ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Key is now 38 years old and has problems with his back, which began in April 2012 in Melbourne, Australia, when he kicked a bath in a rage. This snapped his toe, and his resultant new stance gradually gnawed away at his spine. In spite of his poor health he has plugged away with his poetry and his Instagram account is now booming. He has also wormed his way into Alan Partridge’s affections as Sidekick Simon and Radio 4’s affections as himself, with a third series of Tim Key’s Late Night Poetry Programme. He and his Dutch friend have continued to film short but sweet incarnations of his verse, which they are trying to get on YouTube. Amongst all of this he has been fisting various desks, demanding this paperback be made. So this object represents a huge victory for Key.*
ALSO BY TIM KEY
25 Poems, 3 Recipes and 32 Other Suggestions. (An Inventory).
Instructions, Guidelines, Tutelage, Suggestions, Other Suggestions, and Examples Etc: An Attempted Book by Tim Key (And Descriptions/Conversations/A Piece About A Moth).
First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition published in 2015 by Canongate Books
Copyright © Tim Key, 2015
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Fair play to the guy – never easy to write a book.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78211 679 0
eISBN 978 0 85786 120 7
Some people go through their whole life without writing a book.
Illustration on page 256 by www.sebantoniou.com
Illustrations on pages 39 and 154 © CSA Images/Archive
And even though it’s just poems, it still counts as a book.
To my decorator and his wife
CONTENTS
War and Peace and Religion and Shopping
Poem#684: ‘The Realities of War’
Poem#679: ‘The Awkwardness of War’
Poem#1101: ‘The Incident in Ryman’s’
Poem#680: ‘The Futility of War’
Poem#838: ‘The Furious Citizen’
Poem#324: ‘The Sikh and The Christian’