In Maxwell House

I was a dishonoured guest of Sir Maxwell House

in the cooled coffee shadows of Mount Nescafé.

I'm not saying we caned it but one morning

I woke up as a Findus Crispy Pancake.

One day we peeled back five hundred years

of faded wallpaper to reveal

weird hieroglyphs of Gareth Hunt

shaking a fistful of Arabica beans.

Now the camera pans to the window

and the UHT world beyond

where Joanna Lumley cycles sidesaddle

and falls drunkenly into a pond.

B.R. 12.01.24

Come the weekend it's expected of the menfolk in these parts that they stand around and "strike a Gareth Hunt". It's not mandatory. But they have to do it.