Time to Go

 

 

Hastings Miniature Railway

 

We used to clutch our tiny sides at the thought of aging French rockstar Johnny Hallyday still strutting around in tight leather trousers.  But, alas, here in the UK we seem to have more than our fill of aged singers refusing to quit the limelight.  There's something quite sinister about Cliff Richard or Paul McCartney as their increasingly wizened faces loom in the spotlights.  (For the record, they're both older than "Johnny" as he's affectionately known in France.)  It's time to leave the stage, gents, and spend more time with your family.

 

The same goes for some of the radio presenters.  I've gone on enough about Radio 4, which is now a temple to boredom.  But I've indulged myself in a little diatribe against John Humphrys, who could, for my money, get a oneway ticket to almost any destination other than Hastings, on a train larger than the one in the picture above.  Here it is - I shall have to amend the stanza about horsemeat, since it looks increasingly as if he may be right on that one, though I hate to admit it.

 

 TIME TO GO

It’s time that you went, John Humphrys –

we’ve heard you on the radio long enough.

Your interviewing skill

is now an urge to kill.

You obviously get kicks from being tough.

 

It’s time that you retired, John Humphrys –

your hindsight and your preachiness can go –

"You could have” and “You would have”

and “Don’t you think you should have”,

“Don’t tell me that you didn’t even know.”

 

It’s time you left the air, John Humphreys.

We want to eat our muesli and our toast

without your needling questions

or your snide oblique suggestions

that there’s foreign horsemeat in our Sunday roast.

 

It’s time to leave the floor, John Humphrys,

and let some younger people run the show.

We’ve heard you put the boot in

to Nick Clegg and Mr Putin

but aggression’s had its day, so now please go.

 

It’s time you said good-bye,  John Humphrys –

you’ve covered news since Mikhail Gorbachev

- the cold war, the tsunami,

defence cuts to the army,

Conservative conspiracies

and ministers’ periphrases

devolution, revolution,

convolution, involution:

we’ve heard it all, it’s time to turn you off.

 

Antony Mair