This one is personal:
You know I'm in rather a hole,
Since the bankers got out of control.
My results were the best,
But the funding went West,
And you can't do research on the dole.
Adapted from an entry in the Limericks page of Horst Ibelgaufts' COPE: Cytokines & Cells Online Pathfinder Encyclopaedia. As to why we're stuck in this hole, I found an answer in Flanders and Swann's song There's a Hole in my Budget. That pair were brilliant. Who else could invent — in Have Some Madeira M'Dear — a syllepsis like "She lowered her standards by raising her glass, Her courage, her eyes-and his hopes"?