Bedtime Blues and Clerihews

My younger son - to avoid confusion with the elder (Finn Jr), I'll call Ginn Jr (or maybe, Ginger?) - is at an age where he is changing his preferred method of falling asleep.

Until recently, the best way of invoking a nap involved strapping him into either a pushchair or a car seat and expending either leg or diesel power to trundle him into the land of Nod.

However, I'd noticed that my evening walks pushing the buggy around the streets of Mile Cross were getting longer and longer and the end result less certain. Sometimes I would complete the whole extended podcast edition of In Our Time and, whilst my knowledge of the early modern Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth would be satisfyingly increased, the little one would still be pushing the hood of the buggy back to get a better look at the people smoking outside Mecca Bingo.

I don't think we're in Mile Cross anymore...

I downloaded a step counting app to give myself an idea of how punishing these evening walks were becoming. The week when I twice recorded 19,000+ steps, I decided a new approach was needed.

I recalled a method of getting a child to sleep that had briefly worked with Finn Jr at a similar age. This is where I try waiting until he is really tired and lying down in the dark next to him and hoping like hell that he drops off before I do. 80% of the time, this works and I can transfer him to the cot and sneak downstairs for a rewarding glass of Côtes de Gascogne. The other 20%, my wife has to wake me up to tell me I've missed Only Connect.

In an attempt to stave off the inevitable wave of drowsiness that lying down in a darkened room brings on, I like to compose clerihews in my head. (I expect that you'll recall from this 2014 Finnginn blog post that clerihews are four line whimsical biographical poems that don't have to scan and follow an AABB rhyme scheme.)

A new crop of government ministers has revealed a rich harvest of names crying out to be Clerihewed (clerihewn?). Here are three that I have remembered long enough to write down:

Kwasi Kwarteng

Took up a pen

And wrote down a tax-and-spend policy

That wrote off the UK economy.

Suella Braverman

Do me a favour, man?!

What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander:

Stick yourself on the next flight to Rwanda.

Goodbye, Liz Truss -

Gone by Christmas.

When Liz Truss sees the Christmas trees

She'll celebrate with a plate of imported cheese.

In the time I've taken to write and edit this, rumours have been circulating that Kwarteng has been sacked as Chancellor. You heard it here first!

In the interests of fairness, feel free to add your own clerihews about members of the shadow cabinet in the comments...