Addiction is a naughty word, of drugs and sex it reeks;
Tiger Woods is known for it, it’s coitus that he seeks.

Winehouse wants her coke and booze, Obama wants his smokes,
His second coming is on hold till he no longer tokes.

With every year that passes by, on more do we depend,
Computers, gambling, filthy porn, is how the time we spend.

Children treated for drug abuse; enough to make you weep,
Numbers are up 65 per cent, and crack is selling cheap.

Young men surf the internet, while with their partner in bed,
Some for sure will do the same - with another’s partner instead.

Addiction is to rationale a blight, it stops one thinking plain,
It seems to fly in the face of logic, and addle up its brain.

Thus marriage to a Cheryl Cole, though most surely a delight,
May not be enough to stop a man from straying every night.

But truth be told, addicts are we all, for better or for worse;
Without a constant lust or drive you’re depressed or in a hearse.

It doesn’t have to be something bad, or dire or defective,
One can be addicted very much to activities quite corrective.

Like kindness, for instance, or religion, a thirst for baby Jesus,
One’s job, one’s children, model planes, T-bone steak or Maltesers.

Gordon is addicted, to power that is, totally, wholly, fully;
He’ll shout and rage and bang his fist so we brand him now a bully.

But sometimes I think this passion can go, the lust and drive is dead,
When it comes to bedpans, or compassion and care, when patients are yet to be fed.

Stafford’s unique, it’s one of a kind, a place devoid of concern,
When you’re ill and sick I’m sure you’ll pick another place to turn.

But what is the cause, the reason for it, is it a fluke or a quirk?
Or is it that we in the NHS need addiction to more hard work.

Frank Leigh
NHS247

A message to that effect would be most welcome, I think, in between the references to swabs and pink monsters. But in this age of tolerance, principles are as subjective as one’s choice of condom. And a valid moral judgement is about as welcome as a genital wart.

Where right and wrong depend upon your opinion, people find it somewhat duplicitous to take a moral high ground or sit in judgement of one’s fellow man. For if there is no king of the castle that is morality, there can truly be no dirty rascal.

The child of the present will find it difficult in the extreme to grow into the eschewer of multiple partners that his untainted heart desires. His chances are ruined from the outset by virtue of him growing up in today’s world.

Humankind’s future is, I would have to say, a bleak wilderness of wanton.

Yet there are signs that things may be on the up. Doth a wind of moral change begin to rustle through the pages of the tabloid, in the outraged intonation of the talk show caller?

Surely the vilification of celebrity misbehaviour, the public slating of Tiger Woods and John Terry for their egalitarian approach to romantic relationships, is to be taken as an indication that the human race is at last beginning to clamber out of the moral morass it has made for itself.

That Mr. Terry has been stripped of his England Captaincy is testament to the new-found moral fibre of this country. It is only right and proper that the man be punished for his misdemeanours, that a role model for so many be seen to have received his chastisement.

In order that the trend be sustained and not go the way of Crocs and herpes outbreaks, we must hold on to this spirit of righteousness and not allow our zeal to dissipate into oblivion.

The English football team must refuse to participate in the upcoming World Cup. Playing in the back garden of serial philanderer and HIV proponent extraordinaire Jacob Zuma serves as tacit approval of his debauched ways. The mores of the man and those who brought him to power are simply not in keeping with the fresh righteous zeal of the English public.

An example must be made of serial fornicators. Indeed, in my opinion John Terry should never be allowed to earn his obscene wages for playing football again.

Naturally, a redundant John Terry would not have to look too long for another job.

He could of course serve as the new face of the NHS Chlamydia campaign.

Frank Leigh
NHS247