Ode To Tommy

I got my degree in English. I read my share of Kipling - it's a fascinating artifact of the Empire.

A Brit blog new to my acquaintance, "Free Market Fairy Tales", written by a Mr. Free Market (any relation to the Bemidji Free Markets?), has this update of Kipling's classic "Tommy" (note to Americans: "Tommy Atkins", or merely "Tommy", is the Brit equivalent of "GI" - the generic name for all British soldiers):

Regular reader of this blog will already be well acquainted with my love of Rudyard Kipling. In one better know poems ' Tommy', he talks about the soldiers life & societies attitudes to the ordinary soldier. Frankly, in 100 years, those attitudes haven't changed & yesterday, in The Daily Telegraph, Peter Pindar penned the following updated poem;

We aren’t made for cool Britannia; we leave boot marks on the floor.
We don’t walk like Peter Mandelson or talk like Jack Straw.
Call us “forces of conservatism” if it suits your turn
But we’re off like some world fire brigade when the flash-points start to burn.

Yes it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that that, an’spend less on defence,
But who walks the streets of Basra when the air is getting tense?
When the air is getting tense, boys, from Kabul to Kosovo
Who’ll say goodbye to wife and kids, and shoulder pack and go?

The Queen, she’s sat in Windsor now for 50 years or more.
She’ll see this government depart like the other one before.
And Blair & Bush & Chirac make their plans to no avail
But who remains to serve the Crown when politicians fail?

O it’s Tommy change your values - now diversity’s the game;
But when Christmas leave is cancelled, then whose tyrants are to blame?
There’s tyrants in the mountains, boys, and tyrants in the sands,
So farewell to wives & risk your lives for them in foreign lands.

Flip through the rest of the blog for an interesting take on Brit current events.

Posted by Mitch at January 14, 2004 04:37 AM