The Blacksmith's SongJust so you know what the bloody hell I'm on about in The Other Place:
The blacksmith told me before he died
And I've no reason to believe he lied
That no matter how hard he tried and tried
His wife was never satisfied
So he built a bloody big wheel
And harnessed it to a prick of steel
Two balls of brass were filled with cream
And the whole bloody issue was driven by steam
Round and round went the bloody big wheel
In and out went the prick of steel
Until at last the maiden cried
"Enough, enough! I'm satisfied!"
Now here comes the crucial bit
There was no way of stopping it
And she was split from arse to tit
And the whole bloody issue was covered with shit.
Filthy DaveFilthy Dave was the sick kid in our class at school.
You could only describe Filthy Dave one way: filthy. Filthy of mind and filthy of body. His school jumper was full of holes, and his ears dripped with enough wax to keep the Catholic Church in candles until the Second Coming. And his mind - we prided ourselves on being a pretty cosmopolitan, depraved bunch, but Filthy Dave was a breed apart.
When somebody suggested what a laugh it would be just to spy on the girl's changing room during PE, Filthy Dave was the one who marched in and had a good look round while high-pitched screams shattered the windows. The only words we got out of him for the next two weeks were "Tracey... Tracey..." and a glazed, faraway look which could only be erased by a well-aimed punch to the scrotum.
When Miss Shagwell was sensitively discussing the subject of female genitals during a sex education class, Filthy Dave was the one who asked for a practical, hands on demonstration. And knowing Miss Shagwell's reputation, he probably got one too.
Filthy Dave's idea of a good laugh was to open a box of fishing maggots in the dining hall during lunch - and eat a handful; while one of the ingredients he brought in for a home economics class was an unidentifiable road-kill picked up and stuffed into a Sainsbury's carrier bag on the way to school.
He was always doing the disgusting stuff your mother warned you against. Filthy Dave started the school craze for crapping through letterboxes, and leaving a well-placed turd exactly where you least expected to find one. For example, on the rear pew of the local church during the school carol concert. Filthy Dave was a filthy, filthy boy, and gained a cult following not just for his filth, but for the fact that as far as I know, he never, ever got into trouble for anything he ever did.
Filthy Dave once shaved his head during Maths. "It's the lice, miss," he explained and not a word was spoken on the subject.
One day, he found that by drinking enough blue ink (either from ink cartridges or straight from the bottle, the filthy Quink addict), he could do a blue poo, and laying a log on a piece of yellow paper nicked from the art class, he discovered, with a bit of prodding that he could make a passable example of the school badge in faeces. The school motto was an entirely different matter, but it's amazing what you can achieve with ear wax, snot and Lord knows what else extracted from bodily orifices. We thought it best not to ask how he achieved the red lettering.
So, over a period of several weeks (I could be wrong with this detail - subsequent police reconstructions suggest that it may have taken him "ten, maybe fifteen" minutes), while the rest of the class were out playing football and fighting over pornographic literature, Filthy Dave beavered away at home over his meisterwerk, crouching over a piece of paper, pants round his ankles, eyes bulging with the strain. He sculpted it, varnished it, and handed the result in as part of a project in "three dimensional texture modelling" for his CSE in Art.
Mr Law - the mad bastard's mad bastard - was so impressed he showed it to the Head, who, in turn, was so impressed that he had it hung in the school entrance hall, where I gather it remains to this day. I always knew our school was crap. Luckily for all involved, the photographer from the Maidenhead Advertiser was covering a rare fully-clothed Women's' Institute meeting, and failed to keep his appointment.
I still see Filthy Dave every now and then. He is no longer filthy, just plain Dave. It's sad how age mellows people. But God, you should see his kids.
More of this lunacy over here.
Pope's health takes turn for worse
Senior Vatican officials are dismayed at the deterioration in the health of Pope John Paul II over recent days. After his steady recovery from an infection that saw the Pontiff confined to a hospital in Rome, bishops have been puzzled by the Holy Father's recent diagnosis of Tourette's Syndrome.
In his unexpected blessing to the waiting masses on Sunday, His Holiness was clearly heard to address the crowds with the words "A blessed Sabbath CUNT to you all FUCKERFUCKERFUCKER", whilst winking madly at a passing nun.
This latest development is bound to increase anxiety at the Holy See, after recent attempts to cover up the Pope's various illnesses have been met with varying degrees of success.
As one Vatican insider put it: "Just when we'd got away with buying the old fella a tambourine to hide the Parkinson's, this happens. It looks like we're going to have to rewrite the prayer books now. Easter's going to be a fucking nightmare, if you'll pardon my Polish."
