Armando Ianucci has written a faux-epic poem about Covid

[Glennhoddleishavingagoal]

Yeah, seems to be his major artistic interest - think he did a whole programme on it for the BBC if I'm not mistaken a while back and also remember some interview where he was going on about how the first few lines of the theme to the Flintstones fit its meter (as if things being in iambic pentameter is somehow an absolutely mind-blowing fact)

Definitely become a textbook boring old ex-Oxford "wit"

[sevendaughters]

Like Iannucci I also I wish I was Milton, because I would have been blind and then not seen this.

[idunnosomename]

Yeah, seems to be his major artistic interest - think he did a whole programme on it for the BBC if I'm not mistaken a while back and also remember some interview where he was going on about how the first few lines of the theme to the Flintstones fit its meter (as if things being in iambic pentameter is somehow an absolutely mind-blowing fact)

Definitely become a textbook boring old ex-Oxford "wit"

i remember that flintstones thing. but he did it wrong. it only fits of you don't have "Of"

[Of] Man's first
disobedience
And the fruit of that forbidden tree

I suppose if you rush together "Ofmansfirst" but then whats the fucking point

Like Iannucci I also I wish I was Milton, because I would have been blind and then not seen this.

lol

[colacentral]

So it's like a pompous Weird Al.

With Norm Macdonald dying, his words about unfunny comedians acting the smart guy instead of the dumb guy have been in my head, and clearly, that's applicable here. The only time that works is when it's done in a self-deprecating way, like Stewart Lee manages.

I was thinking about Spaced yesterday, and about how it's stuff like that which is the modern day equivalent of the mock epic poem - taking big Hollywood blockbuster action films, the modern equivalent of what epic poems were, and remaking scenes from them in mundane settings. Not this COVID poem shite, which is tacking the mundane every day on to a form which is totally irrelevant to the modern world, meaning its only audience is middle class HIGNFY watching cunts who performatively laugh at stuff like this as a kind of abstract status symbol.

[Old Nehamkin]

taking big Hollywood blockbuster action films, the modern equivalent of what epic poems were

Bit generous.

[Twit 2]

i remember that flintstones thing. but he did it wrong. it only fits of you don't have "Of"

[Of] Man's first
disobedience
And the fruit of that forbidden tree

I suppose if you rush together "Ofmansfirst" but then whats the fucking point
lol

Similarly, you'd have to rush "disobedience" from 5 syllables into 4.

No wonder he didn't get his phd, the tin-eared grovelling cunt.

[Thursday]

*edit wrong thread*

[colacentral]

Bit generous.

That's what epic poetry was, mainstream entertainment.

[McDead]

O Iannucci who once wrote astute gags
Now, become a tedious old bastard, has
And in so doing the tit hath, metaphorically
Droppethed trow and beshitted whole his legacy
Accepting honours lest it displease his mother
And sensibly centristing within airy echo chambres
Oh hello Hugh! Back in your day, how esteemèd was Armando?
O verily! The Day Today; Partridge; TAIS; Gash...err, less so
Yet he was considered amongst the finest of the wits
We'd all dress up in our Sunday best to marvel at his incisive bits
You'd never think he'd fall so far to wind up on his 'Last Leg'
What's big and small at the same time? A big egg(head)

(With apologies to the CaB bald community)

Fuck me, this is magic. Take the rest of the day off Glen Hoddle.

[Pauline Walnuts]

That doesn't so much as go over the top as o'er the top.

© E. L. Wisty 1963

[amateur]

I hate poetry and I hate this even more.

[ajsmith2]

Couldn't help but be reminded of Dave Nice in 'End Of An Era' :(

'I have recently discovered I have a genius for poetry'

The Zands retweet is just the absolute official rubber stamp on confirmed obsoleteness and comedic senility. :((((((((((

You can pre order the book version here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pandemonium-Some-verses-Current-Predicament/dp/1408715082/ref=mp_s_a_1_13?crid=1908GJIWJNA4G&dchild=1&keywords=armando+iannucci&qid=1631439463&sprefix=armando+&sr=8-13#immersive-view_1631439582836

[idunnosomename]

Love the generic "always like his tweets on twitter" from David  not the author Mitchell

[pigamus]

Writing it as a bit of a jape s one thing but actually publishing the fucking thing

[Indomitable Spirit]

I remember Armando being interviewed on Election Night 2010 and him saying he voted for the Lib Dems and that Nick Clegg was a breath of fresh air or some bollocks and thinking to myself "fucking hell... this lad is soft as SHITE".

