A FUGGING SCAM! (weekly poem)

A FUGGING SCAM!

The BBC TV programme ‘Fake Britain’, exposed

the non-tax paying bootleg cigarette industry

For Britain’s straight tobacco firms,

Fake cigs must be a drag;

That cause their top executives,

To reach for one more fag,

Or if they’re hardened pipe men to,

Light-up strong Navy shag.        

Production of fake fags could be,

The sectors coffin-nail;

As pirates shun Virginia tar,

For tar sands from oil shale,

Plus sawdust soaked in paraffin,

For smokers to inhale!

So all you smoking-shelter buffs

Each with a throaty rasp;

Say no to freezing wind and rain,

It’s really time to grasp,

A pack of real or fake fags could,

Soon bring on your last gasp!

It’s time those with a smoker’s cough,

Hooked on the filthy weed;  

Stubbed out their gaspers as of now,

To do the daring deed.

Remember giving up will help,

Snuff out the pirate’s greed!

Roll-up, to see the ghost within,

The cigarette machine;

The industry might just flake out,

Without real nicotine,

Although by then the Treasury,

Would likely intervene.

The pirates run smoke-rings around,

Tobacco’s Industry;  

Acquiring profits but they don’t,

Pay tax for you and me,

To fund the good old NHS

In treating  the ‘Big C’!

© Richard Layton