Rachel’s in tears behind the bar of The New Austerity Inn. The boss at the brewery has refused to say if he’ll keep her on or not and the local paper’s got hold of the story.
Against all odds, the locals are rallying round. They might not have forgiven her for trying to chase the old folk out who’d just come in for a bit of warmth during the winter, but it’s their pub, nonetheless, and their loyalty means that the books are starting to look slightly better.
The beer is still awful, mind you.
The robot can’t stick its finger up your arse
But it can interpret your test results
So long as there’s sufficient comparators
In the health databases it consults
(A subject we may return to later
Is why Big Tech is after your NHS data)
And if there’s plenty of others to compare
Then speed-wise it’s in a different class
It can say yes or no without a human there
And it doesn’t stick its finger up your arse
Dear Donny, I’m so sorry I was late
I thought we had two weeks to get the message straight
You know that’s what the airbases are there for, mate
When Ronnie bombed the Libyans, we didn’t hesitate
I’ve got Lammy standing ready with a statement to make
He knows there’s a special relationship at stake
And if there’s war to be made, then war we shall make
I could do with some ban-the-burqa action to take
So, let me know Donny, if you’re gonna bomb some more
I wanna be like Margaret and Tony before
Not getting invited would leave me pretty sore
Dear Donny, I’m sorry I was late for the war
He wears his shoes way too big
And tells the most outrageous lies
He’s got magic healing ears
And blind eyes turned to genocide
His mates are cosplay fascists
But the real deal is him
Dare to disagree
And he’ll send the army in
(While political opponents
Are messily done in)
He’ll tell you that it’s beautiful
While beauty gets short shrift
All hail forty-seven
All hail President Grift
They’re rolling out the tanks
For the trooping of Trump’s colours
While the army train their guns on the workers of L.A.
And he holds Benny’s hand
While he drops bombs on Iranians
And starves Palestinians
I pray for rain on his parade
Jakey’s got a new job
Care of that Supreme Court mob
What’s inside your boxers or briefs?
Jakey’s joined the toilet police
Jakey’s simply upholding the act
He needs to see your biological fact
He’s got his eye on your tomboy niece
Jakey’s joined the toilet police
An orderly queue, if you please
At the checkpoint for the Ladies
In his jackboots and company fleece
Jakey’s joined the toilet police
This website draws a picture
It really don’t take long
Here’s my ten seconds’ labour
For you to gaze upon
Who needs pen and paper
When all you do is type a prompt
No human being needed
Tell the robot what you want
It was clever, it was funny
It was quick and it was free
Upload your own image here
Wow friends and family
They liked it and they shared it
Like there was nothing wrong
And the AI kept on drawing
Until all the art had gone
Rachel took the ramp away.
“Happy hour is over,” she said. “If you can’t get into The New Austerity Inn unaided, then maybe this isn’t the pub for you.”
Liz, the HR manager from the brewery, nodded in agreement, and suggested shutting the pub during the day. “This is the pub of work,” she said. “People who can work, must work, and shouldn’t be coming in here instead.”
Rachel looked around her. Trade was down and the beer was going sour. “Yes,” she said. “That’s what we’ll do.”
Does it smell nice?
A letter from the king
Of scented ink, that kind of thing
Mellifluous craft and flowery word
Meticulously well-observed
Or does it smell of dusty palaces and old men
Tainted by the mouldering stench of then
Sparse script spiked with iron gall
As if the king should have to write at all
How tightly clenched, the royal jaw
How white-knuckled, the royal paw
Nib mashed to page, the words appear
One so looks forward to your second visit here
Behold, for sure, a regal thing
But what’s that smell?
A letter from the king
He exercised free speech
To say he’d been denied free speech
There are things, he said, I’m not allowed to say
And then he said them anyway
We told him, you can say anything you want to say
There’s just one thing you really ought to know
If you set out to harm somebody else with your words
Then we reserve the right to tell you so
He said, oh
But there are crime crimes
Things that I know to be a crime
Then there are hate crimes
That I’m not sure are actually a crime
We took our time
If your crime’s linked to the colour of your poor victim’s skin
Or motivated by the relationship they’re in
Then what you did is a crime just the same
It’s just your hate has given it a name
But then, he said, there’s non-crime hate
We just said, mate
It’s your hate that you should be working on
He balled his fists, he stamped his feet
He said, you see, there’s no free speech
And with the rattle of a red pill
He was gone
Steve White & The Protest Family 