Max Scratchmann's Blog, page 6

The True Story of Hamlet as told to William Shakespeare on his Visit to Blackpool in 1609

A geezer of royal lineage took a kip on the beach one day,

When his brother from the chippy poured some poison down his way,

And they found his rotted body and declared that he was dead,

Until he rose twice nightly, and this is what he said:

“Oh send for my son, Hamlet, who lives on Morecambe sands,

And tell the lazy bastard he’s got murder on his hands.”

So Hamlet took the Stagecoach bus and arrived in princely style,

And ran into his father’s ghost along the Golden Mile.

He was walking down the darkened front, looking at ‘illuminations,

And there was his old father, standing tall between the stations.

“Yer took yer bleeding time, me lad, get yer arse over to the tower,

And kick yer no-good Uncle out, before the bugger seizes power.

He’s poisoned my chip butty,and had a bit of the other,

And now the slimy bugger’s getting his leg over with yer mother,

So get thee to a nunnery, don’t stand there like a dosser,

Just get yer poisoned dagger out and go and kill the tosser.”

But Hamlet took his Uncle to the show at Central Pier,

And whispered, in soliloquy, “Lenny Henry’s here,

He’s doing his old material and a sketch about a king,

Let’s see if my old Uncle will find, of truth, a ring!”

But alas it all misfired, the show was quite a flop,

And Uncle stopped for donuts at the all-night coffee shop.

“Methinks this is not the reaction of a felon torn with remorse,

Unless the fucker’s lying, a possibility of course!

I’ll challenge him to a duel and put poison in the wine,

It’ll make a brilliant movie, that I can sell sometime.”

So they had their final sword fight, and quite a lot was said,

And every body in the play, they ended up quite dead.

The Next Big Thing

Attention readers! We interrupt the flow of comic verse to bring you The Next Big Thing:

The wonderful Emily Dodd tagged me in her NBT blog post last week and I’m pleased to use this opportunity to tellyou all about my new book, The Last Burrah Sahibs:

What is the title of your new book?

The Last Burrah Sahibs – a memoir of a childhood in 1960s Bengal

Where did the idea come from for the book?

This book has been with me for many years, but recently the urge to tell what’s essentially an untold story became very strong and I had to start writing it.

What genre does your book fall under?

Travel and/or memoir probably best describes it, but it’s so much more than just simply “My Childhood”!

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Well, Thomas Horn to play me at eleven, and, I think, Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock to play my parents.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

A warm and funny evocation of the forgotten lifestyle of the British Raj in a period forgotten by history.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Agents aren’t interested in personal books like this one, but it is has been published by the highly innovative Steve Savage Publishing.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

Three to four months.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

The best comparison is E M Forster’s A Passage to India

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Life

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

This is a really vivid book of a life that is now long-passed and would interest anyone with a yen for travel or who takes a delight in experiencing an unusual childhood.

The Writers I’m Tagging

Chancery Stone. Chancery Stone is the author of the gripping and addictive DANNY Quadrilogy, a brutal romance in the vein of Wuthering Heights and on the scale of War & Peace. Volume Three, the penultimate instalment, is out soon.

Andrew Murray. Andrew is fellow Savage author and the creator of several award-winning novels and copious Scottish non-fiction.

Harry Giles. I met Harry some years ago when he was a boy reporter on an Orkney newspaper. He’s now a very accomplished poet and his pamphlet, Visa Wedding, is out soon.

Max Scratchmann. No, it’s not a typo, I’m tagging myself and my new copiously illustrated volume of comic verse, My Rubber Hebrew Nose.

Click each person’s name to find out more and discover The Next Big Thing!

