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Brief to Counsel to the tune of Noel Coward’s
Don’t put your daughter on the stage
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Don’t put our client on the stand Mr Worthington,
Don’t put our client on the stand.
The possession claim is issued
The situation’s rough
And admitting the debt
And illegal sub-let
Really isn’t quite enough
He has no sense
That to neighbours a respect is due
And don’t you think his manner too
Uncertain to be planned?
We repeat Mr Worthington,
And plead, Mr Worthington
Don’t put our client on the stand
Re your advice, sage Mr Worthington
Of Wednesday the 23rd
Although our client may be
Keen on his day in court
We repeat our thought
The client should be fought
For him to speak
Wise Mr Worthington
Is on the face of it absurd
His personality
Is not in reality
Repentant enough
Respectful enough
For cross-exam to be sought
Don’t put our client on the stand Mr Worthington
Don’t put our client on the stand
Though he said at the pre-trial conference
The rent arrears would be cut
We’re afraid on the whole
His spell on parole
Has meant they’ve just gone up
He’s a big man and though he’s rarely violent
Hitting the usher was a precedent
Sure to see him damned
No more buts Mr Worthington
Nuts Mr Worthington
Don’t put our client on the stand.
Should Counsel wish to discuss the matter further, he should contact Nearly Legal of Instructing Solicitors, who is dandling a dry Martini and wearing a cravat.
quite brilliant! P :-)
Truly brilliant and I am hereby starting a campaign for more posts in rhyme. Sadly the best that I have been able to come up with is (with sincere apologies to Mr Coward):
Mad dogs and those gone wrong blog in the form of song
Which is neither the message I’m trying to get across, nor very good. All of which presumably only goes to show that in my case Vodka Martinis do not aid the creative process.
Thanks both, but I’m not sure about more rhyming posts – it seems to have finished Corporate Blawg off entirely doing the Blawg Review. Put this down to the silly season and no higher court judgments to mull over.
Very nice, but rhyming verse would have been better. For the record “cut” doesn’t rhyme with “up”, and “avoid doesn’t rhyme with “stand”. But good on the rhythm.
The rhyming scheme is that of Mr Coward, save for the two exceptions that you rightly point to. Cut and up is an oblique rhyme (or an assonance) and the best I could do on the train home. Still, if Coward could rhyme due and too, or christ and sufficed, I might get away with it. Avoid is an error pure and simple, which I will blame on Network Rail and amend as soon as I can think of the replacement. – now done, although not well.
As Pope knew (and Coward too) the final rhyme of something such as this is built up to and is the climax. It must therefore be even better than those that have gone before, not only just as good as, or weaker. Have another train ride.
As for assonance, this is the kind of thing you’ld get in a pop song, and should be firmly eschewed.
How about “sure to see him canned”
Bigugly, thanks for the thought, but I think I prefer the revised Don Giovanni finale (for the moment).
And as for the big end(ians), surely only hacks, poetasters and unimaginative machos insist on a big climax every time. As evidence, I cite Mr Coward’s ‘Don’t put your daughter’, where not only is the best rhyme thrown in early on, but the Master felt his usual culmination to be unrewarding enough to add an extra verse on special occasions.
In addition, if Noel Coward felt that his ‘pop song’ needed such reliance on assonance as rhyming ‘christ’ and ‘sufficed’, who are mere mortals to argue…
Unfortunately I’m no good at the composition of verse;in fact the ONLY verse that, troublingly ,springs to mind at the moment is as follows:
The Boy stood on the Burning Deck with a pocket full of Crackers,
A Cinder went down his Trouser Leg And,
Blew off both his…..
Socks.
(affects Noel Coward type Accent) Ew, ThankYouVeryMuch….