À la recherche du croissant perdu
One full fraudulent English every week VOL 1: Mangetout
1. THE UNDERTAKER’S KIPPER
William Sockspear
At Bletchley’s funeral, after rain,
Sir Giles took toast and called it pain.
“Good morrow, egg,” he gravely said,
“Thou yellow sun among the dead.”
I fear the bacon knew too much,
The marmalade had lost its touch,
And all the mourners, black and thin,
Looked fondly at the buttered sin.
Surely grief is not so grand
It cannot take a plate in hand?
For Heaven’s sake. We live, we chew.
The grave may wait. The kettle’s due.
2. HAIKU FOR A COLD FRIED EGG
Matsuo Bash-Oh
Grey morning.
An egg remembers heat.
So do I.
3. THERE WAS A YOUNG MAN FROM EPSOM
Edward Learnt
There was a young man from Epsom
Whose porridge attempted to vex ’im.
He said, “Don’t make me laugh,
This is oats, not a staff,”
And promptly appointed a sexton.
4. ODE TO THE TOASTER
John Grease
Thou still unravish’d bride of crumb,
Small furnace of the rented flat,
What gods within thy wires hum?
What clerk approved a plug like that?
Perhaps the empire fell less hard
Than one wet slice at half-past eight.
Welcome to progress: scorched and charred,
With settings one through eight.
5. THE CROISSANT AT NEWMARKET
Lord Bygone
I met old Freddie by the rails,
His trilby ruined by the rain.
He spoke of bloodstock, women, ales,
Then dropped some pastry down his chain.
The stewards stared. The horses ran.
The nation wheezed and called it sport.
A flaky, continental plan
Had brought the English soul up short.
6. IF—FOR BREAKFAST
Ruddyard Kippering
If you can keep your toast when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming you for tea;
If you can trust your egg when waiters doubt you,
But make allowance for bureaucracy;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting
For mushrooms promised, invoiced, never seen—
Then yours shall be the table, and the seating,
And—which is more—you’ll get the beans, my son.
7. THE MINISTRY OF BACON
George Or-fry-well
The notice said:
“Breakfast Optimisation Directorate.”
Naturally, no bacon came.
A man called Crispin, wearing lanyards,
explained that rashers were exclusionary
unless audited by a panel
of Procurement Breakfast Stakeholders.
I fear we have built a civilisation
in which a pig may be more honest
than the people paid to count it.
8. SONNET TO BLACK PUDDING
William Sockspear
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s morn?
Thou art more dark, more honest, more accused.
Rough forks do shake thy casing, newly born,
And breakfast’s lease hath all too short a fuse.
Yet while men blanch at what they claim is blood,
They swallow lies with ministerial ease;
They fear the farm, the knife, the honest mud,
But not the memo written to appease.
So long as men can chew and men can see,
So long lives this, and gives good strength to me.
9. THE OLD SOLDIER’S MARMALADE
A. E. Housemanly
Captain Bell had lost an ear
Somewhere east of no one’s care.
Still, at breakfast every year,
He took his toast and sat just there.
Bitter peel and silver spoon,
Sunlight on a regimental scar.
“War,” he said, “is mostly noon.
Breakfast tells you who you are.”
10. THE GREAT MUESLI FRAUD
T. S. Elliot Ness
April is not the cruellest month.
January is, when men repent
and pour gravel into bowls
with the air of saints
auditing a monastery.
What are the raisins doing there?
Who authorised seeds?
What junior ghoul in a breathable shirt
decided pleasure required minutes?
Welcome.
Or quit.
11. LIMERICK FOR A POACHED EGG
Ogden Nashional
There once was an egg in hot water
Behaving just as it oughta.
But the chef lost his nerve,
So the white took a swerve,
And breakfast became manslaughter.
12. THE FULL ENGLISH
John Milton Keynes
Of Man’s first disobedience, and the plate
Whose mortal grease brought death into the room,
Sing, heavenly Muse: the sausage, rashers, fate,
Tomato, beans, and mushrooms dark with doom.
Better this fall than some committee’s rise.
Better one fork than seven policy lies.
13. THE JAM AT ASCOT
Pam Ayreily
I knew a chap called Roger
Who buttered with a spade.
He said his jam was artisanal.
It tasted like marmalade.
“Perhaps,” said Lady Muriel,
“That’s what the young now do.”
For Heaven’s sake, Muriel.
It came from aisle two.
14. PORRIDGE IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL
Thomas Hardy-Har
A boy named Pym, with ears like doors,
Was given porridge grey as law.
He stirred it once, then stirred no more,
And learned what education’s for.
Not Latin.
Endurance.
15. THE BREAKFAST MEETING
Philip Larkout
They said there would be coffee.
There was a jug of managerial brown
And biscuits shaped like surrender.
