Poetry corner with Gerard Hastings

I've been reading a bit of The Marketing Matrix by Gerard Hastings. Regular readers will fondly recall Gerard as one of the University of Sterling's numerous left-wing academics who uses 'public health' to push his anti-capitalist agenda. Despite having no medical qualifications, he has his fingers in both the temperance and anti-smoking pies (he is the director of the Centre for Tobacco Control Research and co-authored the review of evidence for plain packaging). He wants e-cigarette advertising banned, which is hardly surprising since he seems to want all advertising banned.

I wasn't expecting much from Hastings' book, to be honest. I thought I had got the measure of the man from his socialist outbursts in the media. Sure enough, The Marketing Matrix is a sixth form polemic about how we're all so oppressed by the free market. But there is a marvellous and unexpected joy within these pages, for it includes some of Gerard's poetry.

Would you like to read one of his poems? Of course you would.

The Corporation

You wear my name upon your breast

Your body end to end

It's plain for all the world to see

You are my greatest friend

You are my greatest friend, you are my greatest friend

I am the Corporation and you are my greatest friend

You love my Golden Arches

You crave my stylish swoosh

The looks you give my logos

Would cause a stone to blush, cause a stone to blush

I am the Corporation and I'd cause a stone to blush

My slogans are your poetry

Though they'd make a poet scream

They give your life its meaning

And craft your hopes and dreams

Craft your hopes and dreams, craft your hopes and dreams

I am the Corporation and I craft your hopes and dreams

You let me recreate you

In my image, by the hand

Like masochistic cattle

You queue to get my brand

Queue to get my brand, queue to get my brand

I am the Corporation and you queue to get my brand

Now my work has just begun

I have ambitious goals

I've started with your heart

But soon I'll have your soul

Soon I'll have your soul, soon I'll have your soul

I am the Corporation and soon I'll have your soul

For I am the new Jehovah

You answer to my call

You kneel before the labels

And worship in my malls

Worship in my malls, worship in my malls

I am the Corporation and you worship in my malls

You wear my name upon your breast

Your body head to toe

Little do you understand

I am your greatest foe

I am your greatest foe, I am your greatest foe

I am the Corporation and I am your greatest foe

For I'll crush you in the end, crush you in the end

I am the Corporation and I'll crush you in the end

Isn't that a wonderful? Oh, to be sixteen again!

It's worth remembering when you see Hastings on the television—as he was last night—that these are the kind of thoughts that are running through his mind. Getting him involved in regulating industries is a fox/chicken coop situation and probably best avoided.