The People Who Run The Country Yeah, that’s right we’re the people who run the country and it’s our fault you don’t like what you see when you look in the mirror. We came into your bedroom last night and rearranged your teeth in your fucking mouth It’s our fault you don’t like your wife it’s our fault you don’t like your life why your team loses why your throat hurts It’s our fault it’s raining We’re the people who run the country So come blame it all on us A blend of thug and gentry But no sir, we ain’t out of touch Yeah that’s right It was us that pissed on your chips And we didn’t wash our hands just sung happy birthday twice for fun Happy Birthday to us And yes, we are having a party And no, you’re not invited So take your scabby placards and do one You stop the virus You save the planet We’re the people who run the country So come blame it all on us A blend of thug and gentry But no sir, we ain’t out of touch


Weekend People And look the clouds come down for the Weekend and the rain comes down for the weekend and the second home owners come down for the weekend stretching their backs from the long drive stretching their backs from the long week unloading London produce from their hybrid cars. Dealing with the dead locks. Smiling at the Aga. How exhausting it must be to have to have two of everything! No wonder they need this No wonder they need their weekend Aspiration’s not a crime Phil n Kirsty double time Smile smile, hide your scorn then when they’ve gone do a shit on their lawn then when they’ve gone do a shit on their lawn And back in town it’s one long queue for a turmeric latte an endless fish for change, a series of lost loyalty cards What will they cook for Kiera and Jeremy? who’s vegan? who’s gluten free this week? iphone pinned betwixt shoulder and ear on hold to BT for what seems like weeks there’s always something wrong with the wifi and nothing the woman is saying makes sense and then it clicks - they’re talking about different houses. Aspiration’s not a crime Phil n Kirsty double time Smile smile, hide your scorn then when they’ve gone do a shit on their lawn then when they’ve gone do a shit on their lawn And another week runs sobbing from the busy hands of the weekend and the second home owners are returning from London with a silicon baking tray a bag of beans from that roastery in Hackney and some existential angst they could do without because it’s been another bruising week for the left and our weekend people are liberals at heart they just don’t understand it the working class are voting the wrong way what happened to solidarity? Thank God they have their weekend But wait! What’s that on the lawn? Aspiration’s not a crime Phil n Kirsty double time Smile smile, hide your scorn then when they’ve gone do a shit on their lawn then when they’ve gone do a shit on their lawn

Black as Alexanders Ranting for the cheap seats twerking for the Royal Box being bled to lily on boards I just want something that will cover me up slip the night right over head like a hood I crave the good opinion of fools who doll out their likes like gongs narcissus staring, drooling in his pond at the ragged end of my complicity like film flapping in a projector I clutch the lectern at the lecture like an altar slurring like Churchill at Yalta hand on my holster at the volta poised on the threshold, ah but here I falter I just want to be good I just want to be good I just want to be good but bits of me are … black as alexanders black as alexanders seed black as alexanders black as alexanders seed ranting from the hedgerows reaping through the wastelands scything down these happy country lanes the night waits crouching like a jack-in-the-box and when its springs you won’t tell us apart but when I bury my head in the meadow of your breast i know the scent of wild flowers is the one that I like best and i don’t like to think of all the forests I’ve asphalted the metal that i have smelted and the creatures that i’ve pelted ah, but I’ve never felt this too much helter skelter i’m dizzy now and i’m begging for your shelter I know that I can be good I know that I can be good I know that I can be good when everything is … black as alexanders black as alexanders seed black as alexanders black as alexanders seed x2 a solid stem becomes hollow and grooved with age black as alexanders black as alexanders seed black as alexanders black as alexanders seed

