EPISODE · Jan 18, 2025 · 2 MIN
John Betjeman. Inexpensive Progress.
from 101 Exiles · host ..
Encase your legs in nylons,Bestride your hills with pylonsO age without a soul;Away with gentle willowsAnd all the elmy billowsThat through your valleys roll.Let's say goodbye to hedgesAnd roads with grassy edgesAnd winding country lanes;Let all things travel fasterWhere motor car is masterTill only Speed remains.Destroy the ancient inn-signsBut strew the roads with tin signs'Keep Left,' 'M4,' 'Keep Out!'Command, instruction, warning,Repetitive adorningThe rockeried roundabout;For every raw obscenityMust have its small 'amenity,'Its patch of shaven green,And hoardings look a wonderIn banks of floribundaWith floodlights in between.Leave no old village standingWhich could provide a landingFor aeroplanes to roar,But spare such cheap defacementsAs huts with shattered casementsUnlived-in since the war.Let no provincial High StreetWhich might be your or my streetLook as it used to do,But let the chain stores place hereTheir miles of black glass faciaAnd traffic thunder through.And if there is some scenery,Some unpretentious greenery,Surviving anywhere,It does not need protectingFor soon we'll be erectingA Power Station there.When all our roads are lightedBy concrete monsters sitedLike gallows overhead,Bathed in the yellow vomitEach monster belches from it,We'll know that we are dead.
What this episode covers
Encase your legs in nylons,Bestride your hills with pylonsO age without a soul;Away with gentle willowsAnd all the elmy billowsThat through your valleys roll.Let's say goodbye to hedgesAnd roads with grassy edgesAnd winding country lanes;Let all things travel fasterWhere motor car is masterTill only Speed remains.Destroy the ancient inn-signsBut strew the roads with tin signs'Keep Left,' 'M4,' 'Keep Out!'Command, instruction, warning,Repetitive adorningThe rockeried roundabout;For every raw obscenityMust have its small 'amenity,'Its patch of shaven green,And hoardings look a wonderIn banks of floribundaWith floodlights in between.Leave no old village standingWhich could provide a landingFor aeroplanes to roar,But spare such cheap defacementsAs huts with shattered casementsUnlived-in since the war.Let no provincial High StreetWhich might be your or my streetLook as it used to do,But let the chain stores place hereTheir miles of black glass faciaAnd traffic thunder through.And if there is some scenery,Some unpretentious greenery,Surviving anywhere,It does not need protectingFor soon we'll be erectingA Power Station there.When all our roads are lightedBy concrete monsters sitedLike gallows overhead,Bathed in the yellow vomitEach monster belches from it,We'll know that we are dead.
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John Betjeman. Inexpensive Progress.
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