Should Rhubarb the dog be neurotic
and Custard the cat an anarchist,
Ivor the Engine is a fuss budget,
Willie Weasel a listed subversive
and Captain Pugwash is mentally retarded.
Then Zippy the frog is a garrulous narcissist
psychotic on some strange sort of acid,
and Hartley the Hair is criminally insane.
Bagpuss the cloth moggy is clinically depressed
and The Clangers are devil worshippers.
Then Noggin the Nog is a flawed autistic
and Charlie the cat, who says,
is perennially hyperactive.
And if all this be foreign language,
then let us meet midway, let us say
that Tin Tin is maudlin, right wing,
Asterix a communist amphetamine addict,
and Andy Capp a misogynist alcoholic.
Oh, to be English – Lilliputian;
brexile, in the land of Blefuscu.
Martin Ferguson