Are Murmurations Worth it? Are Murmurations Worth it? Are they though? Are they really though? Only I’ve got a Rustler’s burger and a can of Monster and Celebrity Gogglebox is on. And I’m watching a video in which a man unboxes a box and I’m hoping there might be a another box inside the box They’ve got plugs on trains now and I’ve got a special battery. So it never has to stop. Like. Share. Like. Share. Share. Like. Like. Like. I’ve got Bombay Badboy down my top Gazing at my own naval’s a bit highbrow so I just stare at my own hairless bollocks. I’m gonna turn all the taps on, something to do, innit. God, I’m busy. I’m so busy. I need to get a new thing. I dunno what. Something. I need something. Pass me Amazon. What’s on sale? What’s good? Are murmurations worth it though? Are they though? Really? Only, Piers Morgan’s joined The Sun and I’m flat out “holding onto my screen.” What if it gives me a feeling? What if it’s like something I’ve not had before What if they soar hundreds of feet into the air, turn this way and that like a vast black kite, a billowing sail, a living lung that expands and contracts in the dying sun, then dive-bomb the marsh and cut through me like first love, like loss. And I’ve got to take a photo through his Aperol Spitz and type ‘The Boy Done Good” 40,000 times or that independent cafe won’t go bust. Terrible service. Waitress was fat. Seriously though, mate Peaky Blinders, mate. No, I’m an aromantic pansexual actually. It means I love nothing but I fuck everything. I’m gonna take a picture of that and send it to myself. But are they really though? Actually WORTH it? Only I’ve got mental health and I’m off to Turkey for some new tits. And these pyjamas double as a three piece suit so I don’t have to get dressed Every. Fucking. Morning. . Shut up, I’m drinking my breakfast. Careful of my sunnies they’ve got a whole computer in them that films all the nothing that I do. Months and months and months and months of nothing. What if it gives me a feeling? What if it’s like something I’ve not seen before What if they soar hundreds of feet into the air, turn this way and that like a vast black kite, a billowing sail, a living lung that expands and contracts in the dying sun, then dive-bomb the marsh and cut through me like first love, like loss. Anyway, it’s all on my stories didn’t you see it? I tagged ya. I’ve built an exact replica of my house on Minecraft and this weekend I’ve got to tidy it and then tidy my actual house, so are they worth it? Really actually, really worth it? What will it be? What will actually be? Is there an app? Can’t you just film it? What if it’s triggering? What if it’s transphobic? What if the birds inadvertently spell out: “I agree with Suzanne Moore” Will someone cancel me? Is that worth it? Will there be a smell? What if a tree give me COVID? Is it even vegan? Can we monetise it in some way? Ok, I’m only coming if I can be IN the murmuration. Like at the front of the murmuration. like I’m the main one. Otherwise the birds are just gatekeepers. Fascists gatekeepers. What if it gives me a feeling? What if it’s like something I’ve not seen before What if they soar hundreds of feet into the air, turn this way and that like a vast black kite, a billowing sail, a living lung that expands and contracts in the dying sun, then dive-bomb the marsh and cut through me like first love, like loss.

Keep My Wife’s Name I’m off to see a man about a defibrillator cos you stop my heart eight times a day When I look at you I see Menaleus in a whole new light Oh I’d launch a million ships Fuck off cruise liners with nuclear warheads Yeah, cos there’s something primal about all of this You peel off the centuries of civilisation [ keep my wife’s name out your fucking mouth ] I would conquer worlds for you (for you, for you) I would conquer worlds for you Now this is a story all about how You floored me with this crazy love, This lunar howl of love, Poetry spurting like blood One minute I’m Rimbaud Next I’m Rambo My quill the throat of a milk-faced waiter Your joy is my joy Your pain in my pain I want everybody in the house to know I came here tonight to hear the crowd go [ keep my wife’s name out your fucking mouth ] I would conquer worlds for you (for you, for you) I would conquer worlds for you I mean I am aware you never asked me to conquer a world for you You’re not Lady Macbeth Who incidentally was written by a man And Bonny Tyler’s holding out for a hero? Written by two men. Of course it fucking was Oh I would conquer worlds for you but I draw the line at therapy

Hawaii 89 Fuck me that pink, that peach! Slap it  on a cap that says Hawaii 89. It’s like sex on the beach exploding from a concrete cup. It flooded here last month. Poor Nick  was up all Christmas Eve just bailing out his bog. I brought him jam,  stood across his lake of lawn and called and called his name. The water in the fields is draining now, and you should see the green it’s left behind, oh man, in this light, it’s like felt. Fuck me that pink, that peach! Slap it  on a cap that says Hawaii 89. It’s like sex on the beach exploding from a concrete cup. Not long ago if you had leant  against my chest, your elbow  would have gone right through. Today I rapped it like a newly tiled wall, nah, that’s solid that is, yeah. I chase the sunset west, I want to get my greedy nose in it but as I leave the town it slips  behind the skeletons of trees.  I was so close.

