Snippet

Receptionist: "Hello, GP's surgery."

Me: "Hello, I was hoping to speak to Dr Nigel about my vasectomy results please."

Receptionist: "Sorry he's with an important patient at the moment, you'll have to call back."

Me: "I need to speak to him urgently. Can you tell him I have a blog?"

Receptionist: "Oh . . . sorry, sir, I didn't realise. One moment please"

Ten seconds later.

Dr: "Hello? Who is this? I have a VIP in here at the moment you know!"

Me: "Hi Dr Nigel, it's The Jules."

Dr: "The Jules? Oh. Oooohh! Right you are." Muffled voice "Sorry Your Highness, I have to take this call, be back in a moment."

Sounds of doors closing, and a doctor's bum sinking into a chair.

Dr: "Sorry about that. What can I do for you?"

Me: "Well, I was wondering if the results of my vasectomy have come through yet? It's been six months and I got told informally that one of them was okay by your secretary, but it'd be nice to have the official word as it were."

Dr (tapping on computer) : "Well, we're still waiting for you to provide a third sample . . ."

Me: "Third? But I was told you only needed two."

Dr: " Yes,but one of yours was still positive for little swimmers, so we need another to see if you're definitely a Jaffa."

Me: "Say what now?"

Dr: "One of your samples was positive. We need another like we told you in the letter we . . . ah, it appears we have neglected to send you the letter. Sorry about that."

Me (thinking about the lax attitude to contraception that may have been demonstrated round our gaff recently): "Hnnn!"

Dr: "But I presume you're still being sensible with the old . . . " sound of doctor's eyebrows waggling " . . . precautions, right?"

Me: "Weeell . . ."

Dr: "Because it would be daft to take any chances without written confirmation from your doctor, wouldn't it?"

Me: "But you mangled me! You cut 'em, sliced 'em and burnt the tubes with hot metal for three feet in both directions! How can there be a positive sample? It'd be like a throwing a grenade into a bucket of tadpoles and expecting frogs to jump out!"

Dr: "Well, they're notoriously tough, are the human nuts, you know. They can continue producing baby gravy after quite extreme trauma."

Me: "But . . . but . . ."

Dr (chuckling like Dr Hibbert off of The Simpsons): "They can even heal up after a time!"

Me: "But . . . but . . ."

Dr: "And maybe it's because you're a superman, genitally speaking?"

Me: "But . . . well, yes, that's a possibility I suppose."

Dr: "So send us another sample, and we'll see what the results say now. Could just be a blip."

Me (Sighing): "Okay. I'll do one as soon as I've found the La Redoute catalogue."

Dr: "Good. Good. Oh and The Jules?"

Me: "Yes?"

Dr: "Could we ask you to use a specimen jar this time? Don't just send us a sock."

Me: "I suppose. For fussy clinical reasons is it?"

Dr: That, and the fact they're difficult for the lab technicians to wring out."

Me (thinking about the possibility that Bonobo might not be the youngest in the near future, that overtime can only go so far, that savings must be made): Doctor Nigel?"

Dr: "Yes?"

Me: "Can I have my socks back?"

Badder sex

Publicity is being gained for writers who have penned some prose involving questionable copulation, their reward being the honour of receiving the coveted Bad Sex Award from Literary Review.

Having only briefly perused the offenders, I was half expecting it to be about actual bad sex, maybe where one partner rests an elbow on the other's hair, or involving a nasty clash of teeth, or perhaps a mid-coitus nosebleed, but it's not. It’s just about sex.

I don’t think I’d be too embarrassed about receiving a bad sex award (unless it was from my wife), because it must be exceptionally difficult trying to be original when describing something people have been doing since . . . well, since before there were people.

So, in the guise of any publicity being good publicity, unless you're a murderer, I have decided to have a stab at it. You can insert an innuendo here if you are childish and unsophisticated.

Heh. Insert.

Picture the scene. It is one of classic romance, involving traditional gender orientation and eroticism that has appealed to both men and women since time immemorial.

___________________________

She opened wide after a single knock, and raised a questioning eyebrow at the darkly tall stranger standing before her.

"I have come. . . " he growled deep in his throat, a testosterone fuelled baritone that she could feel in her very core, its timbre threatening to vibrate her knickers off, " . . . to fix your washing machine."

"Oh god!" she exclaimed breathlessly, "I was just going to have a bath." She looked at him askance, and he looked back at her askance as well, "In the nude!" she elucidated.

"But I have already brought my enormous plumbing tool," he waved it back and forth in front of her flushed cheeks, its hard, unforgiving length still glistening from another lady's fluids.

"My!" she gasped, admiring his professional manner. "Then it would be a shame if you got it out and didn't get chance to use it."

"I will be very . . ." He leaned forward, lowering his voice even further as their eyes met, his gaze smouldering like slices of black pudding in a frying pan " . . . quick."

"Good." she whispered back, relief flooding quite literally out of her, and she led him into the bedroom where she kept her washing machine.

"I keep my washing machine in the bedroom." She told him.

"That is completely normal and requires no clarification." He smoothed his moustache down and wiped his brow. "It's a little hot in here." He pointed out unnecessarily. "Would you mind if I made myself a little more . . ." he paused as he unbuttoned his shirt and searched for a word, " . . . sexy."