[Captain Z]

Remember the Covid pandemic
locked down from Durham to Dorking
Old Boris' rules were pathetic
but it would of been worse under Corbyn

[idunnosomename]

Writing it as a bit of a jape s one thing but actually publishing the fucking thing

i did assume the poem was going to just be in the guardian and that was bad enough. Didnt realise hed written something as long as Paradise Lost and had the cheek to ask money for it

[Purple Toupee]

The poem... was shit

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

" Covid is here, can't like it, must lump it
   A blight on humanity, even worse than " Time Trumpet" "

[Mister Six]

O Iannucci who once wrote astute gags
Now, become a tedious old bastard, has
And in so doing the tit hath, metaphorically
Droppethed trow and beshitted whole his legacy

This got one massive laugh out of me when I read it and a further four laughs every time I remembered it after, which is five more laughs than Iannucci managed with his epic shite. Says something about the man's confidence that he'd get further than maybe 20 lines without thinking "Wait, this is a bad idea executed badly" and sacking it off. Maybe Covid did his nut in.

Still, I imagine this thread will be the last anyone hears of this until a hapless shelf-stacker is found crushed beneath a mountain of unsold copies in some benighted Works.

[thenoise]

I think it
Is shit.

[wrec]

Profoundly annoyed by this more than I can coherently convey (and further annoyed with myself for being susceptible to such annoyance). Hardcore blinkered sensiblism, marinated in privilege and reeking of smugness, boiled down to a protracted display of autofellatio. And of course, order it now on fucking Amazon. It will be a bestseller and proclaimed delightful by Baddiel and Coles. Ianucci is effectively not that ideologically distant from Johnson et al, and yes the pisstakes here are on a different level to his interminable tripe.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

He had to add the bit about all profits going to charity to entice people to buy the fucker.

...okay, that's not fair. Both things can be true - it can be a bloated, self-indulgent mess with a vague whiff of satire, and Ianucci can genuinely want the proceeds to go to a mental health charity. But still. Don't buy this shite, just donate to Mental Health UK and cut out the middleman.

[Twit 2]

I've been angry about this poem all day.

[bgmnts]

So it's just a shit effort at a poem then?

I think even by his standards as an establishment shill, publishing this and selling it is incredible.

[idunnosomename]

epic poetry isnt ever going to be funny. Paradise Lost was meant to explain the ways of god to man in the time of civil war and regicide. using it to spoof the pawns in a media game you had a part in empowering by shitting on the democratically-elected leader of the labour party who pledged to take the country forward in the interests of the majority argh fuck you Armando. fuck you. curl a turd in your mouth

[shiftwork2]

Iaunicci Squirt is 100% Oxbridge gravy train, he lives it.  I presume his little cock made an appearance over the top of his elasticated trousers.

All it needs is a simple realignment of popular thinking to include them with their natural fake counterparts, the Royals.  There is no difference - they're anti meritocratic, and generally rubbish, and rely on a spell to fool the general public.   Both need to be over before we can proceed.

[chveik]

its such a weird move. oxbridge or not how can you imagine your toothless satire would be enhanced by writing it in the highest classical form of poetic language possible. i suppose pastiche is a legitimate form of literature but you need to have a shitload of talent to pull it off properly.

[peanutbutter]

We're probably just at the start of what'll be a few years of utterly atrocious pieces of art being commercially released that were forced into existence over the pandemic. Like 95% of them are gonna be the worst things those individuals put out. It's good it gave him something to keep himself sane over the pandemic, but fuck knows why anyone would want to read it, it's surely just overloaded with cringe both in the content and thinking about the process of how it was forced out.


My immediate instinct was to bemoan the fact it's being released commercially rather than just put up online somemwhere; but I guess it's okay if he's giving all his profits to charity. I'm struggling to grasp why anyone would publish it though.

[ajsmith2]

It does feel (as mentioned by some already in this thread) that it's being aimed firmly at the higher brow end of the Christmas stocking filler tat market. Smiled at once on present opening morning then consigned unread to a shelf for the next decade before British Heart Foundation beckons in most cases, I'd imagine.