Riding the Paternoster Lift*

[heslopian]

You found the first verse of the original too lounge-in-cheek? I didn't intend it to be so but, looking back, I can see how the reader might get that impression; the constant influx of rattle-and-scream insinuation does verge somewhat on parody. I got the idea to re-write this piece because I liked the concept, but felt it was hideously over-written, with needless half-assed satire, self-pity and, as you said, condescension, like a Stephen Fry memoir Instead of "lifts a football" would "cuts a wire" work, in reference to a bomb? The football was based on an advert I saw which showed an Iraqi child kicking a football towards a soldier and then running off when he lifts it, implying there's a bomb inside.