In football, not everyone wants it. Not everyone gets it (even if they want it). There’s the chance to win, the chance to lose with those looming penalties as a brilliant bonus or shitty cruels!
In life, you’d normally want it, wouldn’t you? Unless, for some reason, penalties would take you to all-time lows. But, in life, I’d say everyone wants it but not everyone gets it as the final whistle blows.
Extra time – I wish you’d had it. 90 minutes didn’t quite do you justice on the whole. Extra time – I’d have loved you to score a golden goal. Extra time – are you playing for it?
This one will dictate the pace throughout the race. Others will fall by the wayside with its aggressive ride.
But don’t expect it to finish the course a winner. It’s not that kind of horse. This one has a lot of promise But will lead you down a bookmakers’ abyss.
Elizabeth Taylor
Photogenic from the first shot of the starter’s pistol To the backstretch, this much-fancied filly Usually breezes in, having won on the bridle. Even so, there’s always a paparazzi photo-finish frenzy.
Getting the red carpet treatment, her jockey’s silks sport a Hollywood star As she parades in the paddock with a sure thing SP. As a homebred frontrunner, she’s the most national velvety by far. One to watch; she always gets the trip, and is rarely out of the money.
Codswallop
A lot of nonsense mysteries Surround its origins. Some say it was sold for a few guineas At a market during a drunken binge.
Others say it was sold at a selling race auction For a case of vintage champagne. Many believe it belongs to the estate of Galton and Simpson Or that a fisherman in a Scottish pub gave it its name.
At 27 hands, it has an illogical advantage over the rest And draws attention from artists at sixes and nines. At 2/1, it’s got the bottle to beat the best According to tic-tac hand signs.
Tax Evader
The gamblers’ favourite with its illegal bit Of business on the side as it takes the state for a ride.
Unlike better betters, those who put money on this dodgy gelding of a filly won’t declare it if they’ve won. The stakes are too high, and that would be silly.
Trench Soldier
It won’t cross the Melling Road but run it side to side until it goes over the top again. It will fall at some corner of Aintree’s field. It’s just a question of when.
Commission Kingpin
Commands respect. Hard to detect as it moves up the field, ruthlessly unbridled.
Despite being subject to steward enquiries after many of its victories, mud has never stuck as it rides its well-connected luck.
Surrounded by mobsters and hoodlums it travels in a bullet-proof horsebox. Though always well turned-out and immaculately groomed, don’t be fooled; it comes from the stable school of hard knocks.
Golden Era Legend
This is the one to beat with a track record second to none having won it three times and come second twice. A true champion.
Always there or thereabouts, it’s now ‘gone the distance’ But 50-something- year-olds won’t forget Its name or noseband as it rode its home turf. Times when, fingers crossed, you told mum and dad your ‘official’ bet.
Fiddlesticks
Born in the north, a spade’s a spade. A saddle’s a saddle. Stirrups are stirrups. Donkeys bray and horses neigh. A giddy up’s a giddy up.
This horse goes straight, no messing around. Any press speculation as to its track readiness is scoffed at. As rumours of it being pulled out last minute abound, Its trainer rails ‘chuffing rubbish ‘ and leaves it at that.
Tudor Lord Chancellor and Keeper of the Great Seal
The higher they jump the further they fall. Thomas to his friends. Heretic to his enemies. The favourite least likely to beat them all. One stumble and its all powerful legs will bend at its knees.
Rock Star Mare
She’s a wild one and bolts against stable rules. Shakes off blinkers and, hating reins, pulls. Headstrong and flamboyant, she’ll take each jump with a free spirit. An entertaining crowd-pleaser, she’s bound to be a media hit. Doubts remain as to whether she can be kept on the straight and narrow. Fears are she’ll be one of those loose horses impeding riders, out of control.
Spoilt Brat
To spite his spouse, this temperamental yearling was named after the trainer’s offspring whose immature tantrums at the teatime table sends him seeking solace to the stable.
However, the race rules state his 4-legged pride and joy is far too young to run, unlike his 7-year-old boy who he imagines running instead while down his local, The Nag’s Head;
His imagination running away with itself (and knocking back another tot) His son breaks his leg at The Water Jump and has to be shot! Mutters under his breath ‘Shame he’s not a horse!’ His wife is filing for divorce.
Fab Four Hooves
It has a long maine and fringe that almost covers each eye. Its colours are psychedelic with Julian’s infamous drawing of Lucy in the Sky on its saddle side. It’s not what it seems and gallops faster than slow-motion dreams and instead of blinkers wears sunglasses for the ride.
