The BBC’s fucked me around for more than forty years
Since, just left school hired as a clerk, I found these racketeers
Refused to pay holiday pay, contractually mine,
Saying “Not standard practice”, the double-dealing swine.
Then - this was in the 70s, so please let this bit pass
As indicative (though then, as now) of the corrosiveness of class -
When I got that ballsaching job, stuck in Data Control,
I’d said, “I’m off to Cambridge”, just to show I was no prole,
For this meant then (might still do now), although it’s a class crime,
I’d be Director General in about two decades’ time,
With in between vacation jobs, then trained as producer...
Except! Because I’d made a scene, said “You’re in breach of contract!”
When I phoned up the following year, to refresh the contact
And said, with bland assurance, “You got any jobs going?”
I was answered almost instantly, “We have nothing here showing
You’ve ever been employed before within the Corporation”.
It was only 25 years later, with some exasperation
A lefty hack explain the cause of this rebuff; insisted
That my “trouble-making” meant that, aged 19, I’d been blacklisted.
Time moved on; I started drawing stupid pictures for the papers
Depicting politicians and their various vile capers,
The kind of chap I think you’ll find, with charm and - hem - some flair
Can enable most broadcasters in the filling of dead air.
That Christmas tree embossed upon my Corporation file
Seemed to pose no problems when I’d find, once in a while,
A breathy young researcher would phone up and ask, “You funny?
Can we book you for this evening for 10.30? There’s no money.”
I did the politics shows, Radio 1, the Arts: a slow graph
Will show my stock rise higher; then I did a show on Hogarth
To mark his tercentenary, drew them Hogarth’s Roundabout
In the Style of the Master! The producer, some bounder lout
Cut the drawing, my masterwork! I said, can you return...
They cut me short and said “We own that now! You never learn.”
So in the end I bought it back; paid those cunts back my fee,
One of the ways that I’ve been fucked up by the BBC.
The other ways are legion, like my surname mispronounced
(It’s not much, although far better men than I am often flounce
Out of prime time interviews because of lesser slights);
Sighed over freelance contracts where my soul’s bought with all rights
To be held in perpetuity, or they don’t pay me at all,
While expecting our blind gratitude, awaiting their next call,
Or when I did a nice thing in that nice post-lunchtime slot
On Radio 4. I interviewed celebs & drew the lot,
But when I said “Let’s get George Osborne! He’ll pose for a sitting!”
They said “He’ll never do it. Who do you think you’re shitting?
But tell you what. We’ll pull some string and get Farage instead!”
At which point I damn nearly walked, hissing “God strike me dead”.
(For the record, Osborne responded, with no profanity,
“Please draw me!” You can never plumb these arseholes’ vanity.)
When they rebroadcast that show (although no one had told me)
I jovially asked my producer: Is there a repeat fee?
She forwarded her editor’s response, which said that I
Must never get another penny for it ere I die.
These are, I know, small grumblings. You’d never guess I’m born!
But after 40 years of tiny fuck-yous, you get worn.
And don’t forget, the BBC has spent nearly a century
Insisting to our nation certain truths are elementary:
We all love Sport - yes, all of it - and we all love the Queen;
That creation is best nurtured through a badly oiled machine;
That every great drama simply must feature a cop;
That management’s like cess pits - the shit floats to the top;
That Northerners are funny; that everyone loves cars;
That there’s never any money (except for bargefuls of the stars);
That the BBC is riddled with lefties of all hues,
So subtle that the bastards have hidden all the clues;
That everyone needs telling, save for those who should be told;
That cowardice will guarantee your chance of getting old;
That a vast craven bureaucracy shows Britain at its best;
That now on Gardeners’ Question Time, hell! Farage is the guest!
So if you weigh its pros and cons, recorded on your jotter,
Judge it for the times it banned the plays of Dennis Potter;
For the way it offers “balance”, although you’ll be bereft
If you think that balance means you’ll get fair hearings for The Left;
For the way this crew of Wykehamists think UKIP owns our hearts;
For the way each frightened DG jumps each time Lord Reith’s ghost farts;
How it’s shilled for the Establishment since the General Strike;
And how it often broadcasts utter trash that I don’t like...
And yet, and yet... The BBC, in all its tattered shame,
When targetted by Tories to get kicked and take the blame,
When Murdoch and the Daily Mail so hate the BBC,
Oddly, that’s when I hear myself say “The Dear Old Beeb is fine by me!”
