Spelling Is Compelling? Poem by David Mitchell

I turn the television on
And what abysmal hell
Pollutes the screen? What could it be
But Eamonn Holmes' Hard Spell?

It can't be fair, it seems to me,
When A must spell 'laparoscopy'
(Does such a word even exist?)
And B must spell 'balloon'.

How can you take two words like that,
And say they're equally hard,
And thus make one a winner,
And the other fate ill-starr'd?

From whence do they obtain these words,
This witenagemote?
And who are they to tell us how
To spell the words that float

In the ethereal vap'rous air,
Imponderable na,
When they canna deveese a fair
Set o' gemme ruiles at a'?

I do suspect they make them up,
Pretending they exist –
I'm not aware that 'na''s a rod,
But it's probably on their list

Of words they think are hard to spell,
Like 'apple' and 'breakwater',
'Electroencephalogram',
'Effacement' and 'stepdaughter'.

And then of course that woman
Who can't speak a single word
Derstuncly – no, DERSTUNCTLY;
For the CONSONANTS are heard.

Who would have thought orthography
Could really be compelling –
Who would have thought that aught could be
Excitinger than spelling?

(Thursday,29th December,2005.)