SOCIOPOETRY

      I have chosen to start my book with this, most relevant of themes. Sociopoetry. Sociopoetry has always fascinated me. In case you are ignorant I will briefly describe the concept of sociopoetry. It is – as you might expect – poetry, which concerns itself with socio. Things falling under the banner of socio would include guns and prisons, the state of hospitals, how much we should give to beggars, whether we should experiment on beggars/force them to become soldiers, her nibs the Queen, the plight of the ethnic and whether there should be a National Lottery – and, if there is, should it be easier to win. My father is a member of society so I have recently been bending his ear about what it is all about. I’ll drive to his boathouse and we’ll sit down, open a crate of Adnams and try and get to the bottom of things. He has some pretty extremist views, which only begin to make sense after about four Adnams. He believes that single people should be made to ring a heavy, town-crier-style bell when they walk into pubs and multi-millionaires should be forced to carry their first million with them in a large Karrimor rucksack at all times. In addition he doesn’t agree with hoodies and he is unsettled by sign language. He thinks that a lot of the ills in society can be traced back to the fact that everyone wears jeans these days. He refuses to even use the word – calling them ‘blue trousers’ – and can quote some amazing statistics about convicted murderers since the turn of the twentieth century and the colour of their trousers. In addition, he thinks that it would be good to have a president in charge of the whole world (he suggested Michel Platini), he thinks that rock should be easier to buy outside of seaside towns and he believes that he himself should be knighted. I enjoy having these discussions with my (bearded) old man. Once we’re good and stoked, and we’ve put the world to rights, he’ll sling his bottle against the wall, trudge over to the rowing machine, take off his blazer and slacks and get down to business. There’s no finer sight in sport than my old man, lashed off his skull, a blur of black swimming trunks and white vest, making that flywheel squeal. If I’ve got half of his appetite for giving a rowing machine a good seeing to when I hit his age I’ll be delighted. In truth, I’ll be delighted if I’m able to put away the amount of Adnams my old man does at that age, and discuss elements of socio the way he can. He is a very great man.