Hope Street: Liverpool Poet, Reggie McCough Celebrates in verse as it is named Best Street, by The Urban Tarmac Academy. The Mayor is at the palace as Queen hides the biscuits and more Custard Pie-scrapers Announced

By Jove Missus, it's been a great few weeks for Liverpool!

Plans are announced to create a new recreation and leisure area for the city, which will involve a multi million pound project to fill the Mersey with water.  Right next to it, they are planning to build The Leaning Tower Of Custard, which will be the 2nd biggest flypaper in Europe.

All of this is going on in the city, alongside Peel Holdups transformation of the North Docks. And once they track down the 3 main Chinese investors, Hu Aah Yu, Hi Lee Do Chi and Fat Chens, I am really looking forward to 2092 when they hope to lay the first foundation stones.

But on top of all this missus...yes there's more, the city also received two great honours.

The Mayor of Liverpool, is given an IOU at Buckingham Palace. (no sign of the £130m yet)

And the Academy Of Tarmacadamy names HOPE STREET as the best street in the Universe.   

 

And it's the Hope Street award I am celebrating here today. Now for those of you who like me threw up in the city   (Editorial Note: Do you mean "grew up in the city"?) you will remember that Hope Street used to be nothing but a dirt track.

At one end there was the Catholic Cathedral and at the other end, the Protestant one. Just a stones throw from eachother.  Well once they threw enough stones, a lady called Hilary Porridge, gathered them all up and used them to lay pavement down either side.

Some say that created the rise of Hope Street - by about 4 inches.  
Well whoever got it off the ground, this award is recognition of everybody's hard work over the years turning it into the most prestig...prestigou...pres....destprig...one of the finest streets in Europe, and they all deserve to be congratulated. 

So what better way to celebrate, than to call on my old friend, local poet launderette Reggie McCough, from the popular 60s brawling group, "The Scuffles" to write an ode to Hope Street.

 


Reggie McCough
of The Scuffles
Liverpool Poet Laundrette.

Now some of you may know, if you read the article on Liverpool Cumfydentures, that the Urban Tarmac Academy, has it's own poet in residence, Harold MacMillen. Now he knocked something off to mark the award. Well I'm sorry, I read it and I don't know what he's on about. http://www.liverpoolconfidential.co.uk/Culture/Architecture/Hope-Street-wins-Great-Street-Award

He's worse than that Nerhys Hughes when she was the Poet Launderette. If you asked Hughes to do a quick Limerick about the Queen Mother choking on a fishbone, or anything for that matter, it would start off something like;

"Dead stoat - his rotting tongue stuck to a frozen nettle. Pecked at by a sadistic lark."

Well this poet Macmillan is a bit like that. Not only does it not rhyme like a proper poem that you get in the Echo from their readers...well sometimes... but he goes on about hanging out the washing in the street!

What the bleedin' hell has a washing line got to do with it?


So here we are, the latest work from Reggie McCough
In celebration of Hope Street.
 

 

Hope Is Where The Harp Is

By Reggie McCough

 

Imagine putting a washing line   (Oh for God's sake!)

Along a busy street

Hanging all your knickers out

with a pillowcase and sheet

 

and the sheet had great big holes in it

like a ghost ship's tattered sails

but the rips were not caused by a storm

It's 'cos Mother won't cut her nails

 

And all along that busy street

on the pavement either side

Artists, and performers

often will collide

 

Actors quoting Shakespeare's line

"Aye there is the rub"

and all colliding once again

when they fall out of the pub.

 

A happy place, a magic street

where no one has a frown

With a theatre and famous Bistro

'til the soft gets knocked it down

 

where people come together

and all roll up their sleeves

But the Masons roll their kecks up

that's what everyone believes.

 

With fine cuisine available

for commoner or toff

But you won't find Tesco sarnies

as they were told sod off.

