Today, and every day for two weeks,we will mostly be having builders. They are remodelling my Mother's bathroom, putting in a new shower that she can actually get into, fitting rails and a new floor,and generally doing buildery things. There are two of them, supposedly. Bob the Builder is cheerful and polite. He has also buggered off on holiday. We are left with Brian the |Builder,who isn't exactly rude, but likes his tea on time. He has complained of my slowness, and I am retaliating (and amusing myself)by giving him a daily more inappropriate mug. He has already had the Cadbury's Caramel Sexy Rabbit, and if he's not a bit more pleasant he will get Barbie and then Princess Diana,who has a tiny chip on her rim..He also possesses a woeful countenance, like Eeyore with a hangover and several final demands. I am in charge of tea and supplies, and stopping the Dog from attaching itself to the front of his manly trousers. It goes cross-eyed with delight when it encounters trousers. I think,in fact, it wants to spend the rest of its (hopefully short) life glued to people's bottoms.I find this an unattractive trait,and came across it a great deal in Italy.Although their dogs didn't get a look in,as the male population of Italy were already in place. My Mother had her bottom assaulted when she was on the Spanish Steps in Rome. She was in her sixties at the time, and had back problems which forced her to wear a steel corset. So it amused her no end to see her would-be pincher retiring hurt and puzzled, wondering , I suppose,if he had just encountered Robo-Bum.
I can't really get my head round bottoms. They are useful enough, I grant you, but I cannot imagine wanting to do very much of anything with anyone else's. Buggery baffles me, and a smacked bottom is for when you have used your crayons on the wallpaper.Mind you, they crop up on television endlessly these days. Scarcely an evening goes by without the sight of bare buttocks a-bobbing and a-throbbing on our screens. And that's just "Flog It". Perhaps my dear Mother's television is tuned to channels not received elsewhere, but I doubt she would tick the box for the Arse Channel.
So we move, seamlessly, to Builder's Bottom;that strange display of moonish cheek that we see so frequently. It is not confined, alas ,to builders;it would be a simple enough matter to abjure building sites. But, (and it's a big butt), an awful lot of teenage boys have trousers with no visible means of support. They desperately want us to see their undercrackers, and I don't know why. Young girls have taken to going out without their skirts on. I know I am turning into an absurd Lady Bracknell-like figure, but the other day I was standing on an escalator behind a behind that was seemingly just wearing tights and a short jacket. Panto season,oh well. As usual I am horrifically elitist about this. It isn't as bad if the bottom is perky and in a good mood. However,it so often is a grumpy, overspilling thing,like a badly stuffed leather pouffe. Still,it must be increasingly difficult to upset people with one's clothing. WE had it easy;and could bring lorries (and their drivers) to a shuddering halt by just walking along in our relatively modest miniskirts. Now, no-one so much as glances as girls go by clad only in body paint and earrings.
As a child; I was once possessed by the idea that every time you smiled, you were revealing a bit of your skeleton to someone. That may well be the next Big Thing. Like the Pompidou Centre, we shall all have to wear our insides on the outside, showing off the superior state of our organs. I will have to embrace the Burkha, given the things I have done to my body in the past. My lungs alone will resemble a Victorian chimney, and my liver will be a tiny wizened coal.
Still, as they say, beauty is only skin-deep,although I am not sure how much further one would want it. Let the last word on this be from Mr Cole Porter's "The Physician", sung most notably by the stellar Miss Gertrude Lawrence, an extract from which I reproduce below.
" Once I loved such a shattering physician,
Quite the best-looking doctor in the state.
He looked after my physical condition,
And his bedside manner was great.
When I'd gaze up and see him there above me,
Looking less like a doctor than a Turk,
I was tempted to whisper, "Do you love me,
Or do you merely love your work?"
Refrain 1
He said my bronchial tubes were entrancing,
My epiglottis filled him with glee,
He simply loved my larynx
And went wild about my pharynx,
But he never said he loved me.
He said my epidermis was darling,
And found my blood as blue as could be,
We went through wild ecstatics,
When I showed him my lymphatics,
But he never said he loved me.
And though, no doubt,
It was not very smart of me,
I kept on a-wracking my soul
To figure out
Why he loved ev'ry part of me,
And yet not me as a whole.
With my oesophagus he was ravished,
Enthusiastic to a degree,
He said 'twas just enormous,
My appendix vermiformis,
But he never said he loved me."
I can't really get my head round bottoms. They are useful enough, I grant you, but I cannot imagine wanting to do very much of anything with anyone else's. Buggery baffles me, and a smacked bottom is for when you have used your crayons on the wallpaper.Mind you, they crop up on television endlessly these days. Scarcely an evening goes by without the sight of bare buttocks a-bobbing and a-throbbing on our screens. And that's just "Flog It". Perhaps my dear Mother's television is tuned to channels not received elsewhere, but I doubt she would tick the box for the Arse Channel.
So we move, seamlessly, to Builder's Bottom;that strange display of moonish cheek that we see so frequently. It is not confined, alas ,to builders;it would be a simple enough matter to abjure building sites. But, (and it's a big butt), an awful lot of teenage boys have trousers with no visible means of support. They desperately want us to see their undercrackers, and I don't know why. Young girls have taken to going out without their skirts on. I know I am turning into an absurd Lady Bracknell-like figure, but the other day I was standing on an escalator behind a behind that was seemingly just wearing tights and a short jacket. Panto season,oh well. As usual I am horrifically elitist about this. It isn't as bad if the bottom is perky and in a good mood. However,it so often is a grumpy, overspilling thing,like a badly stuffed leather pouffe. Still,it must be increasingly difficult to upset people with one's clothing. WE had it easy;and could bring lorries (and their drivers) to a shuddering halt by just walking along in our relatively modest miniskirts. Now, no-one so much as glances as girls go by clad only in body paint and earrings.
As a child; I was once possessed by the idea that every time you smiled, you were revealing a bit of your skeleton to someone. That may well be the next Big Thing. Like the Pompidou Centre, we shall all have to wear our insides on the outside, showing off the superior state of our organs. I will have to embrace the Burkha, given the things I have done to my body in the past. My lungs alone will resemble a Victorian chimney, and my liver will be a tiny wizened coal.
Still, as they say, beauty is only skin-deep,although I am not sure how much further one would want it. Let the last word on this be from Mr Cole Porter's "The Physician", sung most notably by the stellar Miss Gertrude Lawrence, an extract from which I reproduce below.
" Once I loved such a shattering physician,
Quite the best-looking doctor in the state.
He looked after my physical condition,
And his bedside manner was great.
When I'd gaze up and see him there above me,
Looking less like a doctor than a Turk,
I was tempted to whisper, "Do you love me,
Or do you merely love your work?"
Refrain 1
He said my bronchial tubes were entrancing,
My epiglottis filled him with glee,
He simply loved my larynx
And went wild about my pharynx,
But he never said he loved me.
He said my epidermis was darling,
And found my blood as blue as could be,
We went through wild ecstatics,
When I showed him my lymphatics,
But he never said he loved me.
And though, no doubt,
It was not very smart of me,
I kept on a-wracking my soul
To figure out
Why he loved ev'ry part of me,
And yet not me as a whole.
With my oesophagus he was ravished,
Enthusiastic to a degree,
He said 'twas just enormous,
My appendix vermiformis,
But he never said he loved me."
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