|
|
Friendly Bombs
A segment of the animated film
Friendly Bombs © David John
"Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!"
John Betjeman (1906-84),
from the poem Slough (1936)
Slough (rhymes with now) is
a town in southeast England. |
 |
| |
| |
About Friendly Bombs
Friendly Bombs started life as a poster design for the band of that name formed in London by Barry Shannon, Dave Ramsden and Glenn Doherty, to whom this work is dedicated.
The poem Slough, which is taught in British schools, always brings incongruously to mind (well, to my incongruous mind at least) the final scene of Kubrik's Doctor Strangelove *, images of aerial bombing during World War II and the Vietnam War, and the children's TV series Thomas The Tank Engine. Bomber crews still daub their bombs with messages to an enemy who will never benefit from their grim humour. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki atom bombs were daubed "Fat Man" and "Little Boy" with the proudly (for the movie camera) hand-painted greeting "Love and kisses to Hirohito". Primitive ritual. Other immediate associations include anodyne military terms such as "friendly fire" and "collateral damage".
Betjeman, worshipper of Great English Traditions, savagely attacks modern urban life and wishes to mercilessly destroy all that he detests.
With hindsight his destructive phantasy seems particularly vicious: even as he was ranting, Nazi bombers were destroying Guernica, Mussolini's planes were terrorizing Abyssinian tribes and global war was written on the wall. So it goes.
The band changed their name to "The Melancholy Babies" (really!), but by then the design had taken on a life of its own. We'd love to develop this project further one day - time, funds and new world orders permitting.
David John
* In Kubrik's masterpiece Doctor Strangelove, the magnificant actor with the equally magnificant name of Slim Pickens, playing THE true-blue gung-ho American military man, rides an atom bomb as if it were a rodeo bucking bronco onto its Soviet target, triggering an inevitable nuclear war of attrition (the feared logical conclusion of the Cold War). Slim makes kamikaze pilots seem like wimps. C'est la guerre. |
| |
| |
About John Betjeman (1906-1984)
Sir John Betjeman OBE, to give his full title, was one of those curious British characters - a pillar of the establishment and at the same time full of querky, unorthodox ideas.
Poet Laureate (the Queen's official poet), one-time civil servant and spy, he was able to communicate with insight, wit and charm. His subject matter and use of language helped make his work accessible.
A great entertainer, his work is well worth exploring. Slough was written in 1936 and published in his third book, Continual Dew, the following year.
If you would like to find out more about John Betjeman's life and work, try these informative websites:
The Betjeman Society
Metroland |
|
Sir John Betjeman |
|
| |
Slough (1936) by John Betjeman
Slough (rhymes with now) is an English town west of London.
Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!
Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air-conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.
Mess up the mess they call a town -
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.
And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:
And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.
But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.
It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead
And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.
In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.
Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales |
| |
|
| |
| |
