Written on Hanuary 1st, 1984, after lots of beer at the King’s Head in Shoreham, West Sussex, near where I grew up, walking back home along the harbour front road, thinking about the imminent arrival of Reagan's cruise missiles and Orwell's prediction that we would be 'Airstrip One', an unsinkable aircraft carrier for a foreign power.... The pub is now demolished and it’s where the Ropetackle Centre, our lovely community arts centre, now stands.....

Airstrip One of course comes from Orwell’s '1984'
Sutcliffe - Peter Sutcliffe, mass murderer, ‘the Yorkshire Ripper’
The cowboy was, of course, Reagan!

But even Reagan and Thacher couldn’t match the carnage served up by Bush and Blair!


THE BALLAD OF AIRSTRIP ONE

Another new year and too much beer and a puke into the sea
Though the lights of Shoreham Harbour still look the same to me
And some bloke on the radio is saying things that I’ve heard before
And he’s going on about Orwell and it’s getting rather a bore
And out there in the darkness there’s a yankee with a gun
But we’re too wrecked to care right now ‘cos the new year’s just begun
We’re having fun down on Airstrip One

The Harlow lights shine brightly as the wheels eat up the road
But the motorways are runways now and they’re carrying a deadly load
‘Cos the monsters are all mobile and there’s anarchy in the air
And the driver’s name is Sutcliffe and he’s too far gone to care
And if you think you’re Kentish prayers are mightier than the gun
I’ll tell you that you’re dreaming ‘cos the countdown’s just begun
But we’ll still have fun down on Airstrip One

Some folks are anxious and some folks are cool
Read all the newspapers, don’t be a fool
Video nasties and sugary tea
that’s the way to get away scot free
On Airstrip One

There’s some choose civilisation and a promise unfulfilled
And there’s some choose extermination - when it’s someone else who gets killed
A gesture of insanity and a world left to the crabs
Five thousand years of history and now they’re up for grabs
So send that fucking cowboy riding off into the sun
And send with him the culture of the dollar and the gun
Then we’ll have fun
Down on Airstrip One