Not the 8.30 News: Episode 7 – the Anna Ford Capri take back control one

A news medley this week…

Westminster Disunited sack their out of form defender Nadhim Zahawi for picking up too many penalties.

The Andrew formerly known as Prince on those Daily Telegraph claims it was “too small” to frolic with Virginia Giuffre.

British motor manufacturers launch four post Brexit models to boost UK car production.

And Michael Gove records a cover version of the Rod Stewart classic Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?

All this and more on the Internet’s slowest growing satirical show. First screened on the Big Live Breakfast Burrito – the only way to start your business Thursdays over on LinkedIn Live from 0745 UK time most weeks.

Not the 8.30 News: Episode 6 – the Nadhim Zahawi Busted one

In a week of political uncertainty about the future of the former British chancellor and Tory party chairman, Nadhim Zahawi, we have exclusive news of a potential move into showbiz.

Our correspondent, Jeremy PacMan, reports live from Downing Street on this, the Internet’s slowest-growing satirical show.


First screened on the Big Live Breakfast Burrito – the only way to start your business Thursdays over on LinkedIn Live from 0745 UK time most weeks.

Not the 8.30 News: Episode 5

On the Internet’s slowest-growing satirical show this week… New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, shows British leaders the stylish way to resign.

Rishi Sunak and Nicola Sturgeon get caught in a sex change mix up.

Plus boxing promoter, Don King, signs two total lightweights for a fight he hopes will rival the Rumble in the Jungle and the Thrilla in Manila.

And exclusive pictures of Prince Harry’s new book Remaindered with right royal revelations even more mind numbing than Spare.

Your guest newsreader is Peter Scissorhands. First screened on the Big Live Breakfast Burrito – the only way to start your business Thursdays over on LinkedIn Live from 0745 UK time most weeks.

Not the 8.30 News: Episode 4

On the Internet’s slowest-growing satirical show this week… Mick Lynch, fresh from his barnstorming performance as General Secretary of the National Union of Rail Workers, stars as James the Red Engine in “Thomas & Enemies: All Engines Stop” – a not so chuffing reboot of the children’s classic.

Plus British politicians stop working and the country starts working. Is it a case of tools downing tools?

And amid Rishi “Where’s Wally” Sunak’s plans to make maths lessons compulsory up to the age of 18, we’ve got exclusive access to an exam board’s test questions.

First screened on the Big Live Breakfast Burrito – the only way to start your business Thursdays over on LinkedIn Live from 0745 UK time most weeks.

Not the 8.30 News: episode 3.

On the Internet’s slowest-growing satirical show this week… news of new line up for The Grand Tour without Jeremy Clarkson. British politicians do a Donald in an attempt to trump Trump at cards. And how the Bank of England got the wrong King Charles on its new £20 note. Oh and a short item about briefs. Or maybe a brief item about shorts. Whatever.

Not the 8.30 News: Episode 2 – the Crap for Carers one with Sir Robin Day Job

The second episode of Not the 8.30 News – the internet’s fastest growing and not-at-all derivative satirical current affairs show. With digs this week at the Health Secretary, Steve Barclay, the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, the Justice Secretary, Dominic Raab, and, for that penalty miss, Harry Kane.

The elephants in the room

It was billed as an evening of music and words. And because it was being held at the Chang Thai bar in Ludlow with its Buddhist kitsch decor, was called The Elephant in the Room.

What the organisers hadn’t reckoned on was a bunch of boozy builders on a pre Christmas night out rolling in just before the first poetry reading. Elephants in the room. Plural.

I don’t think the landlord was down as a performer. But he got the first line: “Don’t be a prick in my pub” he said whilst simultaneously pulling a pint.

The second line fell to the poet, Gareth Owen, reading his piece about a Western gunslinger with a Virgilian theme. He may have said Virginian theme. Sixties television, Shiloh Ranch and all that. But we couldn’t be sure as the shushes and the shut-that-doors ricocheted off the walls when some of the posse went out for a smoke and others came back in.

And then something magical happened. The words began to register. Maybe it was the meter. The narrative. Or all three. As one by one the lads fell silent and listened. By the end they were captivated. Shot through the heart with a silver bullet as it were.

Poetry can do that. Move everyone and anyone in unexpected ways.

They didn’t stay after that first reading. But I like to think the words stayed with them.

Thank you to my poetry coach Pele Cox for being there to witness the magic.


Not the 8.30 News: Episode 1 – the start of something awful one

The Big Live Breakfast Burrito is perhaps the weirdest show on the Internet. Hosted on LinkedIn and restreamed live to YouTube, Facebook and Twitter plus a heap of other platforms in theory in should be unwatchable. But somehow its compelling mix of what one viewer called “unstructured nonsense” works. Or at least I think it does. Although I would say that because I’m an occasional contributor! Here I am channelling my inner newsreader and making my first attempt at satire. Let me know what you think. Even if it’s rubbish. It’s the silence that kills you.

Black Hole

Bloodless skin too tightly drawn for lips. 
White. Like supermarket chicken. 
A row of teeth along the bottom curve. 
None along the top. (You lost those long ago.)
And that moustache that grandmas get
And tickle when you kiss.

