The Owl and the Pussycat

The owl and the pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat
The owl took his iPhone, and when they crossed timezone
He opened up facebook and wrote;
“Kitty and I’m having such a great time, #Sea-trip 2k13”
Then he finished the post with a snap of the coast - retro-filtered, so it looked more green.

Past the Cape of Kaliakra, and twelve photos later,
The updates began to up-grate. It wasn’t so much that
The pair were in touch, but they seemed to be doing so great.
The ox and racoon, and the fox and baboon, and the wren and the hen and the tit,
With the frog and bat, yes they all had a chat - it was making them feel rather shit.

By the Bay of Biscay, they just wanted to say
“Stop your mix of in-sipid and –trepid!
Comparing to you, which we patently do, our lives seem so numbingly tepid”
Stop telling us of your whimsical love, and your Bong-trees and runcible spoons,
You’re making us feel, and this anguish is real - like we’ve wasted our Augusts and Junes.”

But the mink and the whale, and the skink and the quail
Did not say one thing to the pair
Nor the fawn nor the goose, nor the prawn nor the moose, nor the normally vocal brown bear.
Although they resented the smugly contented, no-one stepped forwards to strike.
They were all (I’d have guessed) too polite (or repressed) - so instead, they just gave them a ‘like’.

SockSoc (Winned twith Spoonerism Soc)

Preparing to join university? Well, if you want to make friends, you’re going to have to start thinking about joining some clubs and societies, or cultivating some sort of personality. Do you have time to cultivate a personality? No, I didn’t think so. You’re weird and awkward and silently accept the judgement of strangers. So why not join SockSoc? After the horrific incident in which half of our members went missing inside a washing machine, we have plenty of space, membership cards, and personalised clothing*, available – SockSoc, the university’s biggest, and only, sock appreciation society.


In meetings, we exchange sock-based anecdotes, watch famous films, looking for sections in which socks appear, and discuss recent sock-related news stories. The sock-related question for our first meeting of term will be: “Are socks responsible for global warming?” As well as ‘social’ events (see above), we also have a number of speakers give guest lectures: in the past, we’ve written to request talks from such famous sock-wearers as J.K. Rowling, The Queen, Steve McQueen, Queen, Queen Latifah, and Steve Buscemi. None of them have agreed to speak, yet, but it’s the thought that counts. And the thought of receiving another couple of hundred emails from me should persuade them to come and talk.


Talking of talks, you may have heard about the controversy at this year’s Freshers’ Fair. I was manning the SockSoc stall at the time, so you can take my word for it, everything that you’ve heard about it is true; an argument between members of the Debating Club, over whether they should use a biro or pencil to sign people up, got increasingly vocal, until the club’s treasurer rugby-tackled the secretary, and, because they’re used to British Parliamentary style, the first proposition was joined by a second, third, and fourth. There was a brief pause, as the second opposition struggled to think of a case extension, but punching resumed as the proposition reminded them that they ‘had points of information, and weren’t afraid to use them’. It was such a shame to see them descending into violence like that. I mean, the first rule of talk club is that you do not fight about talk club.


So, erm, where was I? Right, yes, join SockSoc.


* If you want the personalised clothing to be specific to your name, you may have to change your name.