Pills for the First Day

By John A B Lansdown

‘Pills for the First Day’ is the third book in the series of ‘Pills for the Hospital Ward’. A defining feature of this anthology is restless verse primed to divert sluggish thoughts away from pending medical appointments to refocus on the fabric of society. While distracting patients is a theme throughout the series, each book may be read independently and in any order.
Various office holders suffer sleepless nights thinking about how best they can serve the public during their tenure in public office. Hospital inmates may discover solace by offering these brave public representatives some advice to ease their tremendous burden of social responsibility. Resolving the illness in society can be a cathartic process simultaneously recovering both the patient and society.
Hospital inmates may discover solace in helping these public celebrities. Resolving the illness in society from brexit deliberation to taxation can be a cathartic process simultaneously recovering both the patient and society. Patients are deterred from speculating on medical procedures by drawing their attention to the antics of our leaders. In particular, the play Right Honourable Middleman revolves around the intrigue of party politics.
Consistent with the rest of the author’s hospital series, plays, poems and fables are richly enhanced with illustrations ranging from politicians who earn tax breaks through charitable causes to scientists conducting experiments on live people. Though intended for a patient destined for a long spell, the verses may be enjoyed by anyone seeking asylum from dominant ideology.
Also in the hospital series:
Book One - Pills for the First Consultation
Book Two - Pills for the First Night
Book Three - Pills for the First Day
Book Four - Pills for Visiting Hours
Book Five - Pills for the Homeward Bound
Due to popular demand, the series has been compiled into one book called Sweet Pills for the Hospital Ward.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John A B Lansdown
• Release date: Jun 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463189191

John A B Lansdown

Formative years in the scenic Lakelands of North West England shaped John A B Lansdown into an outside landscape painter. Making violins at the prestigious Newark School in Nottinghamshire garnered a discipline that rubbed off onto his fine art. Watercolours, sketches and oil paintings interweave his poems and plays. Selling paintings internationally, he exhibits in Bulgaria, Austria, France and England. His prime displacement activity is playing a hand-made cigar box guitar accompanied by a voice allegedly resembling a tormented alley cat.

Book preview

Despite an excursion into aesthetical matters the author had some difficulty preventing politicians barging into the previous book. (Pills for the First Night – second in the hospital series). But look on the bright side; the most difficult stage of hospital administration has been overcome. Although you are not fully recovered, you are now on the hospital conveyor belt system – the only way is up.

It is healthy to adopt the same optimistic vein when analysing society. Realising nefarious crooks run the show is a tough pill to swallow yet once this revelation is digested; at least it is no longer a mystery why social policies are earmarked for failure.

Pills for the First Day continues the hospital series by presenting restless verses aimed at diverting sluggish thoughts away from pending medical appointments to refocus on the fabric of society. Activities of prominent politicians can be perused for edification to provide diversion for a ward-ridden patient.

This read provides a vehicle to transpose a patient’s personal concerns onto social topics. To kick start the first day, you may want to detoxify by expunging cynical thoughts about political administrators with a therapeutic stab at the crossword overleaf.

Book cover: ‘Palin’s Referral’ 2019 JPEG (1456 x 1396 / 176KB)

Political Semantics

Down

1. It is brown and sticky but unlike a stick it contains a politician’s wage packet delivered under a public lavatory door.

2. A jaded excuse used by government administrators for policy such as allowing Thalidomide and vaccination programmes into the Health Service

3. Standard procedure in legislative assemblies the world wide

4. An appropriate way to respond to a public announcement

5. The deception used to gain electoral support

6. The modus operandi of persuading ministers of government to do as they are jolly well told

Up

1. Electoral representative making profit of another’s misfortune

2. Extra-curricular activities for a politician

3. Collusive daylight robbery bridging the illusionary political divide in British parliament

4. Short word for a politician who is euphemistically said to be ‘liberal with the truth’

5. Political flim-flam

6. Respectable word for a duplicitous sycophant

7. A plutocrat’s palette is needed to be thus

8. An essential trait to pursue a career in politics

9. A zoo park in the city for dangerous wildlife

10. A ministerial investigation

Crossword answers can be found in appendix one.

White House Caddie

Oval Room Frolics

A brief play of one term*

The President of the United States is merrily swivelling on a newly installed plush executive chair in the Oval Room of the White House. Meanwhile his erstwhile advisor is fretting outside worried about the public cottoning on to the systematic robbery in the form of tax.

* Please note, the author did not realise while composing that the beloved Trump would go on to be president for a succession of terms under a progressive constitution that remedied any need for irrelevant and costly elections.

Cast:

Incumbent American President - Donald Trump

Joe the Policy Advisor Stooge - Jossip Vissarionovich Djugashvili (stage name: Joseph Stalin)

Roger Anowt - Michael Rogers (Director of NSA, Commander of Cyber Command (USCybercom) and Chief of the Central Security Service (CSS)

Ball-dropper gang - Kim Jong-Un and his entourage

Act One

Joe the Policy Advisor Stooge:

(Pacing to and fro)

The bothersome masses are cottoning on to the game

Smelly riff raff sussing out our rewarding ruse

Of printing money from thin air

Urgent it seems for some ploy

(Joe enters the presidential suite)

Trump:

Who’s been using my phone?

Joe the Policy Advisor Stooge:

Mr President!

This is the plan

For some opportunist spin flam

Simply reiterate public paranoia

A jittery public will be placated

With some sham of being at one with the people

Trump:

Why are there teeth marks all over the earpiece?

That Hillary Pillory* woman has snuck in again to abuse my phone

* Hillary Pillory is affectionate oval office rhyming slang for Hillary Clinton

Joe the Policy Advisor Stooge:

You need to express outrage

Chastise the conspiring imps

It would be no lie

To announce that naughty people

Are up to no good

Trump:

Tapping of phones is my task!

Joe the Policy Advisor Stooge:

Brilliant, Mr President!

You can kick up a fuss

About the breach in security

Of being listened into during your telephone conversations

Trump:

Oh, I’m on the same frequency now

Thus I ought to complain to me

About listening to myself on the phone

Via recorded tapes in the basement

Joe the Policy Advisor Stooge:

(takes a