Author Archive

A new poem by the Borkowski poet in residence, dedicated to Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP, who will be making his first, controversial appearance on the BBC’s Question Time tonight. For the audio version, scroll to the bottom of the post…

I’m Anglo-Saxon, I’m of German extraction.
I’m a Celt. My blood’s from the East.
I’m Norman, I’m Viking and I came hiking
to the British ethnicity feast.

Yes, I’m British, British, born of the skittish
aftermaths of empires gone.
I’m mixed, multiracial and no PR facial
can take away from the truth of my song.

I’m Muslim, I’m Gurkah, I’m a social worker.
I’m Jewish, I’m royal, I’m black.
I’m a desperate immigrant, an urgent applicant
escaping from torture, attack.

I’m a Brit, I’m a Brit and anyone’s fit
to take that name with pride as a tag.
I live in a world where one cannot stay curled
hermetically up in a flag.

In the Britain I live in, no one should give in
to hate or abuse or despair.
Whatever my creed, orientation or breed
all that matters is to be kind and be fair.

Yes, I’m British, British, born of the skittish
aftermaths of empires gone.
I’m mixed, multiracial and no PR facial
can take away from the truth of my song.

 

 The British Song by Adam Horovitz: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Our publicist which art in Chinawhite
shallowed be our names.
Thy quick-fix come,
thy stunts be run
in Heat as they are on Popbitch.
Give us this day our daily big-ups
and forgive us our coke deals
as we forgive those who report our coke deals to the press.
Lead us not into the Priory
and deliver us from journalists
for thine is the Twitter, the spin-cycle and the story
for fifteen months and forever.

Amen.

Adam Horovitz

Written after hearing that a chain of hotels frequented by celebrities, which are to be featured in a reality show, have asked to use The Fame Formula as a replacement for the Gideon’s Bible – something for the down-at-heel Z Lister to turn to for inspiration.

The Borkowski poet in residence imagines what Prince Charles would like for his birthday…

I’d like tea with Lord Mountbatten
I’d like a gin with dear old gran
I’d like a brand new book by van der Post
I’d like poetry to scan

I’d like a son who didn’t dress up
like Max Moseley just for fun
and a chance to stop my sons’ lives
from appearing in The Sun

I’d like my plants to answer back for once
and tell me what they feel
I’d like houses built from Portland stone
and not from glass and steel

I’d like a handy time machine
to take me back to 71
so I could marry Camilla then
& have her as mother to my sons

I would like a peaceful life
for the press to bugger off
I’d like them to stop presenting me
as an out of touch old toff

But I would give that all up
if mother would just say
‘Charles it’s your turn to be King,
I’m stepping down today’.

 

 The Best Gift by Adam Horovitz: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Borkowski poet in residence’s reaction to the American election.

I don’t want a White House,
I want a light house, a right house.
I don’t want a White House,
I want a beacon ‘gainst the night house.

I want a dream in every heart house,
a no one kept apart house.
I want a truth house, a youth house,
an open not uncouth house.

I want a hope house, a joy house,
a no lies to deploy house.
I want a trust house, a just house,
a proactive and robust house.

I don’t want a White House,
I want a freedom walking tall house.
I don’t want a White House,
I want a no colour at all house.

 

 I Don't Want a White House: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Borkowski poet in residence’s take on Jonathan Ross’ part in the scandal currently consuming the press. Vocal rights for this podcast have been subcontracted to EDF.

Jonathan Ross is, Jonathan Ross is
a sacrificial lamb for the BBC bosses
he may be cheeky, sweary and slick
a gold plated carrot on the end of a stick
but however many kids he got watching the box
his stellar career is now on the rocks
at least at the Beeb, where he’s put on ice
for phoning up actors and not being nice

but Jonathan Ross is, Jonathan Ross is
perfectly capable of cutting his losses
he could go anywhere, and quickly get work
with a wink and a wave and a quirky smirk.

Jonathan Ross is, Jonathan Ross is
highly unlikely to be carrying crosses
he won’t walk on water but he’s not going to drown
however much the press try to push him down.

 

 The Jonathan Ross Song: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Borkowski poet in residence reflects, in oblique headlines, on the part Russell Brand played in the affair currently consuming the front pages.

Brand Banned
Brand Gland Banned
Brand Gland Hand Banned
Brand Tanned Gland Hand Banned
Brand Manned Tanned Gland Hand Banned
Brand Banned
Stand Brand
Brand Stand By Banned Gland
Brand Ban Planned By Bland Gland
Brand’s Banned Gland Planned To Expand
Brand Unmanned By Bland Gland
Bland Gland Planned to catch Brand Strand In Hand
Brand Banned
Stand Brand
See Bland Gland Unmanned

 

 Brand Banned: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Borkowski poet in residence returns with some thoughts on the upcoming American election

Sarah Palin’s impaled on a world that is failin’
Joe Biden is bidin’ his time.
Old John McCain strives again and again
to prove the economy’s fine.

