Christmas apocalypse

"If I drive down this afternoon I'll be in time for..."
"I'm spending Christmas day at my dad's, then boxing day at..."

All the snippets I hear
are carrying the glossy rats away
we're leaving London,
having made it it filthy enough for this year
we've had enough of ourselves
and of one another.

Everybody hopes it will be new
when we get back
a gleaming Metropolis,
instead of this Gotham
we're leaving behind.

I fancy being the last to leave,
I have visions of street-cleaning dragons
dashing down brown office blocks
licking the pavements clean of kebab scraps
or a giant cityboy ape in a suit reaching up
to crush the tired sun.

Everybody's leaving
and soon all this jovial panic
will be January rubble
the decorations overhanging,
glitter creepers in a reclaimed city

The barbarous hordes will
have to hack a path back
expecting a Christmas miracle
getting in early to work
to pick up exactly where they left
only slightly fatter.

Just William and the Summer of Love

If the various-era versions of Just William had grown up, what would they have got up to?

20s William... grows up and joins the RAF, fights in WWII, becomes a nazi spy and is executed for crimes against humanity.

Title: William the War Criminal

30s William... runs away to seek his fortune in the bright lights of Hollywood in the 1940s, gets a job as an animator at the Walt Disney studios and is responsible for lots of subliminal phalluses in Disney films.

Title: William Does Disney

1940s William...becomes a Communist in the 50s, defects to Russia, and gets to live out his childhood definition of Communism, ie, "making things better by taking everyone's money off of them and then killing them" (or words to that effect).

Title: William and the Warsaw Pact

1950s William...joins the Beatles in the 60s and gets shot shortly afterwards because he's such a big-headed cock.

Title: William's Greatest Fan

1960s William...grows up to be a Tory and joins Margaret Thatcher's government in his late 20s... until he's disgraced publically by the discovery of his torrid affair with a rent boy.

Title: William and Rough Trade