The Trials and Tribulations of the Bourgeois Misanthrope

Michael Stanton was the middle son of a middle son of a middle son
He drove to his middle-management job,
Not in the left lane or the right lane but the middle one
When he came home he’d kiss the wife and kids and then go for a run
Then he’d come back and eat his din-dins, followed by coffee and a sticky bun
But Michael was not a happy man, oh no, not in the least
In fact he had confessed everything to his local Middlesex parish priest
He wanted something different, something vibrant, something raw
He wanted a High Society girl or cheap and nasty whore
He didn’t want to walk the dog, paint picket fence or cut the grass
You see, Michael bloody hated being bloody effing middle class

Oh to be born a working class lad
Instead of weeing, he’d Jimmy Riddle
He’d go oi-oi,
be a glottal-stop boy
And only shop in Lidl
But Michael couldn’t coz he was comfortably well-off
And shopped in Marks & Spencer
He tried to spit, he tried to cuss, he tried to become denser
But it didn’t work
He was cursed with looking middle class, all fat and staid and spineless
He still used words like ‘Cheerio’
He didn’t listen to the radio, he listened to the wireless
In fact, you wouldn’t even find him dead in a supermarket like Lidl
No, the road was always straight and narrow and down the fucking middle

Oh how he hated the middle class ennui
The skiing hols, career goals and Christmas with Auntie Fee
He wanted to run the corners of Baltimore just like Stringer in The Wire
Drive blacked out Shoguns with neon floorlights, pimp bitches out for hire
But instead he got up from his bed, each and every morning
And had his fix of Weetabix instead of casual whoring
There was no dead hooker on the bathroom floor or a cap in a muthfucking ass
You see, Michael was from Twickenham and he was bloody middle class – class.

Oh to have been born upper class
At least that would be something
He’d mount the horse and hunt the fox and be a country bumpkin
He’d talk with plums sat in his mouth
Go ‘ear and rar and Crikey
He’d own half of Belgravia and take pot-shots at the Pikey
He’d fund civil wars in Africa, get blood diamonds by the dozen
Then be lucky enough to be allowed to have kids with his very own cousin –
And isn’t that all we’ve ever really wanted from life?

But no, on incest he would have to pass
No forbidden fruit, he’ll have to fast
For his is a Herculean task
To tow the line, to never ask
To fill the cup, to fill the flask
Of danger, moxie, a Neanderthal past
No, his is just to sit and bask
On man-made beaches or put to task
On daily chores that last and last
No edge to him, no tribal mask
Just fall in line and get lambasted
By an altogether better class, he’d
Have to turn the other cheek of arse
For he was bloody middle class

Oh it was such a fucking albatross around his fucking neck
Impotent, beige, garden variety, a stammering jibbering wreck
A season ticket for the Arsenal, a weekly trip to Ikea
I think I’ve got a crick in the neck and another pain here and here

I try to fit in with my working class mates but they look at me strange and queer
‘Why is Mike drinking gin and tonic instead of Fosters Super Chilled beer?
Why ain’t he reading News Of The World like us, why’s he reading The Culture Supplement from The Sunday Times
Christ, he even writes in middle class verse with poncy middle class rhymes
Why does he keep on calling me mate and geezer, who’s he trying to kid?
His dad’s my dad’s bloody accountant, and as far as I know he’s half yid
Who invited him here anyway? Which one of you cunts is a traitor?
I can’t understand a word he says, he needs his own bloody translator!’

On the other hand he tried to ride, shoot grouse and butter scones
But Michael was still in overdraft paying off his student loans
‘Who brought him along?’ they’d whisper and sneer behind poor Michael’s back
‘We actually picked him up in the suburbs, and it wasn’t a town house, it was a shack
A two-up two-down house-share in Wood Green, if you haven’t been, it looks like a slum
You know Gerald, if I didn’t know any better,
Just look at his sweater,
I’d swear he was proletariate scum

So Michael found there was no room at the top
And even less room down at the bottom
He didn’t like the rich folk anyway, he found them all snooty and rotten
He also found the poor’s down to earth humour rather mean, bullying and ephemeral
And that’s when he had an epiphany –
It wasn’t the classes he had a problem with but with bloody people in general

It was humanity he hated,
Every aspect of it
The children, the adults, the aged
The students, the workers, the street-corner hoodlums
And the Christians and the Jews and the Muslims
They were all as shit as each other quite frankly
The rich and the poor and indifferent
The clever and dumb and the average as well
From the judge to the gimp in the basement
The women, the men, the gay and the straight
The blacks and the browns and Caucasians
The people who care and the people who hate
The Germans, the Brits and the Asians

The problem wasn’t with other people
The problem was merely with us
The earthlings are weighed down with carrier bags
While evolution had taken the bus
‘I’ll see you at the end!’ Enlightenment said
As the human still struggled and preened
‘It’s only a ride!’ they said, mockingly
As the human begged not to be weaned
Off the breasts of old Mother Nature
As she fed us on hatred and torture and greed
From the preacher to Neitze to Thatcher
Via the lecher and fabled child snatcher
To the hard-up lottery card scratcher
As he watches society fracture
Based on hopes and on schemes
And American Dreams
This dumbed down mirage of pop “culture” -
Not too unlike the one used in yoghurt

‘Yeah’, thought Michael, ‘I’m starting to disappear up on my own arse
Let’s take this back a peg or two
Don’t wanna bite off more than I can chew
I thought this was about the bloody effing sodding middle class!’

And you know what, now I’ve thought about it, up yours!
I’ll save up for my French doors
I’ll even shop for menswear in Burton,
I’ll pay my parking fine and quibble over the wine
And stick up my velvet taffeta curtain,
I’ll never get arrested or in trouble with Old Bill
And if I want to tuck my vest in my pants – I will
Stand Up For Bastards! If I’m going posh, I’ll go to Harrods
To the Food Hall, for a well-behaved, completely legal blast!



Yes, fuck it, thought Michael,
Let’s break the cycle
‘I don’t give a shit! I’m bloody middle class!’