Reading Public

Someone’s on before me, which is good,

A girl in low cut top, it is a trifle rude,

But then I hear the compere call my name,

I wonder, momentarily, if I should pretend I’m lame,

And limp off home and tell them that I met success,

Though I’d see the legend, LIAR, writ large upon my chest,

So I walk on jelly legs and take the stage,

The audience applauds politely, expectant like an open page,

I clear my throat, begin, my god, I have a voice,

And they’re still sitting in their seats as though by choice,

My poem runs its course, they laugh and modestly applaud,

I stand and take my bow, quite overawed,

And, adrenaline racing through my veins, I say I’m fine,

And put my name upon the list and say I’ll read next time…

Rule Britannia

I bought myself a Union Jack, in plastic, from Hong Kong,

And a Thai-made string of bunting, but the colours were all wrong,

I bought some Spanish strawberries and some thick Egyptian cream,

To celebrate the Jubilee, a truly British dream.

Jubilee Bugles

Oh come, oh hear, how crisp, how clear, the sound of fivers softly piling,

In tills and banks, pat’rotic ranks, for bunting, blue, that folks are buying,

Sing, media, sing, set the televisions flying,

And answer, answer, tabloids, answer,

Lying, lying, lying.

Election Day Blues

Tomorrow it is polling day, I have to go and vote,

It is my civic duty and an act of extreme note,

I have my ballot paper and my shiny bright rosette,

But who I’m going to vote for I have not decided yet.

One says he has done all he can to make my life sublime,

The other promises untold wealth for me and all of mine,

But though they’re much opposéd and from both sides of the coin,

If you stand them both together you can hardly see the join.

And I have this dread opinion, though I won’t say it out loud,

That they’re both just out for number one, oh that does not make me proud,

But though I’ll go and vote next morn and with my brothers join,

I’ll make my big decision with the tossing of a coin.

The Tea Lady’s Valentine

She leaves me little kisses on the back of my Rich Teas,

An extra-special Ginger Nut from o’er the China Seas,

She strokes my cup and silver spoon and whispers in my ear,

I’ve saved the best jam tart for you, beloved, never fear.

Yet I do not even know her name but just her occupation,

I see her once at tea-break time and sometimes at the station,

She’s hid behind a cloud of steam, a sullen boiler’s hiss,

And yet she gives her heart to me, her smile, her soul, her bliss.

So I pass my empty cup along, the row of scribbling clerks,

She holds it to her beating heart, like molten Cupid’s darts,

I meet her eye, I shyly smile, she whispers, love you, Roger,

And on my desk a Bourbon Cream and Raspberry Jammy Dodger.

The Tea Lady's Valentine

She leaves me little kisses on the back of my Rich Teas,

An extra-special Ginger Nut from o'er the China Seas,

She strokes my cup and silver spoon and whispers in my ear,

I've saved the best jam tart for you, beloved, never fear.

Yet I do not even know her name but just her occupation,

I see her once at tea-break time and sometimes at the station,

She's hid behind a cloud of steam, a sullen boiler's hiss,

And yet she gives her heart to me, her smile, her soul, her bliss.

So I pass my empty cup along, the row of scribbling clerks,

She holds it to her beating heart, like molten Cupid's darts,

I meet her eye, I shyly smile, she whispers, love you, Roger,

And on my desk a Bourbon Cream and Raspberry Jammy Dodger.

Twanking on Twitter

Oh me name is Aloysius Motorola Fred McSkitter,

And I wears me dirty raincoat when I'm twanking off on Twitter,

I send my Tweets to blondie girls to read on their i-Phone,

And all the while I'm sitting here a-polishing my bone.

I'm the scourge of cyber dating, an instrument of scorn,

You call it social network, I call it network porn,

So lock up all your daughters, here comes the Twitter Twanker,

And I do it all from RBS where I'm a merchant banker.

Lines to Vanessa Whitburn

Oh dear Vanessa Whitburn, please grant us, please, a boon,

Oh please do kill Tom Archer, and, please to do it soon,

Just pitch him off a silo tower or drop him down a well,

Or choke him with a sausage skin and send him straight to Hell.

Please hush his bratty whinging voice, his tremulous lower lip,

Oh quiet his ever-moaning cries and chuck him on the tip,

Oh crush his chip and burger van, let loose his captive pigs,

And tell them all down at the Bull, it's time to dance some jigs.

For Tom is dead, hooray, hooray, let all of Am' cheer loud,

But let's be kind, let's send him off in an organic shroud.