Pip Pip, today’s feature for Monarchy Month is the first
Indian knighted, in 1842. His name is Sahib Jamsetjee
Jeejeebhoy. But why was a Queen keen to knight a native?

The answer lies with the man in a red ‘phone-box’,
the Arch Liberator, the Truth-Sleuth, you know him
as every lady’s Tonk-Honker: Johhhn Simpsonian!!!

O John Simpsonian, do you ZoomBoom for us?
Pip Pip . . . our connection is scrambling . . . I’ll be brief . . .
This self-made good chap had a chequered mid-life . . .

It seems that in Opium Wartime Jeejeebhoy ran
the speediest clippers bound for China . . . As you see,
I’ve landed at the port . . . at the Yangtze gorge . . .

Those hordes of mango wood boxes are Jamsetjee’s . . .
And the men with machetes are unloading each box
with brown balls inside as big as a comely lady’s breast . . .

O John Simpsonian, through gyres and galaxies,
you’re the boldest ZoomBoomer! If I may sum up,
in this dim droopy night . . . the love-sick mass of men

lined along the bank . . . as though a whole nation
of John Chinamen and Shangrilanders sleepwalking
for a toke, a cut, a suck of the dream of empire . . .