Making Up The Numbers So it turns out I’m alright with bungalows and new builds Pop music and Richard Curtis I’ve tuned out my aesthetic snob in my head I just like being moderately warm and well fed When I was a young man I was very angry at the world And it was from this anger that I derived a moral superiority Oh, I thought that I had standards I didn’t have standards, I was just a prick Now … We’re just pleased to be here (making up the numbers) We’re just pleased to be here (making up the numbers) We’re just pleased to be here (making up the numbers) We’re just pleased to be here (we’re just pleased to be here) Right, so, I’ve started reading up about history In Roman Britain there as a bloke known as the Count of the Saxon Shore It was his job to protect the English coastline From the barbarian hordes From The Wash down to modern day Brighton Holding back the tides Pissing out a forest fire Trying to do a poetry recital at a rave I think about that guy a lot … Now … We’re just pleased to be here (making up the numbers) We’re just pleased to be here (making up the numbers) We’re just pleased to be here (making up the numbers) We’re just pleased to be here (we’re just pleased to be here) x 2 (Look at us, we don’t care) These days when I have an idea I do my level best with it Then send to mate Jim who makes the idea so much more We don’t argue about who did what bit But every few months or so we send each other a text saying “love your work” Now … We’re just pleased to be here (making up the numbers) We’re just pleased to be here (making up the numbers) We’re just pleased to be here (making up the numbers) We’re just pleased to be here (we’re just pleased to be here) x 2

Beachhead Millennials! Gather round and let my Insta Insights clock your age and social grade. Form yourself into a mob, the churning brick dust sea behind you, grey clouds swelling over head, and watch me clamber on this pillbox, its innards slick with litter, its purpose long forgotten. Hear me preach: click-click along to the sorrowful sermon I wept into my MacBook as Boris alassed nearby in a minimised window. We didn’t see it coming, did we? That we’d be bitching over pronouns as the structures of the state were duct-taped, cable tied and bundled in the boot. * But don’t pin it all on us. Blame Generation X and their Ottolenghi salads, their Grand Designs, and their noughties land grab of all the decent rundown seaside towns. Those bastards! Blame good design, capitulation to the colour wheel. Blame all this good living! It wasn’t our intention but we made being the good guys look like being the bad guys. O I dreamt of revolutions but I can’t be arsed to this rinse this carton out. I gawp at docs of Chinese peasants melting plastic down, recognise the brand names on the bags, CHORUS And now I wrap my compromise around my neck like a vintage scarf and take it for long walks around the one of the less fashionable run-down seaside towns and contemplate how it will go from here as Gen Z manufacture memes to mock our Hufflepuff humble brags and stupid skinny jeans. Of course our parents double-down on history they learned by rote, on how the Empire did such good. Just look at all those statues. There’s your truth! No one wants to admit they’ve been a dick their whole lives. What’s to stop them stepping round the bars of our manufactured rage. CHORUS x2 I took the rule book and I drew a cock and balls on it but never dared to rip it up. And now I shake the Etch-a-Sketch until my wrists ache as a 22 year old  who really actually doesn’t secretly think that skinny equals cool stares me down from an app I don’t fully understand with a simplicity I didn’t realise was permitted and asks me, straight out: Why didn’t you do something about all of this? While over at the corner table the Boomers puff on their Captain Tom ceramic bongs, and say: See, it’s complicated, isn’t it? It’s complicated, it’s complicated… CHORUS O I want stop and gaze at waves but all I see are dusty fighting pits and rings of baying punters waving wads; the sinewed muscles of the men, the pistons of their shoulder blades. O the crack of bone, the smell of blood!

Lale Has Not Turned Up For Work   He’s wake boarding with Taika Waititi. Him and Millhouse have got an all sugar Squishy Woah that’s good squishy, they say. Lale is picking his own strawberries in Dedham Vale with Dudley Sutton. He’s drinking milkshakes cold and long on a lilo watching a video of the new Apple watch being unboxed.  Lale and Lale’s friend Jill have made soup. The whole veg box in one go, even the swede. Lale has not turned up for work x4 Lale is in Turtle Bay, spunking his cash on sides Lale’s found a mint copy of Sgt Pepper on vinyl in Barnardo’s. Lale is halfway through Lindsay Anderson’s If - the boys are shooting up the school. Lale is refusing to listen to a Morrissey apologist: That joke isn’t funny anymore he says, tartly. He’s just put the top down. He’s the only car on the A35. He’s thought of a great band name: Pope Slap. Lale has not turned up for work x4 Lale is listening to the New Statesman podcast . Lale is laughing out loud. Welcome to the Jungle comes on. Lale is having a bubble bath. Lale is ordering  a new cock ring. Lale has not turned up for work. Lale is having goodbye sushi with Lily James at Victoria Station. No, it’s Waterloo, it always makes him think of the Bourne Ultimatum. They’ve got a stack of yellows. They just had yellows. To hell with the cost. Lale has not turned up for work x4 Lale is in the Norfolk Lavender fields reconnecting with his dad. I’m so glad  we did this, Lale. Yeah, me too, Dad. Me too. Lale slips his hand through the loop of his dad’s arm and his dad squeezes it against his quilted jacket till Lale can feel his rib cage. It feels warm and safe as the sun slides down the vast Norfolk sky in pinks and purples. Lale texts his boss a photo of the lavender in the gloaming. It’s so beautiful. It’s almost unreal.