A woman called Strategy
asked us to “reimagine cereal”.
Don’t make me laugh.
Cereal has imagined us already
and found us wanting.
16. HAIKU FOR BURNT TOAST
Yosa Bus-on Toast
Smoke at the window.
The toaster confesses first.
The cook blames the dog.
17. TO A SAUSAGE
Robert Burns Unit
Wee sleekit, cased, cylindrical beastie,
O what a panic’s in thy breastie.
Thou needna start awa sae hasty—
I’ve got the fork.
The diet men may glower and mutter.
I’ll take thee up with eggs and butter.
18. THE HOTEL BUFFET
Geoffrey Chaucer & Sons
Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote
Had droppèd rain on Wolverhampton’s route,
There came a knight, a clerk, a nun, a fool,
And all attacked the breakfast by the pool.
The knight took ham. The clerk took fruit.
The fool took both and blamed the EU.
19. THE AVOCADO QUESTION
Percy Bysshe Shelled
I met a traveller from St John’s Wood
Who said: Two smashed green slabs of toast
Lie in a café. Near them, on the bill,
Half sunk, these words appear:
“Service included.”
Look on my brunch, ye mighty, and despair.
20. EGGS BENEDICT AT THE CLUB
Oscar Mild
The first duty of breakfast is to appear accidental.
The second is to cost too much.
Lord Pevensey said hollandaise was civilisation.
His wife said civilisation had run off
with the tennis coach in 1986.
Both were correct.
21. THE BACON TREE
W. B. Yeast
I will arise and go now
to the kitchen’s greasy peace,
And a small pan build there
of rashers, beans and grease.
And I shall have some breakfast there,
For breakfast comes dropping slow—
Dropping from the grill-bars
Where holy juices go.
22. THE MINISTER’S CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST
Alexander Pope-On-Toast
A little coffee is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the bureaucratic spring.
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And breakfast reforms leave hotels in pain.
A minister, with croissant in his fist,
Declared the sausage “nationalist”.
23. THE MILK JUG
Emily Dickin-scone
Because I could not stop for Tea—
It kindly stopped for me—
The carriage held but just ourselves—
And one small Jug of Cream—
The Toast was in a winding sheet—
The Spoon had lost its nerve—
I fear the dead are better fed
Than guests who must not serve.
24. A SOLDIER’S TEA
Wilfred Owen-Ready
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
We cursed through dawn, and dreamed of tea.
Then someone found a dented tin
And called it breakfast.
No bugles.
No glory.
Just steam rising from enamel mugs
and men too tired to speak
but not too tired to pass the sugar.
25. THE DAILY GRANOLA
Dylan Thomas Cook
Do not go gentle into that good bran.
Rage, rage against the dying of the fry.
Wise men at their end know oats are bland;
They do not praise a seed because it’s dry.
26. THE ORANGE JUICE COMMISSION
Samuel Taylor Coleridge-Fridge
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately breakfast-dome decree,
Where Alph, the sacred grapefruit, ran
Through caverns measured out by fee.
Then came a clerk with clipboard pale:
“Is pulp compliant?”
No.
27. LIMERICK FOR THE TEAPOT
Hilaire Belloc-Off
There once was a pot with a spout
That behaved with conspicuous doubt.
It dribbled on Maud,
Who cried, “Good Lord!”
And threw the whole breakfast out.
28. THE NATION’S TOAST
John Betjeman’s Jam
Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough—
But spare the café near the plough;
Its toast is cut too thick for fame,
Its waitresses all call you “name”.
Here England, stained and underpaid,
Still butters bread with marmalade.
29. BEFORE THE HUNT
Siegfried Sassooner
Old Colonel Frith had bacon first,
Then cursed the young, the rain, the hounds,
The price of boots, the Church, the thirst,
And fences built on doubtful grounds.
He mounted like a falling shed.
He lived because the horse had bred
More sense than any man in red.
30. THE CEREAL AISLE
Virgil Van Milk
Arms and the bran I sing,
The man who first from Tesco came,
Exiled by health and packaging,
To found a cardboard empire of shame.
There stood the flakes in martial rows.
There fell the fathers.
There rose the glucose.
31. HAIKU FOR BACON
Kobayashi Fryssa
Winter pan singing.
The pig becomes an argument.
I vote with toast.
32. THE BREAKFAST OF KINGS
Alfred Lord Tennisball
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of eggs
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Bacon Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?
Yes. The chap on cholesterol tablets.
33. THE SCONE AT DAWN
Christina Rosset-toast
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
But leave, I beg, upon the tray
A scone, some cream, and steady hand.
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than remember and eat margarine.
34. THE PANCAKE SPEAKS
Ted Hughescake
Flat.
Golden.
Patient as a poacher.
I lie in the pan
while men in offices invent initiatives
for fields they cannot name.
