read my posts and extract the most sparkling gems of wit and wisdom for unattributed recycling during, say, cabinet meetings, weekends at Balmoral, or while being interviewed by that frightful Welsh tit on the Today Programme. Consequently, I have to draw the attention of the many movers and shakers amongst you to an exciting new literary talent who evidently speaks for modern Britain.



Benjamin Zephyr Zodiac, who posted the following poem as a comment on my recent item about FR Leavis and CP Snow (Frank and Chas, as they insisted I call them), may, one assumes, be a member of one of our many vibrant ethnic communities - but, as I am entirely colour-blind in all matters of race, I shall have to leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Whatever, this may just be the finest poem yet published this century - and I find it hard to believe that it will be superceded in terms of quality of writing or insight any time during the next nine decades:

FR Leavis, him a mighty clever man,
Him write de Common Pursuit with his very
own hand.
Got a wife called Queeny, she pretty smart too,
Dem don' tink much of de CP Snow.
Me tink dem great but wot do me know it,
Me specialism is de metaphysical poets,
Me like John Donne an' de Georgy Herbert
I meet dem down de pub for a couple of sherberts,
Fo me dey just like a couple of amateurs
Wid internal rhymes and Iambic Pantameters
Me own poetising is totally free,
Of form and shape and symmetry.
I like it that way cos it's too much bother
To make all de words rhymin' one to de other,
Me tink me gonna get de Nobel Prize,
Cos I totally de right shape, colour and size,
Nebber you mind dat me rhymes are shite,
Me gwonna pick up de Booty all thru de nite
In a Babylon, Rass Claat.

I'll happily admit to having to wipe away a tear or two after first reading "FR Leavis, him a mighty clever man". I know I will be returning it to often for solace during the next three years, or however long it takes to get a genuinely radical, progressive government back in power.

Thank you, Benjamin, for so honouring this blog. Don't the about the Nobel Prize - I'm pretty sure Secretary-Generalship of the UN beckons.

Let me end by persoinally apolgising for slavery in general and British racism in particular. We are all to blame, in a very real sense - some (such as myself) less than others.