"May to meet Merkel and Macron for talks"

... is the shortened version of the headline to this article on the BBC's front page.

Which scans like the first line of (something like) a limerick:

May to meet Merkel and Macron for talks,
All on a cold April day.
The plan is well scripted - when one of them walks,
She will ask for a further delay.

A word doesn't rhyme with itself (2)

Opinions are sharply divided over whether a word rhymes with itself (it's as futile as arguing whether 1 is a prime number or not).

IMHO it does not, it is the height of laziness and defeats the whole object of poetry/rhymes. A really crass example of this is The Gambler by Kenny Rogers. OK, OK, it's taken me forty years to notice.

From azlyrics.com:

Verse one
On a warm summer's evening, on a train bound for nowhere
I met up with a gambler, we were both too tired to sleep

Verse five (or is it a chorus? There's barely a difference):
'Cause every hand's a winner, and every hand's a loser,
And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep.

Verse six
And when he finished speakin', he turned back toward the window
Crushed out his cigarette and faded off to sleep

Fun Online Polls: Our next PM & The Chilcot Report

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Please indicate the ones you would definitely NOT like to see as Prime Minister.

Leadsom, Andrea 42 votes
Gove, Michael 61 votes
Fox, Liam 82 votes
Crabb, Stephen 94 votes
Smith, Owen 103 votes
May, Theresa 107 votes
Corbyn, Jeremy 116 votes
Eagle, Angela 122 votes

Total 166 voters

Just goes to show that 'exaggerating' on your CV doesn't do you any harm. And being the most rabid Home-Owner-ist of the lot counts as a plus.
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Chilcot: The Daily Mash and Newsthump responded with satire, Nick Drew responded in rhyme.

So that's this week's Fun Online Poll:

"Which of the following revelations in the Chilcot report were NOT blindingly obvious back in 2002 or 2003?"

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Benjamin Netanyahu makes a fair point.

Poor old Bibi was being wildly misquoted on the basis of the normal level of exaggeration you would expect from a politician playing to a particular gallery.

If you read the actual text of his recent speech, you can see it was just a bit of hyperbole not central to anything. You also get this bit of poetry:

The sixth lie is that the reason we have this increase is not only a surge in settlements, it’s the stagnation in the peace process.

Well, some of the worst terrorism that Israel has experienced in its history occurred when the peace process was at its peak.

We’ve had terrorism when there was a peace process. We’ve had terrorism when there was no peace process.

We’ve had terrorism when there was an Israel. We’ve had terrorism when there was no Israel.

We’ve had terrorism when there were settlements. We’ve had terrorism when there were no settlements, when we didn’t even control Judea and Samaria.

The real reason we have this terrorism is not because the terrorists are frustrated in the peace process. They’re frustrated because there’s a State of Israel and that frustration will continue.

Even though we'll have to mark him down for the slight contradiction about there being terrorism (by Arabs against Jews, presumably) before the State of Israel existed, and then saying that terrorism will continue as long the State of Israel exists.

National Poetry Day

Reading a bit about this and the BBC thing. It occurs to me that we kinda dropped poetry when recorded music came along and you could have songs on demand from your gramophone/tape deck/CD player/iPod/iPhone. Leonard Cohen was a poet who became a singer/songwriter. In an earlier age, he would have been a poet.

Of modern stuff, I like John Cooper Clarke's stuff, but it's all in the delivery (Not Safe for Work)

Overkill!

From The Daily Mail:

Only way to stop a heifer, do it good and loud,
So painful, can't believe it, shot at by the crowd,
Don't spare it, get it back to you,
Don't spare it, get it back to you,
Overkill, Overkill, Overkill

On your feet you feel the bullet, goes straight to your spine,
Shake your head you will be dead if it hits you in the eye,
Don't spare it, get it back to you,
Don't spare it, get it back to you,
Overkill, Overkill, Overkill

Know your body's full of lead, you feel it in your guts,
Armed police ain't worth the name if not completely nuts,
Don't spare it, get it back to you,
Don't spare it, get it back to you,
Overkill, Overkill, Overkill

Post-ironic haiku for the new age of customer service

At Blue Eyes. Truly exquisite.

"And still the falling rain"

I finally got round to buying the first Black Sabbath album on CD yesterday (long story), the enclosed booklet includes the sleeve notes from the original gatefold album cover, which really set the bar very high for subsequent decades of Goth-schlock horror pretentiousness:

Still falls the rain, the veils of darkness shroud the blackened trees, which, contorted by some unseen violence, shed their tired leaves and bend their boughs towards a grey earth of severed bird wings. Among the grasses, poppies bleed before a gesticulating death and young rabbits, born dead in traps, stand motionless as though guarding the silence that surrounds and threatens to engulf all those that would listen.

Mute birds, tired of repeating yesterday's terrors, huddle together in the recesses of dark corners, heads turned from the dead, black swan that floats upturned in a small pool in the hollow. There emerges from this pool a faint sensual mist, that traces its way upwards to caress the chipped feet of the headless martyr's statue, whose only achievement was to die too soon and who couldn't wait to lose.

The cataract of darkness forms fully, the long black night begins, yet still, by the lake a young girl waits, unseeing she believes herself unseen. She smiles faintly at the distant tolling bell and the still falling rain"

It's a blinding album though, certainly one of the best albums of all time. Apparently it was recorded and mixed in two days.