2549 - Power, corruption and lies

Terrible events in Syria, Ukraine
What is the common factor, it's Putin
I won't say Russia, it can't be to blame
As if all Russians approve of his sin
Though many do, but nationalism
Is a tool used by some politicians
To create fear or greed, yes, used by some
Not all. Look at Kiev, all those who've come
To state their case for real independence
Like Scotland, thinking money falls like rain
From North Sea oil located just within
Their territory. They hope tax will belong
To them from its extraction, but the same
Applies, leaders just want to take them in

2387 - Love and Haiti

Wet Sunday, raining all over this land
Finished 'The Comedians' by Graham Greene
(Nothing to do with comedy, my man)
It was quite like 'The Quiet American'
But whereas that was set in Vietnam
In this later novel, Haiti's the scene
The tension of the Papa Doc regime
Staying alive, post-Castro Caribbean
Always the fear of armed revolution
Lyndon Johnson supporting any scheme
That wasn't Communistically planned
The good old bad old days, Soviet regime
Post-Stalinist shadows in East Berlin
How strange it all ended under Reagan!

Papa Doc

2004 - Fiesta siesta

Shipman hangs himself, Hutton says OK
Madrid bombs, Spain's PM exits Iraq
Putin wins again, Blair in Libya, J
Mourinho wins with Porto, lots of flak
For US in Abu Ghraib prison. Back
In Athens, the Olympics. Lance Armstrong
Wins Tour de France again. Beslan school. Fox
Hunting protests. Schumacher drives along
Van Gogh film-maker killed, Ukrainians long
For fair election. Massive earthquake, they
Drown all around the Indian Ocean. Black
Fiesta engine's knackered, I'm buying
A red Fiesta after holiday
In Newquay, marriage problems once I'm back

2000 - Keep on moving

The dot-com bubble is about to burst
Lethal injector Doctor Shipman's shopped
Playstation 2 is launched, let's all be first
Putin's president, meanwhile Microsoft
Guilty of unfair practice. Senor Fox
Mexican Pres, and Bashar al-Assad
Takes over from his dad. A fire stops
Concorde's flight in Paris. News of the World
Campaigns against paedos. Russian sub drowned
Sydney Olympics, UK fuel protests
Al Qaeda blows up US ship. Bush propped
Up by Supreme Court, Gore gored. The Dome's had
It. Poor Kirsty MacColl, that was the worst
Thing. Me, I rent my house out and change jobs

1995 - Aha Shake Earthquake

Kobe earthquake, Nick Leeson moneyquake
Tokyo gas, Oklahoma Cityquake
France quakes as they at last elect Chirac
Superman shaken off by a horsequake
Seoul department store collapses like a cake
France and Russia sell weapons to Iraq
Montserrat mountain, Bosnian warquake
Srebrenica massacre after fake
UN protection, then NATO bombs shake
The Serbs, so do the Croats, till handshakes
End the war by December. How'd they make
OJ not guilty? Rabin is taken
Out by assassin. Bosman footballquake
I bike round Wales and South West - pedalquake!

1992 - Yugo, I'll stay

The break-up of old Yugoslavia
Quite clean in Slovenia and Croatia
But dirtier in mixed-up Bosnia
Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks are all there
Sarajevo the flashpoint area
The EC gets much closer together
Becoming the EU at Maastricht. The
Danes reject it however. Jeff Dahmer
Sentenced to life (he's killed two years later)
LA riots after Rod King's assaulters
Acquitted. Judge Falcone, Mafia
Scourge, is killed. Bones of Tsar and Tsarina
Islamic election, Algeria
Quashed by army. Charles and Di split uproar

1991 - Waiting for the hammer to fall

In '91 the Gulf War (Number One)
Breaks out mid-January, with Scud missiles
From Iraq to Israel, Americans
In Saudi also hit, Saddam's men file
Back out of Kuwait by March, their stockpile
Of chemical, biological, nuclear
Weapons being scrutinised from then until
The Second Gulf War. Ethiopia,
Somalia change, Commie USSR
Can no longer support them, one by one
Its republics secede. Yeltsin reviles
A reactionary army coup, and the
Papers are signed with Belarus, Ukraine
Dissolving Union hammers and sickles

1990 - Hubble, bubble, toil and trouble

Manuel in Panama is treated rough
Stasi HQ, Berlin, records surveyed
Soviet satellite states, they've had enough
Nelson Mandela walks out of the shade
Anti-poll tax fights and Europe have made
Maggie vulnerable to the circling sharks
Strangeways prisoners up on the roof, they've stayed
There three weeks. The Hubble stares at the stars
Yemen unites, IRA shoots soldiers
On Lichfield station platform, a real duff
World Cup Final and a Mecca stampede
Iraq invades Kuwait, Germany is
One, Thatcher goes... and Louis starts his life
I start work as a VAT Man and get paid!

