Cod Almighty | Article
by Antony Chapman
12 May 2017
DB Wyndham Lewis's Lament was inspired by a defendant's statement in court "I was never chairman of the company, as far as I knew". Antony thought the scenario sounded familiar...
I heard a voice complain in Blundell Park,
Very bitterly it grieved, saying:
I wish I knew if I was chairman of this company,
It would make a lot of difference at board meetings:
Gorgeous board meetings we have, simply gorgeous,
Finest in the county, I imagine.
I am always in the top chair, but the boys will never let on if I'm chairman or not.
Sometimes after a jolly board meeting I say: "Boys, that was a fine board meeting, let's have another".
Then we have another, right on the spot.
I often slip in a word, as if joking, such as "Looks to me as if I'm chairman of this company", but nobody ever takes it up.
Often when I'm signing things or shouting into my mobile (you ought to see my mobile) or maybe ringing through to head office and firing somebody, I wish one of the boys would just say "Look at old Fishy - he's chairman, you know".
Nobody ever does.
For Heaven's sake, why can't they be frank with me one way or the other?
If they'd just say "All right, old boy, you're chairman" I could do a lot of things I've always wanted to do.
Such as taking on José Mourinho,
Or building an enormous new stadium,
Or getting a whole lot of players, say twenty or thirty, on the mat at once and raking them with merciless eyes and saying: "You're out!"
I'd get the chairman's portion at Steel's, too.
Dear Heaven, why can't they tell me?
'Fishy' was in the original
The home page image is cropped from Wikimedia commons and available under this license.