I am writing this whilst holed up in the nuclear bunker that is the Lower Gladstone Link. If Trump ever gets to power and gets control of that big red nuclear button, this is where you’ll find me- clutching a bag of dried pasta, a box set of Blackadder and the tattered remnants of my reading list, a wedge of paper so big it successfully managed to protect me from the brunt of the blast.
Now, let me get one thing straight: I love the Bodleian. I mean, I really love it. I stop at the extent of having erotic dreams concerning the Duke Humphreys and black leather bookmarks, but I appreciate the incredible resource we have at our fingertips. If you ask for the History section in my local rural library, you will proudly be shown a battered selection of Bernard Cornwell books. But it can be a little, well, dull. I mean, ‘The Nonconformist Church and Hebrew Inscriptions in Victorian England’… riveting bedtime reading.
But despite being halfway through a History degree that practically requires you to live in the Bod, I have failed to come across one thing: a joke book. Or, for that matter, a joke of any description (unless you count quite a few of my essays). Fair enough, it’s an academic library, but I don’t think this should exclude it completely from the element of humour. I mean, surely the Upper Glink could be improved with this emblazoned on one of the walls:
Wiwis by Roger McGough
To amuse
Emus
On warm summer nights
Kiwis
Do wiwis
From spectacular heights.
Now try to tell me that wouldn’t cheer up your daily expedition to collect your reading list. Oxford has a distinct tendency to take itself far too seriously: the recent Rhodes Must Fall campaign is a case in point. We are all terribly important students, with terribly important acts of social justice to implement, thank you very much. The argument oscillated exclusively between removing or retaining the statue- no one suggested humour and ridicule as a method of coming to terms with and dealing with our troubled past. We cannot escape colonialism- but we can mock it. A recent artist in Ukraine has been addressing the country’s Communist past by dressing up statues of revered leaders like Lenin up as Darth Vader. Star Wars characters are also standing in Ukrainian election campaigns. Initially this all sounds simply ridiculous, but when considered it makes complete sense: humour is an important weapon to both discuss our troubled past and make contemporary political points. Perhaps if Oxford University took a leaf out of Darth Vader’s book and lightened up, we could be able to have a more effective discussion of these controversial issues. If we left Cecil Rhodes up there on his plinth but dressed him in a pink tutu and tiara, we might perhaps be able to send out a less tumultuous and fractured signal to the rest of the country.
But back to those poems…
Recycling by Roger mcGough
I care about the environment
And try to do what is right
So I cycle to work each morning
And recycle home every night.
Roger McGough’s writing is everything I enjoy about reading, and about communication through poetry- short, pithy, and completely hilarious. True, I have a terrible soft spot for bad puns, but quite apart from this I think his poetry contains a deeper message: not everything has to be serious. There is enough time in our days to fit in a moment or two of levity and funny poems, even if it is four lines of silly rhyme that makes us smile. When the time comes and Trump lets rip on that nuclear arsenal (pardon the pun), I sincerely hope the Bod has some of Roger McGough’s work stocked to help me through those long, dark, apocalyptic nights. The world, and Oxford in particular, needs more of his daft humour.
Cane Toads by Roger McGough
Please don’t.