Leave Me Will everybody leave me? Do I want them to? The opposite of addiction is connection I nicked that off Johann Hari but he won’t mind, he’s been there and you know what, maybe I’m all right just rattling: echoing one liners off walls of my own choosing. I think it’s time to rusticate my anxiety, that old muscle in my chest is way less squeaky of late perhaps I’ll get a few beers in sit on the sofa and watch some Yoga with Adrienne: a little bit of neck hygiene goes a long way… Will everybody leave me? Do I want them to? x 4 What we believe to be our best instincts are often our worse but this morning I only needed the one coffee I’ve begun to talk to myself a little more kindly I bought some new trainers, read an Instapoem. About 90% of shit can be fixed by a long walk so pass me that sou’wester, watch me shuffle beneath the rustle of the poplars fuck me those trees are keen they’re shooting up round here like school boys’ shins. Will everybody leave me? Do I want them to? x 4 How do you let go without giving up? Ah that’s the question, int it? I think it’s all in the feel, like finding the biting point or locating a vein, turning on a light in the dark, or knowing when to drop the bass.

Screensavers I board the red-eye clutching my coffee shooting off the bile from my bony little thumbs at dog-whistle pixels self-obsessed journos so fasten your seatbelts and stay something vile But it’s cosmic up above the clouds today I want to tumble through them it’s hard to think I’d fall to earth. And I want to write it down to make you see what I see I want to paint that scene but I cant’ I can’t I can’t Don’t try it at home, kids, you’ll only get an inbox full of instapoems stick with your regrets. Trying to make it beautiful won’t do you favours filling up the world with more screensavers Alexa, show me a beautiful view And it’s bad enough that I run from my trauma clutching these sheafs like loot from the vaults but my words are emojis when faced with this vista dismantle your cameras Cease you attempts Cos who cares about me anyway I’m a stain on this blue I’ve nothing to say I just want to submit I’m dissolving like an aspirin in the clear lake of the sky I’m dissolving like an aspirin in the clear lake of the sky Don’t try it at home, kids, you’ll only get an inbox full of instapoems stick with your regrets. Trying to make it beautiful won’t do you favours filling up the world with more screensavers Siri, play me music with emotion in it no, music with emotion in it A Tuscany village cut in the hillside an Aztec temple and all that New Zealand Art as a sedative art as a pick me up art as a bubble bath art as a snack Don’t try it at home, kids, you’ll only get an inbox full of instapoems stick with your regrets. Trying to make it beautiful won’t do you favours filling up the world with more screensavers Hey Google, play me The People Who Run The Country Nice.

We’re Back at the End Again Come and whimper, pot-bellied like a cuck scroll though everything you know you’ll never have. Picture your partner happy closing the door in your face let it loop like a gif. Your child being thrown in the air by the well-toned arms of better man, your drunk mother shitting herself at sports day. Go fixed-point gambling wank in the train toilets. Go on, it’s your birthday. Back, Back, Back at the End again x 2 Come, come on, meet me, there’s a Shell garage on the south circular a Burger King at Thurrock services a month of Tuesday evenings in November they’d be perfect. Let’s finger each other like fifteen year olds bash teeth with morning breath let’s talk about the sofas we’ll own in our 40s our dream sofas our forever sofas. Back, Back, Back at the End again x 2 Spend easter weekend with a dozen TV agents and some bloke you assume to be their dealer cheer up, Kit Harrington is on the One Show hasn’t he done well Look at Kit Harrington, he was in that thing, y’know, that thing Look at Kit Harrington. Plunder yourself for parts. Back, Back, Back at the End again x 2 So snap that elastic band in the post office queue at parent’s evening in the flickering gloom of the village film club. Julia Hartley-Brewer is here with her strap-on go on, you know you want to you can be your own optimism she’ll be … Julia Hartley-Brewer submit like you always do no one hates you, mate no one’s even noticed. Back, Back, Back at the End again x 2 It’s tailbacks for miles in both directions feel the heft of your gut, the spot on your pubis pull your ugliest face, look in the toilet bowl smell the panic seeping from your armpits submit to the sugar tax, keep on glugging that’s it, keep on glugging keep on glugging Run your tongue over your furry teeth picture yourself as a 4 year old squinting in the sunlight holding a spade so unspoiled, so sweet that’s it, that’s it, good boy weep. We’re the People Who Run The Country so come blame it all on us x 8 A blend of thug and gentry, but no sir, we’re not out of touch.