I've always been really interested in newsflashes, programmes being interupted and suddenly we're in the newsroom with a stern newsreader, saying 'Something Has Happened.' It used to be the main way we found out about big events, but I guess the internet has changed this. Here's a clip of Martyn Lewis announcing the death of Diana, and then my poem about newsflashes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNsdvhh8_X0&feature=related
George Aligayah
Every day George practices
his well rehearsed line.
he looks into the bathroom mirror as he is shaving,
he sings it in the shower
enunciates every word whenever he is alone,
"The Queen is Dead."
He rehearses scenarios,
she died peacefully in her sleep,
a bullet went through her forehead,
she was killed in a car crash in Paris.
Mrs Aligayah has not been on holiday for years,
she cannot understand why her husband always ignores
suggestions of a French chateaux,
brochures of villas in Tuscany
all talk of staying with her brother in Tobago.
George knows the value of full attendance.
He does not want to give anyone else the chance,
Huw Edwards, Fiona Bruce
Dermot Murnaghan.
When they are in the same room
the atmosphere is always frosty.
He knows they all want to be the one breaking the news.
George Aligayah has a bag packed especially
he keeps it by the front door.
In it is a black tie, a comb,
a notebook with a carefully worded eulogy
and his lucky pants
because at any time the phone could ring
and it will be his producer saying
"George,
the Queen is Dead,
we need you."
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2 comments:
hmm.. thinking segueing this into George Aligayah singing the Queen is Dead by The SMiths?
Anyone got the number of G's agent?
I think we're missing a massive trick if we don't end the event with the BBC's stock 'half-mast' footage. maybe get the live mariachi band to play along.
i think the poem itself would work very as a live piece- sit a guy behind a desk in a grey suit and give him some papers to shuffle. I've found some quite eerie footage of George Aligayah that we should shine up behind- have him leering out over the audience, hehe.
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