 

And a gentleman's marble lavatory

the Ladies think quite grand

that's if they're not distracted

by what the bloke's got in his hand

 

There's a Catholic Cathedral

where communion wine is sipped

shaped like a headless Dalek

on top of Lutyen's Crypt

 

There's another at the other end

where the Anglicans all sing

So no chance of Sunday kip

when both their church bells ring

 

And a family friendly festival

that really can't be missed

Not like the one in Matthew Street

where half the crowd are pissed

 

With music and performers

amazing food and stalls

where even Living Statues

don't get kicked in the orchestra stalls

 

And when it comes to music

there is the crowning glory

of an orchestra that's world renowned

The Royal Liverpool Tandoori

 

And with their trombones blowing

an anthem by George Chisholm

The award, I'm sure, they helped secure

from the Academy of Urbanism

 

So now along the washing line

a brand new sheet's unfurled

Proclaiming its official

The best street in the world

 

 

Tatty Bye Everybody, Tatty Bye!

 

Be Nice To Each Other!

 

 

A new Archbishop Of Canterbury is announced but not the Scouser we were all hoping for.

By Jove Missus, they have announced former TV Doctor, Marcus Welby MD as the new Archbishop of Canterbury. As you know, I take a great interest in religious matters, as well as politics and I was hoping that the job would go to the current Bishop Of Bradford, Mick Brains, who is a scouser. In fact i had a tenner on him. But gambling is a sin and it serves me right.

I recall the biblical passage from the Psalms of St Benny On The Hill

As David said to Issiah
Life isn't all milk and all honey
He said Issiah come forth
But Issiah came fifth
and that's how he lost all his money

My good friend the local poet and scaffolder, Reggie McCough, was preparing a celebratory poem for the announcement but at the last minute has had to do a major re-write for Bishop Welby. In doing the research for the poem, Reggie discovered that the traditional residence for the Archbishop Of Canterbury is cursed with a terrible and mysterious odour. Evensong Pong, some call it.

And so Reggie has written this piece.

SNIFFING THE BISHOP
By Reggie McCough

What on Earth can that awful smell be?

Cried the new Archbishop, Justin Welby

Don't blame Rowan Williams, he had kept it airy
but a stink still prevailed and he claimed it was Carey

But Carey once said "it's all very queer...
Can I still smell Runcie's foot odour in here?"

But Coggan said, Runcie smelled more like a pansy
No it stunk when I started, I think it was Ramsey.

But an anonymous note signed from a well wisher
Said, don't look at Michael, you can blame Geoffrey Fisher.

But Fisher recalled that during the war
William Temple had smelled it and simply wrote phwoar!

So the terrible smell, with the terrible tang
could well have belonged to old Cosmo Lang

But Cosmo blamed Davidson, who got quite irate,
blaming Temple and Benson or Archibald Tait!

And so it went on this historical link
blaming each ex Archbishop for the terrible stink

Back through Longley and Sumner and Howley and Sutton,
Cornwallis said, check what you just put your foot on

The stink was too great to just blame Thomas Secker
But Matthew Hutton, they say, was a smelly old fecker

Thomas Herring proclaimed, as his last dying wish,
Don't let them blame me ' cos my name's like a fish

And when poor Herring died in 1757
he hoped that he'd not take smell up to heaven.

He need not have worried or shed any tears
for it stunk there while vacant for 15 long years

Before 1645 to 1660,
William Laud had looked quite shifty.

He said Abbot and Bancroft had both blamed poor Whitgift.
Both swore on oath that the smelly old git whiffed.

But historians have uncovered this rare citation
from Matthew Parker, just post reformation

"In 1558 Cardinal Reginald Pole
Was called Cardinal Sin for his right smelly hole."

And it seems where he sat he would curse with the smell
Of Beelzebub's bottom - the odour from hell.

Nobody knows why he suffered this curse
But it's generally agreed that nothing smells worse

So if you think each Archbishop has a miserable gob
He's just suffering the smell that goes with the job.




Tatty Bye Everybody Tatty Bye
Be Nice To Each Other

Watch out for my review of the plans to rebuild Liverpool and The Great Tower of Custard.