Murder in Samarkand

How inconvenient,
our Ambassador in Tashkent has complained,
on behalf of her Majesty, about Uzbeki human rights
about Tajiks boiled alive and their
dubiously wrought confessions
being used in the war on terrorism.

A solution will be found,
Foreign office legal advisers will declare
we are not in contravention
of international law on human rights,
but will reserve their position on
the morality of our complicity in the act.

A reason will be given
for sacking troublesome diplomats.
No question is allowed into the means,
for State-sponsored terror
in this unholy war; truth
is insignificant in their reckoning.

and all this is absolutely necessary
in the interests of democracy,
this re-descent into Tudor barbarity
is meant to convince
the enemies of freedom of
the justice of our cause.

LMC 20 Feb 2010 on listening to David Hare's play "Murder in Samarkand"

Vaughan King, for Ada Lovelace Day

To look at, a classic little old lady.
But she graduated in chemistry
from Cambridge, aged 18
and worked in the early days of Kodak.

Me she taught to persevere,
the value of study and of
adding bay and thyme to stews.
She was my friend.