1966 - Bomb on bomb

Changes in Nigeria, Indonesia
Indira Gandhi, Pope meets Kosygin
France leaves NATO, and Mao's anti-bourgeois
Cultural Revolution has begun
Quarter-million soldiers in Vietnam
Bombs on Hanoi and Haiphong, massacres
In the South, but relations have fallen
Between Brezhnev and Mao. Serial killers
In the USA, worldwide plane crashes
The Krays and Harold Wilson are stars here
Syria and Israel clash round the Jordan
England win the World Cup, SA offers
Help to racist Rhodesia. Revolver
Pet Sounds, Blonde On Blonde, Yoko meets Lennon

1945 - The second war to end all wars

Auschwitz and other camps are found and freed
In '45, while Manila is burned
And then freed. Iwo Jima suicide
And Okinawa, Tokyo firebombed. Learn
The futility of war! Of course, when
The atom bomb is subsequently dropped
It seems world war must never come again
But the States' motive was partly to stop
The Red Army in Asia gobbling up
Korea, China, Japan, since Stalin had
Reneged on Poland at Yalta and yearned
To rule the east by force. Labour come top
And Churchill's out, Attlee in. They divide
Up Germany. The Iron Curtain's formed

1943 - Calm down, calm down

The siege of Leningrad, and Stalingrad
Then Kursk, Soviet defence becomes attack
White Rose students, Warsaw Ghetto Jews said
No to the Nazis though prospects were black
As villages are torched by the wolfpack
In Belarus, and Chinese massacres
The new Chinese leader is Chiang Kai-Shek
Attending meetings with Allied leaders
Sicily invaded, Mussolini's
Replaced, mainland Italy invaded
Naples spontaneously rises to kick
Out the Germans. Young John F Kennedy's
A hero, saving his crew's lives, a hard
Swim in the Pacific, but they get back

1942 - Come on now, stop fighting like children!

The US fights Japan in Philippines
The Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal
Eventually halting the Japanese
Though ill-equipped Britain could do little
To save Singapore, Burma - so brittle
Its eastern Empire - Gandhi arrested...
The Desert Rats finally beat Rommel
And Montgomery is well tried and tested
The Germans regroup in Russia, undid
The Soviets at Kharkov, but Stalin learns
To take Red Army advice, and this will
Help them win this winter at Stalingrad
At Wannsee they plot that by any means
Camps will be built and solutions final

1941 - Oops - it's another war on two fronts

The '41 North African campaign
Saw Brits and Aussies beat Italians
But not Rommel's tough Afrika Korps men
Despite Lindbergh's views, Lend-Lease now begins
The States in naval conflict with Germans
Vichy France headed by Petain, Laval
At least they stop France fighting for 'the Huns'
FDR works closely with our Churchill
And seems to ignore warnings about Pearl
Harbour soon being attacked by Japan
Yugoslavia's new king, his allegiance
Switched to the Allies, means Hitler curtails
Invasion of Russia til the Balkan
Area is subdued, ruining all his plans

1940 - He missed the bus but caught the express train

1940, start of food rationing
In Britain. Over in the USA
Conscription into the army begins
And they lend ships and build aircraft though they
Are still neutral. Germans invade Norway
And Denmark, while Russia fights in Finland
Just after Chamberlain thought he could say
'Hitler has missed the bus.' That's not the end -
The Germans invade Benelux and send
The Brits scrambling from Dunkirk, then forging
On to Paris and French surrender. Play
That recording of Churchill's speech to fend
Off bombs falling on London, and falling
On Coventry and Sheffield day by day

1939 - Best of enemies

1939, year of infamy
The carving up of Czechoslovakia
France reneges on commitments over the
Eastern end of Europe, leading to a
Free hand for Germany and for Russia
In doing what they like, splitting Poland
In two, half each, even though Herr Hitler
Has written of his hatred of Slavs and
Communists, though Stalin's Soviet Union
Did also confer with the Allies. We
Do not want to deal with them, however
So they've been forced into a pact with them -
The Nazis - who plan to crush our Navy
In secret plans by 1944

1937 - Not a lot of laughs to be had

The Moscow Show Trials continue this year
Of '37, of Old Bolsheviks
Army men, and anyone causing fear
In Stalin's mind that he could be out-tricked
And less popular than them, and so strict
Methods of gaining confessions were used
Those who weren't shot after the sure verdict
Were sent to labour camps and there misused
Mostly soon dying anyway. The fuse
Of war was lit in the east, China's near
Neighbour Japan invading with some quick
Victories but terrible massacres
Falangists also wreak abuse through war
In Spain, where Nazis mount aerial attacks