Pour syrup.
I have seen empires handled worse.
35. TO THE MORNING ROLL
Seamus Heaneycomb
I lifted it warm from the paper bag,
Flour on the thumb, street-smell, rain,
The baker coughing by the hatch.
A small republic of crust.
A parliament of butter.
No whip required.
36. THE RADIO AT BREAKFAST
Andrew Motionless
A ridiculous news item:
the Council has appointed
a Deputy Assistant Lead
for Inclusive Cutlery Futures.
The spoon has no comment.
The fork is considering its position.
The knife, naturally, has legal advice.
37. THE EGG CUP
Sylvia Plait
The egg sits white and doomed,
a small moon in a porcelain helmet.
Everyone is kind to it
until the spoon arrives.
Perhaps this is family life.
38. THE QUEUE FOR COFFEE
Dante Aligh-eggieri
Midway through the journey of our life
I found myself in Costa, lost,
For the straight way had been closed
By a man ordering oat milk foam
with the confidence of a pope.
Abandon hope, all ye who queue behind him.
39. THE RACING BREAKFAST
Homer Simpsong
Sing, Muse, of bacon and the wrath
Of owners who, before the first,
Have sworn their two-year-old has class
And watched it run as if rehearsed
By municipal geese.
40. THE VICTORIAN KEDGEREE
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Sauce
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways:
Rice, fish, egg, curry, buttered haze;
I love thee freely, as men strive for right;
I love thee purely, though not after night.
And if God choose, I shall but love thee better
With chutney.
41. THE WEETABIX REBELLION
William Blakey
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the cereal bowl of night,
What immortal hand or spoon
Framed thy fearful beige monsoon?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?
If so, He owes us tea.
42. BREAKFAST IN THE COMMONS
John Dryden-Up
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide;
Hence breakfast in committee rooms is seen
Where men talk justice over margarine.
A nation may survive a fool.
It rarely survives his briefing note.
43. THE PEAR AT THE BEDSIDE
Wallace Steamers
This pear is not a symbol.
It is a pear.
It bruised in a bowl
while three governments explained productivity.
A pear has better manners.
It ripens, falls, and shuts up.
44. THE HOTEL SAUSAGE
Ezra Poundland
The apparition of these sausages in the dawn:
Grey things upon a wet black plate.
Make it new?
Make it edible first.
45. THE CHILD’S TOAST
A. A. Milne-Toast
Christopher Robin went down with Pooh
To see what the marmalade meant.
Pooh said, “A pot that is sticky and blue
Is probably money well spent.”
Then Piglet, in crumbs to the knee,
Said, “Is breakfast a serious thing?”
“O yes,” said Pooh. “It’s nearly like tea,
But closer to happening.”
46. THE BLACK COFFEE
Charles Baudelaire-Brew
In the café’s sour morning air
I found my soul beneath the chair;
It looked at me with hollow eyes
And asked for sugar. I said no.
One must have standards
even in ruin.
47. THE BREAKFAST WAR
Rupert Brooked Egg
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever marmalade.
There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed:
A man who knew the egg was overboiled
And said so.
48. THE NEWSPAPER AND THE TOAST
Jonathan Swiftly Fried
A modest proposal:
that all public announcements
be printed on toast.
If useful, butter them.
If absurd, scrape them.
If issued by a regulator,
feed them to the dog.
49. THE FARMHOUSE BREAKFAST
Laurie Lee-K
Rosie poured tea from a pot
the colour of November fields.
The bacon came from somewhere local,
which is to say someone had lied less than usual.
Outside, a tractor coughed.
Inside, men remembered wars
by pretending to discuss hens.
50. THE LAST CRUMPET
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly
It lived.
Not naturally, not decently,
but by electricity, damp hope,
and the mad experiment of reheating.
Victor stared upon his breakfast
and knew at once
that man had gone too far.
51. THE BREAKFAST CLUB MINUTE
W. H. Auden-Off
Stop all the clocks, cut off the phone,
Prevent the dog from stealing scone;
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the toast. The eggs have come.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one—
Except the grill. The bacon’s not done.
52. ENVOI: OR QUIT
Boyd’s Own, after nobody respectable
At Salisbury races, I once saw a man called Pritchard
eat six rashers, lose three hundred quid,
and pronounce the nation doomed
because the tea was weak.
He was not wrong.
Breakfast is where civilisation shows its hand:
not in manifestos, not in mission statements,
not in some hereditary quango chaired by a man
whose chief qualification is having once shared a taxi
with the Minister for Warm Pastry Resilience,
but in whether the toast arrives hot,
the butter is butter,
the egg is treated as an egg
and not as a stakeholder.
For Heaven’s sake, it is breakfast.
The first mercy.
The daily vote against despair.
Get it right.
Or quit.