Spectator Competition: Contrarian song

For Competition 3390 you were invited to come up with your own version of the Groucho Marx song ‘I’m Against It’, from the film Horse Feathers:

Your proposition may be good

But let’s have one thing understood:

Whatever it is, I’m against it.

Hats off to David Silverman, who got into specifics: (‘Conniving, skiving; Mo Salah diving;/ Texting while driving/ VAR’). Also to Sylvia Fairley, Nicholas Lee, Bill Greenwell and others. Sue Pickard channelled the true spirit of Groucho by keeping it general:

I am the very model of a modern-day contrarian

If you are a sophisticate then I’ll be a vulgarian

Whatever your opinions are, mine are antithetical

I was determined from an early age to be heretical.

The winners below get the £25 vouchers.

I must complain, I’m outraged and superior,

In comments sections, letters to the Times:

O tempora, o mores! Call this progress?

I scoff, I sneer, I judge your petty crimes.

I’m sickened, peeved, perpetually offended,

I’m angry, shocked, disgusted, mad and miffed,

Your ignorance appals me, it’s disgraceful,

You’re weak, deluded, morally adrift.

The world’s on fire and I’m the voice of reason,

I must harrumph, deride, call out, object,

Whatever you say, I am dead against it,

I won’t just tut – I spit at disrespect.

How have we come to this? I rant, I protest,

I disagree completely, you’re absurd,

Until I’m dead and buried I’ll pour scorn down –

I do not like it. That’s my final word.

Janine Beacham

Though the view is all pervasive and your arguments persuasive

I cannot concur that travel broadens mind.

Even though my statement harrows, I’m convinced all travel narrows

Mental focus and the traveller grows blind.

Take, for instance, any tourist; ignorance is at its purest

In his boasts of sunny days and foreign shores.

For each one, a mere vacation substitutes imagination,

As his outer world attracts, his inner bores.

As I make my claim contrary, do feel free to cry ‘How dare he!’

For it’s just such controversy that I crave,

Sitting here by my wainscotting while you’re talking up globe-trotting,

I enjoy the thrill due all who misbehave.