Reaping Richard's Bounty

Who is Leicester's biggest star?

Is it Engle Humperdinck?

Or big-eared Gary Lineker?

They both have been eclipsed by far,

By a man called Richard Tudor.

If he came forward in time,

I think he'd be surprised to find,

His face stare out from empty shops;

Which may have been his favourite spots,

When he came here once before.

But - I doubt it.

Purple boards are everywhere,

Bearing King Dick's bony stare.

He looks quite dead in these promotions,

As PR hacks go through the motions.

The town of York has put their claim in,

As he was the duke thereof;

It's no wonder that they want him,

Since his skelly's worth a fortune.

Possession's nine points of the law,

So we'll fend off their greedy paws;

King Dick's ours and we will keep him.

We have no dagger, cloak or sceptre;

We haven't even got a letter!

King Dick's bones are all we've got,

So they're pulling out all the stops.

We have a King Dick exhibition,

But it's really quite a shit 'un.

People queue to see some cardboard,

In a town where he was abhorred.

Where they hit him with a flail,

Is now the 'King Richard Trail'.

They dragged his body through the town,

Bashed and hacked and spat upon him,

Long after he was dead and down.

It's now his responsibility,

To revive our ailing economy.

We have his bones but cannot show them.

The law says that we can't display

Bones in the old-fashioned way.

We have to keep him in a box.

Upon this law we say - a pox!



When I came to this city thirty years ago, the economy was based on knitwear, light engineering, electronics and footwear. They are gone. Now we are told we are to make £140m p.a. from a box of old bones that no-one is allowed to look at.

PS 19th Aug :
The Yorkist poltroons have launched a fresh assault at the High Court, and been granted
judicial review. Into the Tower with them! A pack of knaves, claiming to be close relatives
of a man who died 500 years ago, a scientific impossibility.