IF NOT – Kipling’s ‘If’ rewritten to conform with the spirit of the times

With apologies to those who feel great affection for Kipling’s renowned poem IF, here is a 20th Century parody (which is just as relevant in the 21st) – apparently it first appeared in the New Statesman magazine, but i’ve not been able to discover more either about the poem or the mysterious H A C Evans.

IF NOT
If you can’t trim your sails to suit the weather,
If you can’t take your chance to pass the buck,
If you can’t offer cardboard goods as leather
And then persuade the mugs to buy the muck;
If you can’t work a profitable fiddle
Or cheat the Customs when you’ve been abroad,
If you can’t wangle your returns, and diddle
The Income Tax, yet not be charged with fraud;

If you can’t learn the craft of social climbing
And damn the eyes of those who’re underneath;
If you can’t kid your friend you’re not two-timing,
Then, when it suits you, kick him in the teeth;
If you can’t run a car on public money,
Or have your lunch each day at the Savoy,
You’re going to find that life’s not at all funny,
For, take my tip, you’ll miss the bus, old boy.

H.A.C. Evans

Quote in in The Faber Book of Parodies, ed Simon Brett, Faber 1984 (p232)