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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Dancing Bear<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n by Edward MacKinnon, with image above by Martin Gollan<\/em><\/p>\n Back in his constituency He was like the dancing bear The Dancing Bear by Edward MacKinnon, with image above by Martin Gollan Back in his constituencyenjoying a beer with his own people,unshackled from the courtesies of debate,he…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":564,"featured_media":15268,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1660],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/564"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
enjoying a beer with his own people,
unshackled from the courtesies of debate,
he fed them insider snippets, confessed that at first
he\u2019d been baffled by parliamentary rules and rituals
but now felt thoroughly at home
with the Honourable Member and My Right Honourable Friend
told them how he\u2019d scrupulously obeyed three-line whips
and honoured the convention of avoiding controversy in his maiden speech
how he\u2019d been nothing less than awed by the State Opening of Parliament
the pageantry, the ushers, courtiers, heralds and peers in ermine robes
and Black Rod knocking at the door three times
how he\u2019d studied the prerogatives of the Crown
and dutifully noted that everything the monarch did
was done graciously.<\/p>\n
who escaped back to the forest
and found the other bears unimpressed
by his so-called art, the dancing
he was inordinately proud of.
For them it was a testament
to his base and servile character.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"