In Praise of the ‘Leaf’
Well done, Ealing ! Macho, strong !
Build your towers, probe the sky,
Pump your concrete, raise your steel –
Bring the low-rise wimps to heel.
Bravo, Ealing ! Far too long
You’ve languished only four floors high –
Never felt the bracing breeze
When funnelled through a cut-price Mies.
Lord it over Christchurch spire,
Just a finely-sculpted fop –
It looks too good and stands too proud,
It mocks too much to be allowed.
Now we find when building higher,
So our expectations drop –
Mustn’t cling to ancient primes,
For now we live in av’rage times.
Your flats will sell before their sheen
Has moldered-off or ghetto-greyed.
So price them at a hefty wad –
For no cheap housing here, thank god !
And finally can Haven Green
Now bask all year in deepest shade.
Don’t be subtle – rage and shock,
By showing them the finger-block.
Well done, Ealing ! Ditch the mild !
You’re pissing down to raise a stink.
It’s meant to be so out-of-scale,
This temple to the Thrusting Male.
Bravo, Ealing – stay beguiled !
And who cares what they locals think !
Quit the Nineteenth Century,
And welcome Nineteen Sixty-Three.
The ‘Leaf’ was a proposed wanger for Ealing in West London back in 2007. Alas, this was ditched in favour of the Dickins Yard wangettes of only 14 floors, which is only three-and-a-bit times too high. But just think what we could have had !
Rhyming Couplets 