Tag Archives: Satire

Don’t Mock the Afflicted. Exploit Them for Literary Gain!

06 Thursday Aug 2015

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In rather feeble attempts to demonstrate their erudition and unsuccessfully prove that they have a sense of humour, members of the medical profession have in recent years been generating articles for publication in which they diagnose the purported symptoms exhibited by the protagonists of well-known works of fiction. Thus, in the American Journal of Diseases of Children, D. W. Lewis argues that Tiny Tim from Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol exhibits all the signs of Distal renal tubular acidosis (Type 1); in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Claude Cyr argues that Tintin shows symptoms of hormone deficiency, hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, and repeated head trauma; and in the British Medical Journal, Professor Gareth Williams concludes that Squirrel Nutkin suffered from Tourette’s.

At the same time, there has been a veritable explosion of novels featuring protagonists with illnesses or diseases hitherto considered exotic or rare. The protagonist of Mark Haddon’s Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time is autistic, Clare Morrall’s central character in Astonishing Splashes of Colour suffers from synesthesia, Lionel Essrog in Jonatham Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn has Tourette’s, Lisbeth Salander in Stieg Larsson’s novels has Asperger’s syndrome, and it seems like every detective and every cop in every book and TV program is either terminally ill, already dead, hard of hearing or an awkward patronising twat. Sometimes all of the above (yes, Morse, you).

In an effort to stem the flow of this truly appalling, exploitative, unimaginative and smug sub-literary effluence, we feel it our duty to point out to any prospective authors or poets intending to embark on any similar such venture that all the diseases known to humanity have already been covered by far better writers than you. So STOP IT! NOW! (Here’s the evidence)

Agoraphobia: A Room of One’s Own, by Virginia Woolf

Claustrophobia: The Night Before Christmas, by Clement Clarke Moore

Kleptomania: Rob Roy, by Walter Scott

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: The Constant Gardener, by John le Carré

Voyeurism: King Lear, by William Shakespeare

Exhibitionism: Lord of the Flies, by William Golding

Clinical Depression: Doctor No, by Ian Fleming

Anorexia: Skinny Dip, by Carl Hiaasen

Multiple Personality Disorder: Dubliners, by James Joyce

Stuttering: Emma, by Jane Austen

Bipolar Disorder: To the Ends of the Earth, by William Golding

Nymphomania: The Water Babies, by Charles Kingsley

Satyriasis: Peter Pan, by J. M. Barrie

Dwarfism: Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott

Hypochondria: The Iliad, by Homer

Priapism: The Bone People, by Keri Hulme

Bubonic Plague: All’s Well That Ends Well, by William Shakespeare

Down Syndrome: The Ugly Duckling, by Hans Christian Andersen

Echolalia: The History of Mister Polly, by H. G. Wells

Necrophilia: The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer

Catatonia: Permanent Midnight, by Jerry Stahl

Narcissistic Personality Disorder: The Dandy annual

Vertigo: Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë

Coprophilia: The House at Pooh Corner, by A. A. Milne

Male Erectile Dysfunction: The Shape of Things to Come, by H. G. Wells

Halitosis: “The Lady of Shalott,” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Swine Flu: Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw

Peyronie’s disease: The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James:

Syndactyly: Charlotte’s Web, by E. B. White

Haemorrhoids: The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

Macular Degeneration: Darkness at Noon, by Arthur Koestler

Incontinence: Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell

Priapism (again): Hard Times, by Charles Dickens

Leprosy: Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe

Gonorrhea: Our Mutual Friend, by Charles Dickens

Self-Harming: Rip van Winkle, by Washington Irving

Necrotizing Fasciitis: Hitler, My Part In His Downfall, by Spike Milligan

Cystitis: Inferno, by Dante Alighieri

Obesity: The Life of Pi, by Yann Martell

and of course

Bulimia: Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel

If I’ve missed any, do let me know. Ta.

Smells Like Teen Armpit

28 Tuesday Jul 2015

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deodorant
An advertising campaign for Esther & Child domestic fragrances includes a timeline of significant events in the history of the air freshener.

13th century: Domestic refuse and the contents of chamber pots are thrown from the upstairs windows of homes out into the street, with the consequence that visitors bring it all back into the lower levels on their shoes or feet. Homeowners take to keeping pigs in their parlour to cover the smell. The traditional shout of “Gardez L’eau!” to warn of the presence of Filth in the vicinity gives the English the word “loo” and the Irish the word “gardaí.”

