On the first day the world ended,
I said ‘Least said soonest mended.
Sometimes these things are sent to try us.’
Though in this case, they were sent to fry us.
But in the North we don’t like to make a fuss us,
though sometimes, I admit, we make a bit of a fuss
about how we don’t make a fuss.
In fact that ‘No Fuss Festival’
with the new play by Alan Bennett
Not Fussed
and the 38-act opera Unfussy
starring Lesley ‘I Never Make a Fuss Me’ Garrett
might, upon reflection
have constituted making a fuss.
But just because it’s Doomsday, there’s no need to make
a big song and dance about it.
On the second day I was on the bus
when there was a bang and all the lights went out –
and there was a chorus,
of ‘Call this an Apocalypse? I felt nowt’.
and ‘Grimsby hasn’t looked this good since
the Germans redecorated’.
You’ve got to make the best of things,
Northerners are tough like that
nobody else compares.
On the third day, the Tyne Bridge fell into a crack
in the space-time continuum
I said, ‘I’ll go to the foot of our stairs,’
but when I got home, there weren’t any.
On the fourth day,
Cleckheaton exploded.
I said, ‘Worse things happen at sea,’
and popped on a Bear Grylls DVD.
On the fifth day the government said it was tough for everyone,
with it being the Apocalypse
but that actually in London the restaurants were full
and maybe we just weren’t trying hard enough
in Liverpool, Newcastle and Hull.
We should get on our bikes
and there not being any roads left, or bikes, was just an excuse.
On the sixth day, the streets were full of people
wandering about, moaning.
The Zombies hadn’t come –
it was just folk complaining about the price of petrol
and how the Co-op had run out of white sliced.
On the seventh day Greggs’ Ham and Armageddon pasties
were going down a storm,
and they didn’t have to charge tax
as the surface radiation kept them warm.
On the eighth day there were no planes in the sky,
we had street parties,
shared the last of our tins,
best china was brought out, bunting unfurled.
Armageddon?
‘What’s the problem?’ we said,
‘it’s not the end of the world.’
KATE FOX