Rupert

One of my good old friends - we were colleagues for many a year, shovelling away in the boiler room. He was an environmental activist back then, and I’m glad he’s not changed, though the current Green Party is no longer his home. 
Many years ago, he came across a one pager of all the characters in Rupert Bear and we realised there was an uncanny mapping between the characters and the people we worked with in the office. As Algy Pug to his Rupert, and with another chum installed as Badger Bill, we set about crafting scurrilous stories featuring our workmates, in traditional rhyming couplets. Of course as we were mainframe computing wonks we had to write a little piece of assembler code to encrypt them and keep them away from prying eyes. Yep, it was all hard work back in those days.
Anyway today he’d organised the Christmas meal for twenty eight of us in the pensioner crew; all of us lucky enough to be released back after the 2008 crash. As you can imagine, starting with a beer beforehand and having a bottle of wine each before going on to the Black Bull… yes, it was great evening. 
Anyway, that got me searching and here’s what I crafted when he finally got his release. Ah, we were young lads back then. 

One sleepy Winter afternoon,
A bored Rupert Bear sits in his room.
 
Watching the price of RBS stock
With one eye firmly on the clock

( many lines omitted here about pranks we’d carried out together )

So many pranks, the chums did make
No wonder we never got from Good to Great.*
 
Just then, a knock at Rupert's door
And then another - two, three, four.
 
It's Simon Towler** - he has some news
To do away with Rupert’s blues.
 
"Rupert, wake up! Hurry and pack.
Your lucky day: I have a big sack".
 
And so: for the first time since '79
Rupert's in the right place at the right time!
 
The happy bear sends an email winging out:
"To the Great Grog! I insist! It's my shout!!"
 
So the chums gather round, as in days of yore, 
Once more Rupert exclaims, let’s have some more!


* an internal RBS management programme to inspire the troops
** Particularly noxious management toad (name changed)