The Gove of Academe
Here are the facts as they’re written;
Please would you parrot them back –
The whole world is covered by Britain;
The globe is all Union Jack.
If you stand on the moon and see Earth
As it turns on its axis in space,
You will see that’s British by birth
And see the John Bull on its face.
There’s never been anything else
Since the dawning of time and before it:
Merely Saxons, a handful of Celts,
And our history. Do not ignore it.
Ours is the land that is real;
Ours is the numinous nation.
We invented the cheese and the wheel,
The ship, and the hip operation.
God took a handful of light,
And, feeling a little bit skittish,
Invented us all overnight,
And praised us as perfectly British.
So that’s what you’ll learn every term,
From this carefully hand-written list.
We’ve been fair, and we’ve also been firm.
What, ‘Europe’? It doesn’t exist.
Click here for a Guardian story.
Click here to buy Bill’s poetry collection Ringers
Click here to order Philip Seargeant and Bill Greenwell’s From Language To Creative Writing
