LAUGHING MATTER.

There’s Drax and Eggborough and Ferrybridge
Growing power in a row of stations arrow
Straight along the 62, following the rail links,
Well, what few remain. And they’re sitting
There because of easy access to those fields
They told us would hold coal for centuries,
And still do; only they’re unfashionable today
And full of fumes. We’re currently importing it
You know, and it’s funny how it was VAT
Free to do so before 1990, but isn’t now,
And will soon be brought from China no doubt,
Who already burn enough to block out their
Great Wall from space. It looks like our Arthur
May have been right all along when striking on.
And where has our metal gone? That stainless
British steel forged out of Sheffield and its
Boundaries; run down by commitments to a
Common foundry, where else, and sold off piece
By piece to Indians and Fins and Netherlanders,
Leaving us reliant upon Germany and Sweden
And other peoples inclined to cherish their
Resources more than us. Still we’ve got our beer
And our sheep and fertile land that’s left asleep
Each other year, and southerners who say it’s grim
Up here, though friendlier, as they buy another
Slice and complain about the prices they’ve inflated.