Idiom: down the drain (used idiomatically: yes)
Melanie Phillips celebrates in carols the hopes and fears of a year which saw environmental issues high on the agenda . WE THREE GREENS We three Greens of Politics are Patten and Porritt and Pearce , we 'll go far Two of us preaching , One of us teaching , how to avoid the car . Oh : car of menace , car of blight Cars the atmosphere ignite Greenhouse warming , Havoc forming Parkinson must see us right We 're au fait with entropy Gaia , Ecosphere , synergy Words for greening But their meaning 's A linguistic mystery Oh : politicians must invent Worship of environment Genuflecting by reflecting Words of verdant bafflement Now our water 's unfit to drink Too much aluminium and zinc No solution To pollution No - one can stand the stink Oh : public filth and pestilence Highlights private opulence Does the glitter , clear the litter All it needs is pounds and pence GOD REST YE MERRY God rest ye merry , gentle Greens Let nothing you dismay The much foretold apocalypse Is now well under way Not even Mr Gorbachev Can stop the world 's decay Oh , tidings of comfort and joy , Oh , tidings of comfort and joy We ca n't eat meat or hens or fish The farming is too cruel The only food we now permit Is foul organic gruel Irradiated food and veg Now double up as fuel Oh tidings of comfort and joy , Oh tidings of comfort and joy Now everybody wants a car Though noise and fumes are vile The Iron Curtain fractures and The jams stretch back for miles Mobility and liberty Can not be reconciled Oh tidings of comfort and joy , Oh tidings of comfort and joy We think that greenhouse warming will Bring on the world 's demise If forests burn it 's not just trees but mankind too that fries But all this may be garbage Because scientists tell lies Oh tidings of comfort and joy , Oh tidings of comfort and joy Consumers must buy less to reach Sustainability For galloping consumption is More lethal than TB So much for Third World dreams of fleeing Grinding poverty Oh tidings of comfort and joy , Oh tidings of comfort and joy Unless we stop producing kids The planet will not cope No hope for birth controllers short of Kidnapping the Pope But since the Greens recycle people they May turn us into soap Oh tidings of comfort and joy , Oh tidings of comfort and joy In searching for clean energy The choice is pretty stark The floods that come when coal is burnt will keep us in the Ark But had Lord Marshall got his way We 'd all glow in the dark Oh tidings of comfort and joy , Oh tidings of comfort and joy Dumb animals are much preferrred To flawed humanity Ill - treatment of old people may Provoke insanity But culling seals and whales is judged The worst profanity Oh tidings of comfort and joy , Oh tidings of comfort and joy Now Mrs Thatcher goes bright green A highly suspect hue Her policies have after all Kept filth and squalor blue It 's just another way she 's found To tell us what to do Oh , tidings of comfort and joy , Oh tidings of comfort and joy With greenhouse gases , PCBs Sulphuric acid rain This fragile globe 's environment Is going down the drain It is a cosmic punishment That we ca n't start again Oh , tidings of comfort and joy , Oh tidings of comfort and joy Melanie Phillips OVERNIGHT FILE PAGE en2