Posh Malcolm

Malcolm was a poor boy.
Malcolm came from Slough.
Malcolm's education was
Not the most highbrow.

Malcolm was a tough bloke
Who hung around in bars.
He called his friends 'You fuckas'
And couldn't say his r's.

He also dropped his aitches
And couldn't deal with t's,
So his mother used to tease him
That he spoke in 'Malcolmese'.

But one day in Minorca
Malcolm came across a bottle.
It was buried in the sand
Beside a pool of dying cockles.

He rubbed it up most gleefully
And much to his surprise
A big fat Genie person
Sprang out before his eyes.

He offered Malcolm wishes,
A maximum of three.
But Malcolm knew not what to wish -
For his brain was quite emp-tee.

Eventually he thought of two
And asked for beer and sex.
So exciting was the prospect
That he shat in his new keks.

A mite depressed and shameful,
Malcolm pondered for a while
How to use the third and final wish
To cultivate his style.

Then suddenly it came to him.
It hit him like a cosh.
The thing he'd always wanted
Was to master talking posh.

The genie gave his wishes.
That was thirteen years ago.
Now Malcolm works in Reading -
He's a different man - you know.

He never goes to bars now.
And he doesn't have no friends.
His colleagues say his perfect
Diction drives them round the bend.

Arriving in the morning,
He says 'What-ho,you lot!'
And departing in the evening
He says 'Good show, what, what?'

He enquires 'are we on good form?'
And asks us out to luncheon.
He doesn't call it 'dick' or 'cock',
But prefers to snigger 'truncheon'.

So that's how an ex-hooligan
Has turned aristo-crat.
Now he lives in Surrey
And he wears a pink cravat.

Poem Study Notes:

This poem was written in around 2002, one of the poems physically written in the office, specifically for inclusion in the office status report.

Malcolm was a colleague, who did indeed live in Surrey and work in Reading.

He wasn't posh (in voice, clothes or ancestry), nor did he show any particular hankering after 'poshness'.

However, he did one morning, for reasons unknown (it may just have been a stutter, or perhaps he had been watching too much Jeeves and Wooster) say 'what-what' in conversation ... and it seems that was enough to trigger a nearby poet, desperate for status report ammunition, into action.