Author: Simon Armitage

Publisher: Faber and Faber Ltd
Published: 06 December 1999
ISBN: 0571203604
Cover: Paperback
Pages: 52pp.

In this 1000-line poem, the manic countdown to 1000 years of history reaches its climax, with the last 12 months spooling past like newsreel. It is a vision full of humorous and bleaker possibilities, which ranges forward and back through time and space, mixing and matching as it goes.

A man strolls past the town hall

wearing a sandwich-board for a coat,

and it ain't for the next closing-down sale,

or the time of the next coach,

and it ain't for the price of a fake tan

or bringing the government down,

or happy hour, or two-for-one,

or the circus coming to town,

or a secret truth that God knows,

or the end of the world being nigh,

it says NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS

but it don't say why.