The Magic Fishbone - by Charles Dickens

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Farting for Health

Rosy was looking at our old copy of 'Alternative London' and told me she'd found a section on Fasting. I misheard her. Here is the section, if I'd been correct.

Farting

'Your body is your temple, respect it and what you put into it. Purify it by farting.'

How long you decide to fart for, or why, is purely a personal matter and should be based on the knowledge you have of your own state of health, mind, and capacity for endurance. It is important to know also how to break a fart - traditionally a meat-eater should break it on vegetables, and a vegetarian should break it on fruit. If you feel strong enough you should try to take some exercise. It can be dangerous to fart suddenly without anyone to help you, and you should purify your body first by eating good foods.

Farting is nature's way of healing but it is not a 'cure-all' for every known ailment. Total farting makes it possible for nature to remove and expel foreign matter and disease-producing wastes from the body.

A traditional farting drink is lemon juice mixed with honey.

How to Get On in Society

 by John Betjeman

Phone for the fish knives, Norman
As cook is a little unnerved;
You kiddies have crumpled the serviettes
And I must have things daintily served.

Are the requisites all in the toilet?
The frills round the cutlets can wait
Till the girl has replenished the cruets
And switched on the logs in the grate.

It's ever so close in the lounge dear,
But the vestibule's comfy for tea
And Howard is riding on horseback
So do come and take some with me

Now here is a fork for your pastries
And do use the couch for your feet;
I know what I wanted to ask you-
Is trifle sufficient for sweet?

Milk and then just as it comes dear?
I'm afraid the preserve's full of stones;
Beg pardon, I'm soiling the doileys
With afternoon tea-cakes and scones.

On a 69th birthday

 Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Sixty-nine won't come again,

And take from seventy springs that score,

It only leaves me just one more.

And since to look at things in bloom

A single spring is little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

Acknowledging A E Housman

The high chair in ancient Greece

 

You could take this either way, I guess

 “Tradition is tending the flame, not worshipping the ashes”

Gustav Mahler

Dear England

 Gareth Southgate's open letter to England