Barack Obama stands taller and calmer
on the shoulders of Democrats past.
He seems victory-bound, this statesmanlike charmer,
but how long will the honeymoon last?

Obama’s getting barracked ‘bout his colour and Iraq
but still he don’t notice the knocks.
The average Joe’s seen the economy slow,
just wants a Prez who’ll take care of his stocks.

The hottest of tips is McCain’s had his chips
& that Palin’ll be free to hunt moose.
But we all know what happens to unsinkable ships
& what they did to the golden-egged goose.

If there’s only one truth we learned from George Bush
it’s that elections are easily lost.
You can’t do an Al Gore, be too smug and too sure,
’cause the voters don’t like to be crossed.

And though Palin’s impaled on a world that is failin’
& Joe Biden is bidin’ his time,
old John McCain might suddenly start sailin’
from the ridiculous to the sublime

cause voters are fickle and a hubristic stick’ll
bring out the Republican vote,
while the Democrat vote’ll slow to a trickle
if Obama’s supporters just float.

The hottest of tips is McCain’s had his chips
& that Palin’ll be free to hunt moose.
But we all know what happens to unsinkable ships
& what they did to the golden-egged goose.

 

 The Good Ship Obama: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This article, on the betrayal of Heather Mills’ secrets by her publicist, was published, in edited form, in today’s Guardian. This, however, is the unedited version.

Michele Elyzabeth’s kiss-and-tell all story about her working relationship with Heather Mills in The News of The World is probably the most heinous crime that any publicist can ever commit.

For publicists, clients come and clients go. We live with the bitterness never letting slip the secrets we were entrusted with – those are the rules of the game. In my book, The Fame Formula, one very famous publicist sums up the frustration like this: “A client will pay you $20,000 a month for you to tell him the truth. A year later, expect the star to pay another publicist double the amount to tell the client what he wants to hear.”

Heather Mills ran out of PRs because they all told her what she didn’t want to hear, so she turned to the self-styled French aristocrat and beauty salon owner, Michele Elyzabeth and dubbed her the official worldwide Mills-McCartney spokesperson. But Elyzabeth appears not to play by the PR rulebook. She was, I would suggest, doomed to failure the moment she told the US TV Show “Extra” that her client had received a court order granting full custody of daughter Beatrice, a story that was not corroborated. In branding her client “a calculating, pathological liar and the biggest bitch on the planet”, Elyzabeth has committed the ultimate PR sin.

The current breed of über-publicists – many of whom were trained by PR firm Rogers & Cowan, where Michele Elyzabeth claims she learnt the rules – have gone to their grave without breathing a word of the potentially devastating stories about their AAA list clients, as they are paid to. Elyzabeth’s behaviour would suggest that if she did learn from Rogers & Cowan, she forgot their lessons pretty quickly.

But certain areas of the publicity industry attract such crustaceans. The Fame Formula shines a light on some of this kind of PR, the type who inveigle themselves into their clients’ inner private lives and then betray their trust, despite the professional code of conduct that says never profit from personal relationships with clients. Mills should have listened to the hard truths and taken some of the sterner advice from more responsible publicists.

That said, I doubt Michele Elyzabeth will find it easy to get such a high-profile client again. In PR, trust is worth ten times its weight in gold.

To read the Guardian version, click here.

The launch party for The Fame Formula last Friday, by the side of a steaming pool in the glorious Artspa at Lower Mills Estate near Cirencester, went, if you’ll forgive the pun, swimmingly.

The much-missed Ken Campbell, who passed away a week ago, was supposed to have been at the launch to perform, but his School of Night came anyway and improvised gloriously on themes, topics and publicists in the book.

They were challenged to write and perform instant sonnets about T.R. Zann and Harry Reichenbach, amongst many other things – here’s a video of one of the results of this particular challenge.

Another highlight was this tale of dolphins in need of a publicist, told at full throttle in Chaucerian English; no mean feat.

The School of Night brought The Fame Formula to life in glorious iambic pentameter and song – the chorus of “Oh Jim Moran” keeps coming back to me – with a wit and speed that defied logic. Ken would have been proud – I know I was.

Big Brother’s latest series ends tonight, bringing to a close another marathon session of ogling at a group of people desperate for fame but with nothing to recommend them but dysfunctional personalities, loud mouths and deep wells of (often misguided) self-belief.

It really doesn’t have to be that way, as this entry to the Fame Formula competition, by a personable young man from Australia called Scott Johnson, shows.

Here’s a guy who says “I don’t want to famous but I want [the] key issue I’m sponsoring to be famous, who is prepared to do a lot of hard graft on behalf of a charity and who turned up to one of the Borders video booth auditions with a mission to use fame for the general good.

He exemplifies the point of the Fame Formula competition in that it is a competition for people with a talent or cause that they feel deserves recognition, be they poet, preacher, artist, dancer, singer, novelist, actor or, in his case, charitably-minded activist. Fame without talent, after all, is like mustard without meat – it leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

To find out more about the competition, or to enter, click here.