poemranker ::News Values (some time last November) by Nicholas Jones

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Sonnet № 40985

News Values (some time last November)

by Nicholas Jones

Member since 2002 · Posted 21 Feb 2003 · 11 comments

Switch on TV; let's hope there is something That will divert me from all of this shit Shut out all of my worries concerning The modern world and what goes on in it But then: NEWSFLASH; this programme is delayed We interrupt our schedules to bring you Despatches from the front line of today Reports on happenings that must be viewed. This could be anything, I think, could be Explosions, war: I see inside my head Destruction from the air or from the seas Please Lord, let there not be too many dead. But then the headline comes and they tell me Butler who did not steal has now been freed.

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11 comments

[7] spank me baby yeah 21-Feb-03/10:11 AM Reply
MY HEAD CANT TAKE THIS BUT YOUR AN INTELLECTUAL ICON, GECKOBLAST 7
[n/a] Fear of Garbage 21-Feb-03/1:24 PM Reply
i quite like this although i don't really think its a poem. maybe i only like it cuz i do the same thingwith the tv and the worrying and the fear and such
[8] andrewjthomas 5-May-03/10:29 AM Reply
very well structured, very nice iambic and ryhme
i would suggest working on the couplet at the end... it feels a little stilted
[n/a] Nicholas Jones › andrewjthomas 6-May-03/6:15 AM Reply
Thank you for your kind comment. I agree, the ending in retrospect is a bit weak. I came up with lots of different lines, but none of them quite worked - it has to convey the information and also fit the sonnet structure.
[n/a] -=Dark_Angel=-, P.I. › Nicholas Jones 6-May-03/6:41 AM Reply
oh come on the ending is the only good thing in the entire piece! "Butler who did not steal has now been freed." -- genius! You build up the tension, and the reader thinks it's going to be another Nicholas Jones epic about political issues and the labour party and welsh suffering and war in iraq, but then when the news comes on the headlines are just laughably mundane. Of course, rather than seeing the funny side of all this, I'm sure Nicholas Jones is deeply disappointed with the quality of "News Values" in modern society. "Why do we care more about butlers than we do about human suffering and welsh issues?" Well I've got news for you, Nicholas: if you want to watch your "Carry On" films in peace, along with all the other working class Labour bumpkins, then I suggest you get Sky TV rather than spending all your time (not to mention taxpayer's money) writing a PhD about it.
[n/a] Nicholas Jones › -=Dark_Angel=-, P.I. 6-May-03/6:46 AM Reply
Yes, of course the bathos is the point. The end is meant to be laughably mundane. But perhaps I could express it better. But the point is, it does fucking matter that Princess Diana's ex-butler gets more coverage than, say, 966 people being massacred in the Congo last month. By the way, my PhD is on a poet called Harri Webb who was a hardcore Welsh Nationalist, and designed the symbol used by the Free Wales Army, one of the least competent terrorist groups in history.
[n/a] -=Dark_Angel=-, P.I. › Nicholas Jones 6-May-03/6:53 AM Reply
Sounds just like a PhD on "Why won't those bloody tories let me watch 'Carry On' films in peace!", to me. But don't worry, Nicholas. At least you're doing something useful - I'm sure there's a great deal we could learn from dangerously incompetent welsh terrorists.
[n/a] Nicholas Jones › Nicholas Jones 6-May-03/6:55 AM Reply
Harri Webb wasn't actually a terrorist, he just designed the symbol. But he did write the mighty 'Advice to a Young Poet' which goes

[n/a] -=Dark_Angel=-, P.I. › Nicholas Jones 6-May-03/7:19 AM Reply
Are you related to Dr Thomas Jones?
[n/a] Nicholas Jones › -=Dark_Angel=-, P.I. 6-May-03/7:50 AM Reply
Something freaky happened there, and cut a bit off my message.
The poem goes:

Sing for Wales or shut your trap
All the rest's a load crap.

Which is pretty succinct. No, I'm not Dr. Thomas Jones. But there was a Dr. Thomas Jones who inspired the following short poem:

Where now he lies his own routine
Will suffer scant disruption
For none could say he'd ever been
A stranger to corruption.
[n/a] -=Dark_Angel=-, P.I. › Nicholas Jones 6-May-03/8:37 AM Reply
I know. That's why I asked if you were related.

He was your father, wasn't he?