FLOWERS FOR TONY BLAIR
It's funny I forgot to mention this before now, since half the reason I did it was to brag about it on my blog. While I was in London, I took the time to stop by 10 Downing Street and pay my respects to Tony Blair. I brought him a bouquet of flowers and a sonnet I wrote. Of course, I couldn't deliver it directly to his doorstep. The guards there showed me where they would accept the package; I had to cross the street, go through a security check, give them my name. Which was all kind of fun, because I kept getting to tell everybody, "I've an admirer of the prime minister with some fan mail... it's just some flowers and a poem I wrote..." They recorded my name in a computerized log and put my flowers on the conveyor, and here's hoping that he'll read it!

Here's the poem:

To Tony Blair
These smug streets spurn you and they spit with scorn
They throb with intelligent and genial hate
Sons of privilege to secure freedom born
Content to leave lesser men in servile state
They breathe your name as a byword and a curse
Small comfort then that you are in the right
Though you your case a thousand times rehearse
And put your enemies' arguments to flight
They serve not conscience nor reason but fashion
A haughty and a heartless mistress she
The freedom of others and all such generous passions
Are praised only with thorough hypocrisy
Yet I have looked on you as gratefully
As on daffodils that bloom in February.

So there. I couldn't really have enjoyed my stay in London much without some way of shaking my fist at the activists. Poor Tony Blair. He has to face that all the time. Hope my little gesture was of use.