With Liverpudlians chomping at the bit, Ladbroke’s have made this local lad a moptop favourite to be the first circus foal to be bred to jump higher instead of through rings of fire and reach its racing goal.
Electric eclectic, you can bet it’ll make it as chimneys blow black ‘n’ white smoke from roofs. With horseshoes every week From 60s Carnaby Street, it’s got John, Paul, George and Ringo engraved on its 4 hooves.
Mum taught me something I’ll never forget: When you fill a hot-water bottle with boiling kettle-boiled H2O, hold the bottle over the sink in case it falls ‘cos if u scald yourself you’ll know.
To everyone in the world now, Peace and Love. Hope it’s so close to home, you’re care free enough to freely care. To those who are victims of war and who can’t take it for granted, Safe hot-water bottles everywhere.
One of the Robots
You’re one of them. You don’t give anything. I try to keep in touch. Bipolar stuff that leads to nothing
I push your buttons. You don’t react. You carry on as normal. You have no heart. Fact.
What makes you tick? How do you work? I’ve got steam coming out my ears. You’re relentless. You never shirk.
When I Grow Up
I want to be a vet. I like animals. My best friend’s dad is a vet. I’ve seen calves being born in fields.
Hour-old kittens being warmed. Parrots, dogs and rabbits. All creatures great and small. I like animals to bits.
I want to be a detective. I like solving mysteries. A good friend’s daughter is going to study forensics. I like whodunnits and serial killer TV series.
Finding DNA that proves the proof. Fighting defence lawyers to make it stick. Not letting anyone slip through the net. Understanding victim AND culprit.
When I grow up I want to follow every pipe dream I ever dreamt. Be taken to hospital to be newly born and not waste time going to interviews where dreams went.
Have a super human brain. A know-it-all lifting the cup. Have what I need when I grow up.
Sudden Still
The misfits want to be fit misses in demand with box office kisses. On a night out when staying in isn’t in when whatever isn’t original is a sin.
Bartenders juggle bottles to cheers as eye-phones film on blurry sees. While the third world war will be digitalised banned home movies have become feature films disguised.
Frogmarch myself to what I sort of know can only end in tears for me. If things are going too well, time to get low, and laugh if things are going badly.
I’m in two minds as to whether I’ve got a split personality or not but it’s just trying to prove a point I’m clever when it’d be easier to admit I know jack shit.
I must confess I don’t want to own up. The day I tell myself the truth will be the day I lie. I want to be a good person and the spirit is willing but gods don’t talk straight and duck the big why.
Say 10 Hail Marys and 10 Our Fathers. Keep the faith. Don’t think too much. Listen to good music. Try to not lose touch.
(or Why the ruling classes won’t ever let anyone else rule)
Got a pill for every hang up. Got a hang up for every pill. Being clever dicks with cannonballs, their blow-up knights in bouncy castles are delivered by Royal Mail in letter bomb parcels to detonate on University Challenge just as Ian Dury buzzes ‘What a Waste‘ thus undermining any chance another class could ever take their place.
As you take after who you’ve become and school teachers, in detention, chew gum the headmaster sends it to someone who is off the hook with nothing better to do.
Looking out over what he couldn’t see he table-spoon-heaped salt into his tea. Gull-shrieking Up the pool! and Come on you reds! he dropped his load on plank-walkers below in their bunk-beds.
It meant so much more when we didn’t stand a chance they said back in Dunkirk after France as did Mr Crow, gazing up at his astrological star in his feathers and tar, adding
We’ll never get to the bottom of this ’til we get to land and a little bit of bliss. Never had a truer word been spoken since their scabby anchor had hit port authorities and broken.
So, as Mr Crow in his nest wondered what was for the best scurvy took its toll on the crew where nothing could be done except by those who knew what to do.
If children ruled the country there’d be a crowned head and a crayoned in face all smiley blue, yellow and red.
Chocolate dripping down its mouth. Neck as fat as a rhino’s as long as a giraffe’s. Superhero and heroine health would burst out of its breastplate with a felt tip logo of choice for a laugh.
They’d be twenty starfish arms long and short and ten octopus legs hanging down to a brown seabed in a sea as dense as yoghurt and a purple sky above with orange stars all around.
If children ruled the country the body politic would swing from ecstatic happiness to sudden moody and its little out-of-tune people would nursery rhyme national anthem sing.
A Pretty Kettle of Poetry 