1726: Jonathan Swift writes Gulliver’s Travels, the original version of which includes a visit to the Island of Libdribnibb, whose politicians smear their bodies with berries and “remainderings” to make themselves attractive to the electorate. Overtaken by reality, this chapter was dropped from later editions.

1883: The invention of the roll-on deodorant by the Hairy Ainus of Japan.

1930s: America’s most popular contraceptive is Butch deodorant cream.

1950: Prior to the invention of cardboard cut-outs for rearview mirrors, the people of Finland freshen their car interiors by driving around with whole pine trees passed through the boot and out through the sun roof.

1965: The U.S. military conducts secret experiments spraying cinnamon-scented defoliant onto the streets of Baltimore, Maryland. Results prove impossible to determine other than a rise in the number of complaints about how early Christmas is this year.

1969: At his investiture as the Prince of Wales, Prince Charles is sprayed by a protestor with an aerosol can of deodorant. He inhales significant amounts of enviroment-damaging chlorofluorocarbons. Royal-watchers note that this day marks the point from which Charles “goes a bit funny.”

1974: Glade solid scent sticks hit the shelves. Sales of LSD see a precipitous decline.

1976: Death of Howard Hughes, after discovering that antibacterial soap has negligible nutritional value.

1977: Lemon-scented handwipes replace carbolic soap as French men’s masturbatory aid of choice.

1987: The arrival of the plug-in air freshener. Research shows that in the 30 years since their invention, plug-in air fresheners have been responsible for gassing more midgets than Hitler.

1988: The craze among teenagers for getting out of it by inhaling Hawaiian Breeze air freshener aerosols results in New Kids on the Block.

1991: The London Metropolitan Police Oversight Committee reports a 73% drop in deaths in police custody since handwash replaced bars of soap in stations.

1993: One-third of Americans say they forget to wash their hands after fisting. Worse still, two-thirds of Americans say they forget to wash their hands before fisting.

1994: Australian doctors treat children’s eczema by giving them so-called “dust pills” containing human skin flakes.

1995: The Chinese government presents sensational new scientific evidence differentiating between “bad” capitalist greenhouse gases and “good” Communist ones.

2007: The arrival of the Purity 400 Host Dispenser, which issues Communion wafers “never touched by human hand.” Rumours abound that the wafers are made by paraplegics in cages.

2010: Environmental organization Free Earth finds hormone-disrupting chemicals in supposedly “all-natural” air fresheners. Members spend four days weeping unaccountably.

2014: Esther & Child introduces its No Offence subliminal range of fragrances, which emit no smell or harmful spray into the atmosphere. The most popular bouquet among American homeowners is Lavender & Wealth.

Compare and Contrast

27 Monday Jul 2015

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Reality: Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) claimed that if people could bring their guns to the movies, they could have prevented the movie theater shooting in Lafayette, Louisiana, Thursday evening.

“These concepts of gun-free zones are a bad idea. I think that you allow the citizens of this country — who have been appropriately trained, appropriately backgrounded, know how to handle and use firearms — to carry them,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper Sunday. “I believe that, with all my heart, that if you have the citizens who are well trained, and particularly in these places that are considered to be gun-free zones, that we can stop that type of activity, or stop it before there’s as many people that are impacted as what we saw in Lafayette.”

Fiction: According to the Alabama Star, a 15-year-old schoolboy went berserk yesterday at his campus in Luttrell, Tennessee. Piloting a stolen U.S. Navy F/A-18E/F, the young student bombed the gymnasium, library, and science labs before strafing the playground as his terrified classmates ran for cover. Since state laws were changed in 2009 allowing pupils to wear concealed weapons for self-defense in the event of a school shooting, the students were able to return fire, but their efforts were largely futile; their schoolmate was determined to go out with a bang, crashing the fighter into the main building of the school without ejecting. At least 230 students and staff are reported missing, and so far ninety-seven bodies have been found. A spokesperson for the NRA said, ‘This goes to prove our point that it isn’t guns that kill people, it’s people who kill people. If only those kids had been allowed to arm themselves with surface-to-air rocket launchers, their assailant would have thought twice about blowing them to smithereens.’

(Breakfast at Cannibal Joe’s)