It’s four. 
Trying to remember that last conversation for company. 
Except we didn’t know it was going to be the last conversation. 
Not then.  The detail’s faded. 
And without that to cling on to we’re drowning. 
A black hole.
Pulling everything 

In and out

All this framed from your broken boxer’s nose to your chin
By The Mask of Sorrow (you liked that film, the one starring Douglas Fairbanks. Or was it Tyrone Powers?)
Held in place by a loop of lawn green elastic. Stretched. 
But not yet snapped. 

Out and in

To breaking point. What does a fractured skull look like? I’d take a picture with my phone and send you. 
The police officers standing at the head of your bed have. For “evidential purposes.” 
One in uniform. The other in plain clothes.  A detective. Made them feel sick. My italics. My mother. 
Smash all the mirrors. 
They have no use anymore. 
Let’s have some bloody dignity here. Yes bloody. 

In and out.

Contusion
That’s the word the doctor uses. That and depressed fractures of the orbit. Dr Murray. David. I like his trainers. Why do I notice them when he’s telling me your eyeball has dropped into the place where your cheek bone used to be?
Look up from the Nikes. 
Neanderthal. Yes that’s the look. And with the head bandage a touch of Mother Teresa. 
Confusion. 

And out

“You can talk to her. She can probably hear you.”

“Pick a fight with someone your own size next time Mum.” 
As bright as the fluorescents.
The nurse gives me a strange look. Pity or disdain. She knows what I’m thinking. I think. 
And I’d like to have her. 

In 

That was a performance. Privacy now. Blue curtains drawn. Neat pleats. You’d like them. Voices on the other side. 
On this side whispers. Through the orange neck brace to your blood-flaked ear. 
The roar of the ocean inside a seashell. 
Cromer beach. Drowning out the beeps. Can you hear it?
I want to cry. Like the last time I saw you crying. When dad died. 
But I can’t. Him telling me to be strong. 
So I tell you that you are loved and list your children and grandchildren one by one. Eight names. Living. Breathing. Without your spark none of this.
None of us. 

And out

Let me hold your hand. 
It’s warm under the giant bubble wrap blanket. 
Dying this way is a numbers game. 
I’m an expert at this now.
I’ve been here four hours. 
A screen. About the size of that telly you won from the competition on the back of the Kellogs Cornflakes box. But in colour 
Top row. Green.  Waves. Listen with mother. The shipping forecast. 
Tyne, Fisher, Dogger, Heart Rate. 105. falling slowly. 

In

Second row. Yellow. 100%. 
Gold star. Tollington School for Girls, East Finchley. Top of the class. 
Except the oxygen machine is doing your work now. Cheat. 
And there’s a picture with your exam results. 
An X-ray showing your lungs are half full of fluid. Or half empty.  Whichever way you look at it. 

And out

Bottom right hand corner. Smallest font. Two numbers. In red. Blood pressure. 
Shannon, Sole, Systolic, Diastolic 
45 millibars falling more slowly. 

And in

Numbers. 
You were breathing too quickly when they brought you in by ambulance 
Morphine 
Now we’re counting the seconds between the breaths. 
It’s up to four. 
We’re in Italy. (That holiday you wrote about in the diary we’ve just found. The first family holiday after dad died).
We’re on the quayside. 
There’s a gentle breeze off the land. Scented. Filling the sails of the night fishing boats. 
Such small boats. 
Such a huge ocean. 
Slip the mooring. 

And out

We watch until she’s safely over the horizon.

Poetry as therapy. This is a work in progress, still raw. It’s been thoughtfully and lightly edited by my poetry coach, Pele Cox, and her fellow poet Sally Read. Between them they have offered invaluable support and knocked off some of the rougher edges. I am indebted to them for this and I have no doubt we will do more work on it together in due course. But for now I thought it important to post the piece while the events that prompted it are still fresh.

Many of you already know the circumstances and have very kindly reached out to offer your support. But for those who don’t, it’s about my 88-year-old mother, Sheila, who in early October was beaten by another resident in her care home and died from her injuries in hospital a few hours later.

My mum, Sheila, with my dad, Brian, on their wedding day. Matinee idols the both of them!

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Cloud lines

We live on the lower slopes of Titterstone Clee Hill in South Shropshire. Our house straddles the ever-shifting boundary (sometimes less than a vegetable patch wide) between what is shrouded in mist or cloud and what is clear. Between the seen and the unseen. Between what is perfectly rendered by the eye and imperfectly remembered by the mind’s eye. This is the space that many of my poems spring from.

Kite

The Hill: you, me, and dad
wearing the green jumper 
that still smells of him. 

The kite: an orange lozenge 
of ripstop nylon
skin tight on a wooden cross.

Me: running fast
enough to take off
but bound by string
to earth.

Your laugh sticks in my throat.
I cough to clear it
but it’s in my head.
The kite lifts a little 

Then nosedives through its arc
and lands 
with that whipcrack you hear 
out of sync like
summer lighting. One spark and

This whole dark scene 
Silvers for a second
And is gone
Blacker than before
The thunder.