Jim Hopkins: Poet laureate wakes up long enough to mark the season

We haven't heard much from the extinguished poet laureate, Mr Jam Hipkins, lately. Partly because he's come down with a terrible case of SNOOS, which is similar to OOS (the ACC's abbreviation for occupational overuse syndrome) although the difference between OOS and SNOOS is that with OOS you get sore wrists when you've been working but with SNOOS you just fall asleep before you've even started.

That's certainly reduced the laureate's output, as this 20-page epic sadly confirms:

Land of hype and Judy, Mother of Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

"Jam! Wake up, you're dribbling on the keyboard!"

Oddly enough, such pre-post-retro-wry-ku is very popular with the Disincentivists, who have replaced the Deconstructivists as the heavyweights of literary criticism. But, having said that, most people think it's piffle. Which brings us, by the most serendipitous happenstance, to the second reason for the laureate's absence. The curmudgeonly old curmudgeon is in a state of high dudgeon. Yup, he's got his nose out of joint and his joint up his nose and he's basically about as happy as Brian Tamaki at a same-sex love-in.

What's caused this lauratorical angst is a seemingly innocent quote from Iraq's National Security Adviser, Mr Mouwafek al-Rubale, which appeared in last Saturday's Weaken'd Harold.

Mr all-Rubble was rather critical of the poems that former despotical personage, Mr Saddam Hussein, has been writing while languishing in jail.

"I can tell you one thing," he said, "they're really the most rubbishy poems on Earth."

Well, the laureate's livid. He's furious that someone else may have written "the most rubbishy poems on Earth," even if it is old Saddy-pops. As in:

MESSAGE TO SANTA

What gifts have you got in your bag, Dad?
What presents have you got for me?
I'd like to get back what I had, Dad
In the year 2000 and 3
So please give me back my tyrannical rule
Give me control of the nation
But if I can't have that, could you
Please give me that nice lawyer Tony Ellis
To arrange for some nice compensation?

Any way you slice it, that is diabolical. Indeed, no less a figure than noted author B.E.D. Stead has described it as "cats'n doggerel", which has caused the laureate greta despair.

Having striven to produce the world's most rubbishy poems, he's shattered to see such accolades heaped upon "some nit-ridden nitwit from Babble-on." (Ohhh, they take their feuds seriously, these literary types.)

So, in an effort to reclaim the crown, Mr Hipkins has (angrily) submitted a selection from his joyous, new age collection celebrating yuletide in PCiwiland,

WE WISH YOU A CIVIL CHRISTMAS
(Certainly, this eco-friendly version of the traditional song should appeal to the Green Leader of the Joints, Jeanette Fitzdonald.)

O, jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Causing noise pollution
Through the night and day
O, jingle bells, jingle bells
Causing such a fuss
We should pass a law to make
Santa catch a bus

Quite right, sir! Keep that up and you'll rocket to the bottom. Here's two more transport tunes:

You'd better not pout, you'd better not cry
You'd better shout, I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town
He's just past Pukekohe, along the motorway
So, with any luck, he should be here
By next Wednesday. Oy!
Rudolf the lead-foot reindeer
Was pinged for going 60k
So no one has their presents
'Cepting up in Whangarei

And something for all those chemically challenged Auckland home-owners:

God rest ye merry gentlemen,
The future's not so grim
Since dear old Mayor Dick Huckerd said
He'd tidy up your LIM
He's going to purge all ref-er-ence
To what may have been sprayed
And so your house will now be worth
Heaps more than you paid!!

CHORUS:
We wish you a Methyl Christmas
We wish you a Methyl Christmas
We wish you a Methyl Christmas
And a HASNO New Year.

It's time for the laureate's tribute to our very own $800,000 woman:

Deck the halls with loads of lolly
Tra la la la la, la la la la
I get more than Paul, how jolly!
Tra la la la la, la la la la
And, what's more, it's really tellin'
Tra la la la la, la la la la
I get paid much more than Helen
Tra la la la la, la la la la

This is seriously bad stuff. And so are our last examples. C'mon. Sing along:

I saw Daddy kissing Santa Claus
Underneath the civil-toe last night
And my other Daddy said
As he stroked my Daddy's head
"Hey! Civil Unions are al-right!!"

Finally, in conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, one final ballad which should conclusively prove that it's our man, not Saddam, who can proudly claim the world's most rubbishy poems title. Merry Christmas, one and all. Like the old song says:

Christmas is coming
And the geese are getting fat
And none of us can have a smoke
And that's the end of that.