There was a young man called Friend
Who did me some money lend.
When I hid away
And refused to repay
It drove him round the bend!
There Was A Young Man Called Friend
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A Short Analysis of Philip Larkin’s ‘Going, Going’
There are calls for the “relaxation” of the rules which protect England’s “Green Belt” (those green areas on which building is not permitted). Such calls (so far resisted by government) bring to mind this poem by Larkin.
A reading of one of Larkin’s most famous poems
We’ve analysed a fair few Philip Larkin poems over the last year or so, and had largely said everything we had to say about his work. But we’ve been inspired to write about ‘Going, Going’ because of popular demand, of a kind. Another of our posts, an analysis of another Larkin poem titled simply ‘Going’, has been receiving a great deal of traffic, but people have reached it by searching for an analysis of ‘Going, Going’. Which is a completely different poem. Since ‘Going, Going’ is fine late Larkin, we thought we’d offer some thoughts on this poem, which you can read here.
‘Going, Going’: the title immediately summons the third, unspoken word in the usual auctioneer’s phrase: ‘Going, going, gone.’ Britain is not quite gone altogether, but it is going, and it is being auctioned off, sold to…
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I Find It Strange
I find it strange when those who have more than me
Defend Marx’s ideology,
While I, who am admittedly possessed of a sufficiency
Argue for a free society
I Am For An English Libertie
I am for
An English libertie
Wherein,
When I close my door,
I am free
To sin
(Whatever sin may be).
I am for
An English libertie
Where the law
Protects person and propertie
And the weak
Who can not for themselves speak.
I am for
An English libertie
Where people who’s views I dislike
Can sleep easy at night
And they extend the same courtesie
To me.
I am for
An English libertie
Where students can not ban those with whom they disagree
From campus under “no platform”, for that is not free
Speech, and I still
Cling to Mill.
“There is no uniquely English libertie”,
Some will say,
But I shall continue, in my contrarian way
To maintain that we
English are still
More or less free
(Though beware the authoritarian chill
That may our libertie kill).
Silence
Silence enfolds,
Holds
Me.
In her soothing arms.
How well I know her charms.
I abhore
The crowd’s inane roar
Where those who shout loudest are too often heard
And the liar’s honeyed word
Is sweet
In the ears of those who long to eat.
The crowd will crucify
Those who are found to lie.
But tis a truth most drear
That tis the lie they long to hear.
The multitude hate
The silence for it makes them think,
So turn to drink
And prate
Of matters they only half comprehend.
I shall defend
The freedom of silence
Against the violence
Of the crowd who sway
First this way
Then that.
I shall stand aloof
From the man in the bowler hat
(and he who wears the cloth cap),
And hap
I shall find truth
For the crowd’s roar
Can not penetrate my front door.
There Was A Young Lady Called Christine
There was a young lady called Christine
Whose writing was always pristine.
Noone understood a word
But I have heard
That her life was squeaky clean!
The Tape
I can not escape
This constant tape
Running in my head.
When I am dead
The words said
Will go
I know
Not where,
Other than those
That from paper stare
At my readers from the printed page.
I shall be beyond rage
Or any other emotion,
Lost in a great ocean
Of what?
Shall I know it not?
Methinks
The tape will, finally, stop
Here’s how to check which apps have access to your Facebook account—and delete them…
For anyone concerned about privacy, this is helpful
Further to my blog linking post on 15th March
Facebook doesn’t make it easy to delete your account – Here’s How to do it
Please also read the following from Mike Murphy 
on Quartz Media LLC:
If you’ve been on Facebook for a while, you’ve probably installed games or given sites permission to log into your Facebook account. You may even use Facebook to log into services like Spotify, Netflix, or Tinder.
But if you’ve been following the news around Cambridge Analytica, the data consultancy firm hired by the Donald Trump campaign for the 2016 US election that harvested the data of up to 50 million Facebook users without their permission through data collected from third-party apps, you may want to know how to make sure that something similar isn’t happening to you.
Here’s what you need to do
Apart
I stood apart
My heart
Full of the organ’s sound.
Looking around
He asked “do you want to play?”
“No, just came to listen today”,
I replied.
Then, the music died
And I, (who stood apart
And knowing not where to start
Went my way).
There Was A Young Lady Called Flair
There was a young lady called Flair
Who met me on her stair.
She invited me to stay
Until break of day
When her husband found me there …
K Morris - Poet 