E T Oddie
Banned
Now I know why the West does not want allow the Persian's to have Nuclear Power, they were secretly planning to build an electric car or convert the Hillman Hunter.
Dark was that day when Diesel conceived his grim engine that begot you, vile invention, more vicious, more criminal than the camera even, metallic monstrosity, bale and bane of our culture, chief woe of our Commonweal. How dare the Law prohibit hashish and heroin yet license your use, who inflate all weak inferior egos? Their addicts only do harm to their own lives: you poison the lungs of the innocent, your din dithers the peaceful, and on choked roads hundreds must daily die by chance-medley. Nimble technicians, surely you should hang your heads in shame. Your wit works mighty wonders, has landed men on the Moon, replaced brains by computers, and can smithy a "smart" bomb. It is a crying scandal that you cannot take the time or be bothered to build us, what sanity knows we need, an odorless and noiseless staid little electric brougham.
W.H. Auden (1907-1973), A Curse:
Dark was that day when Diesel conceived his grim engine that begot you, vile invention, more vicious, more criminal than the camera even, metallic monstrosity, bale and bane of our culture, chief woe of our Commonweal. How dare the Law prohibit hashish and heroin yet license your use, who inflate all weak inferior egos? Their addicts only do harm to their own lives: you poison the lungs of the innocent, your din dithers the peaceful, and on choked roads hundreds must daily die by chance-medley. Nimble technicians, surely you should hang your heads in shame. Your wit works mighty wonders, has landed men on the Moon, replaced brains by computers, and can smithy a "smart" bomb. It is a crying scandal that you cannot take the time or be bothered to build us, what sanity knows we need, an odorless and noiseless staid little electric brougham.
W.H. Auden (1907-1973), A Curse: