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Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 2,255 Likes: 7
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 2,255 Likes: 7 |
Napoleon Bonaparte
Said: "Europe is just the start.
I've defeated Austria and Prussia;
Now I'm going to invade Russia".
James Gillray
Is still famous today
For his scurrilous cartoons
Depicting George III and his ministers as buffoons.
If Chairman Mao
Were still in power now,
He'd say: "Stay home – for if you do not,
You are a bourgeois troublemaker, and will be shot".
Donald Trump
Is (as I said) a chump,
But it won't be totally unexpected
If he somehow gets re-elected.
We Brits find it merciful
That Spencer Perceval
Is the only Prime Minister assassinated to date;
Four US Presidents have met such a fate.
Clement Attlee
In 1945 said flatly:
"Winston, we all think you're great,
But it's time to make way for the welfare state".
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Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 2,255 Likes: 7
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 2,255 Likes: 7 |
George Washington achieved transcendence
During the War of Independence.
He showed great skill and bravery;
It's a shame he didn't abolish slavery.
Ernö Rubik
Invented a toy that was cubic.
This lucky rhyme, I guess,
Was one of the keys to its success.
Jesus claimed to be a divine prophet,
But many Romans said "Come off it!"
The emperor Tiberius
Said "He cannot be serious!"
Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton
Have surely never been beaten
In their genre of comic audacity
Which filled cinemas to their capacity.
Barack Obama
Did not have a sense of drama,
But there's no necessary correlation
Between excitement and good administration.
The Garden of Eden
Was an agreeable place, like Sweden,
But Adam found it a little bland,
So his quest for more knowledge is easy to understand.
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Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 2,255 Likes: 7
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 2,255 Likes: 7 |
Thomas Edison
Did not patent medicine,
But he did bring many an invention
To the Patent Office's attention.
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Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 2,255 Likes: 7
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 2,255 Likes: 7 |
Some philosophical clerihews:
René Descartes
Was undoubtedly very smart.
He is famous for his insistence
That we can prove our own existence.
Willard Van Orman Quine
Had something in common with Wittgenstein.
Both wrote about words and names
And meanings, logic, and language games.
Immanuel Kant,
Unlike Nietzsche, did not rant.
He wrote such dense Critiques
That reading just one chapter can take weeks.
Martin Heidegger was far worse;
His love of obscurity was quite perverse.
He used many a German word
That no other German had ever heard.
David Hume believed in empiricism;
Though a Scot, he spurned Celtic lyricism.
He found no evidence for God –
A view which his contemporaries found most odd.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Was a pessimist who would sit and glower.
He wrote a lot about the Will,
And thought everything was going rapidly downhill.
Plato's 'Forms'
May not accord with modern scientific norms,
But his originality in conceiving them
Can be admired without actually believing them.
Thomas Hobbes insisted
That no innate virtue existed,
And that societies would go wrong
Unless their rulers were strong.
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Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 2,255 Likes: 7
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 2,255 Likes: 7 |
Benjamin Disraeli
Charmed Queen Victoria daily.
Gladstone was much more strait-laced,
And she viewed his gravitas with distaste.
Sir Henry Wood
Thought music would do the public good.
His Proms were eclectic salads
Of old and new classics and lighter ballads.
Paul Revere
Is not very well known here,
But across the Atlantic
His patriotic legend is very romantic.
Gaetano Donizetti
Produced music like confetti.
He wrote half a dozen operas a year;
His rivals groaned when they saw a new one appear.
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Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 2,255 Likes: 7
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 2,255 Likes: 7 |
Edward Heath had a permanent glower
After Mrs Thatcher took over power.
She, in turn, called everyone a traitor
When she was ousted fifteen years later.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Has worldwide fame in political lore.
But in Britain the year is recalled with dislike
Because of the miners' strike.
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Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 2,255 Likes: 7
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 2,255 Likes: 7 |
Dr W G Grace
Was an early cricketing ace.
Among his peers he was in top position –
Ask any statistician.
The American Civil War
Was on a scale not seen before.
The English version in Charles I's reign
Saw far fewer soldiers slain.
Bomber Harris said with relish:
"I'm going to make all Germans' lives hellish!"
That controversial fellow
Had clearly never heard of jus in bello.
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Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 9,933 Likes: 3
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 9,933 Likes: 3 |
Just so you know. I am not a poet.
But I do read yours. You have a knack,keep it up.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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1 member likes this:
A C Bowden |
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Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 2,255 Likes: 7
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 2,255 Likes: 7 |
Joseph Haydn
Was calm and sober, like Joe Biden.
But Franz Liszt
Like Trump, was an exhibitionist.
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Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 2,255 Likes: 7
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 2,255 Likes: 7 |
Bertrand Russell
Could intellectually out-muscle
Any amateur logicians
Or second-rate mathematicians.
King James the First
Asked Shakespeare: "Are your plays well rehearsed?"
"Why yes", replied the Bard,
"I drive my actors very hard".
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