Ross Paul's Swan Song

It appears that the esteemed President of the University of Windsor is not only an educator and administrator but a singer and satirist as well. On Saturday night, according to the Star, he "sang Nightmare Song, from [Gilbert & Sullivan's] Iolanthe." He even created the lyrics to the music as well. His version is set out below.

One definition that I saw stated that satire is "A way of criticising someone, an idea or an institution, in which humour is used to show faults or weaknesses."

What does the President's little ditty mean? Why I could just hear the Professor in English 101 at the University discussing this song with his/her students:

• "Now class," the Professor would say, "this song was written just before the vote was taken on the Engineering Complex. I would like you to write an essay of not more than two pages setting out what you believe the President meant by this song.
  
  Was he having fun at his own expense for example and letting the audience in on it? Or, was he under intense pressure? Was he slamming the Mayor who was forcing him to jeopardize the position of the University for his own political objectives?
  
  Now remember in framing your answer, I want you to consider the following as Wikipedia says:
  
  "Gilbert had targeted the aristocracy for satiric treatment before, but in this "fairy opera," the House of Lords is lampooned as a bastion of the ineffective, privileged and dim-witted. The political party system and other institutions also come in for a dose of satire. It is a Among many potshots that Gilbert takes at lawyers in this opera, the Lord Chancellor sings that he will "work on a new and original plan.." Throughout Iolanthe, however, both author and composer managed to couch the criticism among such bouncy, amiable absurdities that it is all received as good humour."

I know what I would write if I attended that English class. I would expect to get an A+ as well as my grade. What about you, dear reader? Since the term of the President is just about over, was he lampooning the ineffective, privileged, and dimwitted in this City? Was he telling his fellow Board members how to vote but in a way that it could not rebound against him? What do you think after reading what the good President had to sing?

PS. Oh by the way, the President is absolutely serious about this song. It was part of the package that was sent out to Board members I was told. I wonder what they will make of it too.

• Ballad: A Nightmare
  (Modified from W.S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan's Iolanthe)
  
  Work, incompleted, robs me of my rest
  Work, honest work, my ardent soul encumbers
  Work, nightmare like, lies heavy on my chest
  And weaves itself into my midnight slumber...
  
  When you're lying awake with a dismal headache, and repose is taboo'd by anxiety,
  I conceive you may use any language you choose to indulge in without impropriety;
  
  For your brain is on fire - the bedclothes conspire of usual slumber to plunder you:
  First your counterpane goes and uncovers your toes, and your sheet slips demurely from, under you;
  
  Then the blanketing tickles - you feel like mixed pickles, so terribly sharp is the pricking, And you're hot, and you're cross, and you tumble and toss till there's nothing 'twixt you and the ticking.
  
  Then the bedclothes all creep to the ground in a heap, and you pick 'em all up in a tangle; Next your pillow resigns and politely declines to remain at its usual angle!
  
  Well, you get some repose in the form of a doze, with hot eyeballs and head ever aching,
  But your slumbering teems with such horrible dreams that you'd very much better be waking;
  
  For you dream you're perusing a Windsor Star bruising with rumours that everyone's hearing
  That what's new at the U is all about you and your plans to screw engineering
  
  And you're giving a treat of TBQ meat to a party of plotters and schemers
  They're a ravenous horde - and they drag you on board one of Paul Martin's passing tramp steamers
  
  And bound on that journey you find your attorney (who started that morning from Chatham);
  He's a bit undersized, and you don't feel surprised when be tells you he's only an Atom.
  
  Well, you're driving like mad with this singular lad (by the bye the ship's now a four-wheeler),
  At Casino games, where he calls you bad names when you tell him that "ties pay the dealer";
  
  But this you can't stand, so you throw up your hand, and you find you're as cold as an icicle,
  In your shirt and your jocks (Lancer blue and gold socks), crossing Jackson Park by bicycle:
  
  And he and the crew are on bicycles too - which they've somehow or other invested in
  -And he's telling the tars all the particuLARS of a company he's interested in -
  
  It's a new border crossing, and there's none of the glossing o'er all the resistance he's facing
  Tunnel or bridge, furnace or fridge, the Mayor, he never stops pacing.
  
  They take you downtown and try you to drown in the gorge of a swirling Eddy
  But you stand up and fight and think you're all right 'til they call you J. Francis Leddy.
  
  But then you absolve to hold your resolve and stand up to every faction
  But when you refuse their downtown to choose, they take a Strosberg class action.
  
  The shares are a penny, and ever so many are taken by the family Toldo
  And just as a few are allotted to you, you awake feeling so very old... ohhhhhhhhhhh...
  
  You're a regular wreck, with a crick in your neck, and no wonder you snore, for your head's on the floor, and you've needles and pins from your soles to your shins, and your flesh is a-creep, for your left leg's asleep, and you've cramp in your toes, and a fly on your nose, and some fluff in your lung, and a feverish tongue, and a thirst that's intense, and a general sense that you haven't been sleeping in clover
  
  But the darkness has passed, and it's daylight at last, and the night has been long - ditto, ditto my song - and thank goodness they're both of them over!