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A Man of Yet a Few More Words - by Swan Morrison

Gastro'd (Poem)

Once, two types of pub you’d spot:
One served food, and one did not.
Now that ‘gastro pubs’ we’ve got,
There’s risk of being gastro’d.

Each look like a pub outside,
But a restaurant they hide
With pretentions, deep and wide,
To lead us to be gastro’d.

‘Food: organic, local source,
And then freshly cooked.’ Of course
Overpriced without remorse
To leave the punters gastro’d.

So, the portion size is small,
And the cost is off-the-wall.
How else might we know we’d fall
For being truly gastro’d?

If the menu quotes a word
That in Mick’s cafe’s never heard -
Only from some cooking nerd -
You might be getting gastro’d.

On the menu that you view
If each dish is shown to you
With its cost in CO2,
You’re lined up to be gastro’d.

When a few chips have been piled
As in Jenga for a child -
Fries on brickwork have been styled!
A sign of being gastro’d.

If the items on your plate
And the dinner of your date
Could fit nicely at the Tate,
You’re likely being gastro’d.

When it’s less cooked than designed,
And the plate in sauce is signed,
And the veg is hard to find,
You’re sure you’re being gastro’d.

If though all you eat your way,
But not long after you pay
You must buy a takeaway,
You know you’ve just been gastro’d.

But if gastro’s in the name,
And you go in all the same,
You’ve got no one else to blame
For being fully gastro’d.

So you diners, you’ve been warned
If you want grub unadorned,
Gastro pubs should all be scorned
So never are you gastro’d.