On the F word I wonder if others who saw In the Loop got heartily sick of it by the end. My daughter who like me is no prude also felt it marred an otherwise brilliant satire. Many quips were lost in the distraction of the flow of Fs flashing by a bit like continuous and annoying static.

I wonder if he managed “The F Word”, or if the icy shock winded him for once?

Back to the original Disobedience and James James. I never liked that poem, however seductive the rhythm, not since I first heard it as a littlie at school. The idea of someone losing their mother was just too awful. I wilfully misheard it as being about getting lost oneself if you didn’t do as you were told. Retrospectively I can see it would have been a particularly frightening idea to me whose world was so bleak anyway.

I never read it to my children either, nor any of A A Milne’s poetry, much as we all loved Pooh. Belloc’s Cautionary Tales were too strong meat for my taste as well with Jim eaten by a tiger and Matilda burning to death. But looking at them again last night thinking about your pome I marvelled at their potential for political parody.

I note you’ve been writing late into the night. Or do you live here in the west?
My son suggested to me the idea of a collation of my pollie pomes which I thought he as a satirist himself might be critical of. But no, he likes them and suggests at least an ebook or kindle as a likely publishing project. Would you be interested in a joint venture with others of like mind?

Hot tempered celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay almost died this week while filming his British cooking show The F Word. Ramsay was filming a segment on a cliff in Iceland when he lost his footing and fell 280 feet into the icy waters below.