901

SHOWER PROTOCOL - How To Shower Like a Woman:

Take off clothes and place them methodically in laundry basket, separating lights and darks.

Walk to bathroom wearing long dressing gown.

If you see husband along the way, modestly cover up any exposed areas.

Look at your womanly physique in the mirror - make a mental note to do still more sit-ups/leg-lifts/weight-watching.

Get into the shower.

Use face cloth, arm cloth, leg cloth, long loofah, wide loofah and pumice stone.

Wash your hair once, using usual jojoba-and-orange-flower shampoo with twenty-eight added vitamins.

Wash your hair again to make sure it's thoroughly clean.

Condition your hair with grapefruit-and-mint-with-a-hint-of-lime-zest conditioner.

Wash your face with crushed-apricot facial scrub for ten minutes until red.

Wash entire rest of body with Manuka honey-and-Kikuyu beeswax aromatherapy body wash.

Rinse conditioner off hair.

Shave armpits and legs.

Turn off shower.

Sponge off all wet surfaces in shower.

Spray mould spots with tile cleaner and wipe down.

Get out of shower.

Dry body with towel the size of a small country.

Wrap hair in super-absorbent fluffy towel.

Return to bedroom wearing long dressing gown with towel on head.

If you see husband along the way, cover up any exposed areas.

SHOWER PROTOCOL - How To Shower Like a Man:

Take off clothes while sitting on the corner of the bed and leave them lying in random pile.

Swagger naked across the landing to the bathroom.

If you catch sight of wife along the way, shake willy at her doing the 'woo-woo' sound.

Appraise your exceptional, manly physique in the mirror.

Admire the size of your willy and scratch bum.

Get into the shower.

Wash your face and neck.

Wash your armpits.

Blow your nose in your hands and let the water-jets flush the contents off.

Fart and laugh at how loud it sounds in the shower.

Spend majority of time washing privates and surrounding areas.

Wash your bum, leaving numerous coarse bum hairs stuck on the soap.

Wash your hair.

Make a trendy Shampoo Mohawk.

Pee.

Rinse off and get out of shower.

Partly dry yourself off.

Fail to notice excess water on floor caused by curtain hanging outside bath the whole time.

Admire willy size in mirror and scratch bum again.

Leave shower curtain open, wet mat lying on floor, and light and fan still on.

Exit, dripping, and swagger back to bedroom with towel wrapped around waist.

If you pass wife, pull off towel, shake willy at her and do the 'woo-woo' sound again.

Carelessly throw wet towel onto bed.


I KNOW YOU'RE ALL GIGGLING, CHAPS, BECAUSE IT'S MOSTLY TRUE!!

902

CELERY

Celery, raw
Develops the jaw,
But celery, stewed,
Is more quietly chewed.

FURTHER REFLECTIONS ON PARSLEY

Parsley
Is gharsley.

THE CANTALOUPE

One cantaloupe is ripe and lush,
Another's green, another's mush.
I'd buy a lot more cantaloupe
If I possessed a fluoroscope.

Ere we munch
A loser's lunch,
A chlorophyl
Useless meal...

Ogden Nash
Has a stash
Of peppery
Short poetry.

Quite laconic
And botanic;
Surely leafy,
Not beefy.

Duller produce
Helps reduce
We followers,
Mere dieters.

Just see screwy
Ripe peyote
So utilitarian
To a vegetarian!

903

THE BIG BABOON
by Hilaire Belloc

The Big Baboon is found upon
The plains of Cariboo:
He goes about with nothing on
(A shocking thing to do).

But if he dressed up respectably
And let his whiskers grow,
How like this Big Baboon would be
To Mister So-and-so!

BIG GEORGE BUSH
by Lorena Bobbitt

Big George Bush in that White House
Went on to beat Al Gore.
The buffoon; insipid souse
Proposed a bloody war.

This bumbling, bloodshot fool,
I wish he was born Black.
And the ape's nine-inch tool?
His dick, it I'd soon hack!

904

AMERICAN TUNE
Composed by Paul Simon

Many's the time I've been mistaken
And many times confused
Yes, and I've often felt forsaken
And certainly misused
Oh, but I'm all right, I'm all right
I'm just weary to my bones
Still, you don't expect to be
Bright and bon vivant
So far away from home, so far away from home.

And I don't know a soul who's not been battered
I don't have a friend who feels at ease
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered
or driven to its knees
But it's all right, it's all right
for we lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the
road we're traveling on
I WONDER WHAT'S GONE WRONG*
I can't help it, I wonder what's gone wrong

And I dreamed I was dying
I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly
And looking back down at me
Smiled reassuringly
And I dreamed I was flying
And high up above my eyes could clearly see
THE STATUE OF LIBERTY**
Sailing away to sea
And I dreamed I was flying.

We come on the ship they call the Mayflower
We come on the ship that sailed the moon
We come in the age's most uncertain hours
and sing an AMERICAN TUNE***
Oh, and it's alright, it's all right, it's all right
You can't be forever blessed
Still, tomorrow's going to be another working day
And I'm trying to get some rest
That's all I'm trying to get some rest.

* ELEGY
Stormy individualism I'm bound to lose;
Wily militiamen devoted no excuse,
No commitment, no salvation, no immunity...
Leaving a broken nation, divided community.
Maximum tolerance and down on its knees;
All deny identity; immortality we release.
Wisdom demoted, we emote to a dim-lit sky...
A needier need made weak: we know, we die.

** THE STATUE OF LIBERTY, a robed woman holding a lit flame, was France's donation. Worldwide, it is one of the most recognisable U.S. icons, symbolising liberty and an escape from tyranny.

*** Francis Scott Key's words were set to the tune of John Stafford Smith's drinking song. Renamed THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER, it became a well-known American nationalistic, flag-waving song. Although it originally had four verses, only the initial one is commonly sung today.

O! say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

905

[Traditional nursery rhyme (quoted by Wayne Fields, What the River Knows, 1990) anagrammed into a similar if rather more adult version.]

The best six doctors anywhere,
and no one can deny it,
are sunshine, water, rest, and air,
exercise and diet.
These six will gladly you attend,
If only you are willing,
your mind they'll ease, your will they'll mend,
and charge you not a shilling.

Should you want your years to be
exciting, nice and healthy,
timeless, excellent and free,
while still remaining wealthy;
Why, don't do drugs and alcohol,
try eating less at dinner,
say, routine sex is an ideal
you'd die really horny, winner.

906

COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE
September 3, 1802

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

KILLING TIME
A Sad Hour at Westminster Bridge.
September 3 at 18:02

The might of London's sights is captured here,
Yet people, vacant-eyed go rushing by,
All heedless of this gracious majesty.
And now the busy City starts to share
The bustle of the evening rush-hour where,
The Gherkin Tower, The Dome, and London Eye,
Predominate the river and the sky;
While smoky air clings mute to window sills,
Then swirls and laps round Big Ben's steepled tower,
Impatient to delay that looming hour.
In vain; for Time, relentless, passes till
A lone voice whispers softly, 'Allah's Will.'
The bridge erupts ... a loathsome aim fulfilled.