Tabloid Bingo or: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the News

Skyline Party by Jes via Flikr (674)

We sifted through the papers for something to lampoon
But this week was rather serious
Lots of doom and gloom
So with a deadline looming and nothing good to write
We played our favourite tabloid game, of bingo… it’s alright

A spot of prevarication rarely steers you wrong
So we started out with Glastonbury as that’s an easy one
We gathered up the stories, from the red tops and the black
Certain of the most used words, that scourge the “hippy crack”

We were not disappointed, they really went to town
And every other photo was a balloon being sucked down
Lot’s about the weather, “heatwaves” and “sliding mud”
“Cider in the morning”, “first night casualties” caked in crud

Before we got to welly talk, we decided to refrain
As another story caught our eye: “City Worker Takes Cocaine”
This would be a good one: hypocritically delightful
With lots of careful hand wringing, from a media that finds it frightful

We had the private schooling, the family country pile
The gap yah before London, we’re bingo-ing in style
But the more we read the more we winced, he’s just a silly kid
Probably curled up in a ball, ruing what he did.

We didn’t have the doorstepping of his siblings or his dad
Or the comments from old school chums calling him a bully and a cad
We didn’t have his old headmaster sticking the boot right in
Or the quotes from his employers that made the journos grin
So we put down our papers and gave the game a rest
‘Cos sometimes Tabloid Bingo can make you quite depressed

First Published on Searchlight Magazine Arts…

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