"Why not at all." She replied. "It is very, very warm in here, and me wearing this hot, winter silk negligee as well." She shrugged it off, but left her high heels on for the purposes of decorum.

"Now," he knelt before her and raised his tool in front of them both, expertly manoeuvring it into position. "Let me at it."

"That's it. Right there" She showed him. "Yes. There. Right in the alcove. That's it. Right there."

"Yes, I can see it because it is quite large, it being a washing machine."

True to his word, he was expertly quick, finishing rapidly and then holding up his tool wot was all covered in white residue.

"You see, the problem is you haven't been descaling it, and it's a bit like a kettle in that respect, so perhaps you should use Calgon."

"That's really very efficient of you, and reasonably priced as well. Thank you very much,"

"You're welcome." He cleaned his tool on the bedroom curtains before making his way to the van, leaving another very satisfied customer in his wake.

A few days later they met in the street, swapped numbers and went on three dates, which culminated in some satisfactory sexual intercourse and began a pleasant relationship lasting almost two years before ending relatively amicably.

___________________________

Actually, forget the bad sex awards, this stuff is pretty hot.

Sorry it was so short.

Sex and thugs and sausage rolls

I was watching the telly earlier, which is quite a rare event these days, because even if it is on it's usually populated by surreally costumed garden dwelling freaks playing with balls and giving each other hugs because apparently they just want to. Children seem to lap this sort of thing up though, which explains why my two year old has no concept of personal space.

I can go for days at a time without directly watching TV. I used to make an effort to watch a favoured show, like Mock the Week or Dexter, but now I don't even do that. I've actually missed one of the new episodes of Life with David Attenborough, and those are the sorts of programmes I would cancel a doctor's appointment for. Actually, that should be Life, narrated by David Attenborough, because otherwise it sounds like a programme watching the octogenarian animal privacy invader doing his shopping and reading the paper*.

Even the news, which previously I watched about three times a day so I could tut a lot and shake my head in grim disbelief, is now accessed via the smoothness of the internet tubes.

A random selection of programmes in the middle of the day shows me what I'm missing.

On one side, someone is thinking of moving house, so they're going on national telly to do it. On another, an amateur chef is being told he's not as good as a professional chef by a professional chef. On a third, some very closely related chavs are arguing about who fathered whose child and proving that the more gold you wear, the lower socioeconomic class you occupy (unless you're Mr T), and on yet another, four women are sitting around a desk chatting about absolutely nothing. Nothing at all, and getting rounds of ecstatic, whooping applause for it.

Oh dear.

I get the impression I'm not missing out on some cultural revolution here, where I will be enlightened and informed on an hourly basis.

This rare television watching event I was treating myself to was a non-BBC channel. As an Englishman, this makes me a bit nervous, like venturing into a foreign market place where they sell huge aromatic rugs, have Kalashnikov stalls and swarthy men with moustaches you could filter plankton through shout at you with words like "Makalakanaka!".

This also meant they had commercial breaks.

The adverts duly came on and I did my economic duty and listened to their propositions. One was for Sni . . .

Snic . . .

Snick . . . ick . . . Marathons!

Sorry, I still have trouble calling them Snickers's's's after all these years.** Don't know why I'm so bothered. They're only a Mars bar with peanuts in.

Anyway, the current advert for said anaphylaxis-causing sweety bar features the aforementioned Mr T, famous for portraying the gruff, blinged-up tough guy war veteran Barely Articulate Baracus in the 80's series The 'A' Team, although what the army would make of such an outfit and copious amounts of jewelry I do not know. Standards must have been lower in those days. Perhaps they had a "Don't ask, don't tell" attitude towards Mohawks and earings.

Where was I?

Oh yes. Mr T advertising Mara . . . Snickers's's's. In the adverts, he arrives at the scene of some poor bloke who is wimping out (not going in a cold pool, or avoiding contact with a football), in a vehicle of war (a tank or a helicopter), and then proceeds to shout "Get some nuts" whilst lobbing chocolate bars at them.

A few things popped into my head from this. The first is that how come Mr T looks exactly the same now as he did when I watched The A Team back in the day. The Thursday, in fact.

The second is that sex and violence sells. In this case, both are used. The candy-dispensing Huey represents the violence, and the sex is represented by . . . er . . . nuts, possibly.

The point is, sex and violence sells snacks.

Sex or violence.

Sex and/or violence.

Anyway, they appeal to the baser aspects of our psyche, which I suppose is exactly what hunger is, so in order to link them advertisers take advantage of our barely controlled, barely evolved lizard brain which is essentially only interested in the four Fs: Feeding, fighting, fleeing and mating.

Of all these, sex comes first, if you know what I mean.

Hence purdy ladies and winsome chaps advertising choccies and cakes.

And there's something for everyone, no matter who, or what, tickles your fancy.

Look at this:


I'm not that into bestiality, but I wouldn't kick that bit of totty out of bed even if she defecated on the duvet and then ate it.

Which she very well might, because she's a rabbit.

Mind you, some advertising concepts make no sense at all. I just found these crisps in our cupboard:

Transform-A-Snacks?

What do they transform into?

Well, you'll have to wait a few hours to find out.


* Which might work. I'll pitch it.

** According to Wikimisleadia, the name change occurred in 1990! It's not that I'm behind the times. Just set in my ways.

Now, excuse me. I'm off to watch Blake's 7 on my Betamax.