isabelrogers.org

Back in heartless landless Tory heartland
my father stood in our local election.
An old-style Liberal, he embraced
defeat with polite relief.

Then, staying with three American sons,
my sister chose and, while I learned to skate
and chew gum, kissed one. My father joked,
applauding the odd wild oat, but did the other father
know his son was ‘practising on my daughter?’

Later our Liberal family sat to eat
accompanied by Any Questions. The panel –
four educated, erudite professionals –
augured well for informed opinion.
My father noted perhaps they had gone ‘too much
the other way.’ I blinked, observing all political shades
were represented. He looked puzzled and said
as though to one stupid or deaf
‘but they’re all women.’

It was then that illusion cracked
round a number of things, including confusion
between lacking and talking bollocks.
There was no comment of equal weight
when a panel had balls enough
to achieve a full complement of eight.
Plus, of course, the Dimbleby two,
making a double-figured mathematically-based
secure assumption of something terribly logical,
apparently too obvious to explain.