I’ll preach about the rivers of the moon and the Seven Seas of Rye
The special things of ancient kings, the arithmetic of Pye
But I can’t even boil an egg, not even if you try to beg
But don’t you wonder why?
In Essex, the ethics of cowboy builders are a mystery to me
Considering the works of Freud and Jung, I’ll spout on an on for free
The after effects of an angry T-Rex might seem obviously grim
But I’ll struggle with my locker key, if you catch me down the gym
I can speak for weeks about the ancient Greeks and the writings of great thinkers
But ask me to iron a shirt and you’d swear blind I’d been wearing blinkers
I can talk you through the daring do of all the new romantics
But any attempt to pay my rent is really just semantics
Each red-blooded English schoolboy, learns how to make a school-girl fizz
But I never ever seemed to learn just where the g-spot is
There’s no attempt to be tactical, I’m really not that practical.
In days of yore, so long before, I’ve read of the impressionists
Monet, Degas, Renoir – au revoir to all the girls they kissed
But when I try to paint a wall, you won’t see any straight lines at all, just all the bits I missed.
Dickensian life seemed full of strife, in grim Victoriana
Pick-pockets were rife, Sweeney Todd had his knife and would pounce like a piranha
But give it to me and you’d surely see that I can’t even slice a banana.
‘The Planets’ by Holst, an Orchestral peace includes Mercury and Venus
But my love-life’s a joke, I’m a pig in a poke and can’t pleasure my wife with my penis
It really doesn’t take a genius, to see my bedroom sins are heinous
In the Palaces of Oxbridge my kindred folks are learned Literati, you bet
In places of learning around the globe I’m regarded as part of the smart set
Well-travelled, cultured, I’ve dined with the stars, seen the sex dens of Marrakesh
But you don’t want to see me, infinitely, with my pants off, in the flesh
The science of palaeontology, tracks early life’s evolutionary losers and winners
And I’m certain I’ve viewed more old fossils and bones, than you will have eaten hot dinners
But I fail the beast who comes to the feast, when I try to try to cook food for your platter
It’s all gone to ruin, just don’t know what I’m doing, it’s only the dog getting fatter
I’ve written great texts about the historically vexed leaders, emperors and kings
Most of them died, horribly fried, too bad, when the fat lady sings
Falling in tights, from the dizzying heights of their ferocious social climbing
Nearly all had affairs, with hot French au pairs, victims of their own two-timing
Not to be ambivalent of the modern-day equivalent, the truth is getting seedier
Today’s fat cats are the owners of apps and the CEO’s who run social media
With all of the schisms of their algorithms controlling the things that we think
While I’m in the pub, the point of my nub has driven me to drink
History is dotted with the evil genius of demented cruel little men
Stalin & Hitler, Napoleon was littler, there’ll be more, who’ll do it again
They use their hocus-pocus to deflect you from your focus and take away your dreams right from the start
But with my headful of useless knowledge, which I’ve dragged around since college, I just sit around and hug my hollow heart
