Cartoon Dad - Jim Bob

I thought the streets were paved with gold

I always thought my fortune flowed

All along the River Thames

From Westminster to Southend

Into the sea

I thought I’d find it at the heart

Of every garden and Royal Park

Where money grows on trees

Beneath the moon that’s made of cheese

But the ground beneath my feet

Was just tarmac and concrete

The road sticking to my Converse

As it melted in the heat

Of a muggy Monday morning

Through the smog of global warming

The sun would not be blocked

By any cream bought from a shop

On a busy London high street

That looked just like any other

As it was filmed from every angle

For a voyeuristic Big Brother

The opening of another

Tesco Metro supermarket

Girls leaving the Body Shop

For the nearest Golden Arches

And if a horror film or snuff movie

Was captured on the cameras

It could be used in court as evidence

Which didn’t mean much to the families

In a crematorium where the left side

Of the stereo wasn’t working

For the song that played as it conveyed

The coffin through the curtains

Using all my cartoon superpower

I scaled the face of St. Stephen’s Tower

And looking down across my manor

Unfurled my stupid protest banner

The tourists watching from the wheel

With their camera phones and Happy Meals

Suspected a PR stunt

And secretly they hoped I’d jump

And break my neck but not be killed

On the electric fence that had just been built

If we keep the terrorists at bay

Maybe they’ll just go away

And leave us to mount our challenge

To all the Americans who thought

Our service could never be as lousy

As the service in New York

At fifteen minutes to the hour

I climbed down from St. Stephen’s Tower

For cigarettes and Lucozade

For the police and the fire brigade

Dr. Samuel Johnson

You were very nearly right

I was tired of London

But I would never tire of life

Mighty Mouse is on his way

Here I come to save the day

From the tower of Big Ben

Flying south across the Thames

Faster than the speed of sound

High above the Underground

With my supermarket bag

Just another cartoon dad

In London town