The Lavatory Reader

Floating Voters Elect the Lava- Tory Party

The general election is tomorrow but an incredible 38% of us are still deciding for whom to vote. The economy is shattered and we’re fighting two unpopular wars but many people are more preoccupied with the expenses scandal, Bigotgate and the general inter-party bickering.

 

Bigotgate: The Opera

A few choice pieces of political scatology may help to focus the mind by reminding us that bad behaviour is nothing new. And remember - only the Lava-Tory Party can turn floating voters into voting floaters.

For example, if anyone thinks that the modern crop of politicians dishonour their office by hurling abuse at each other, they should consider this piece by the Whig politician Charles James Fox (1749-1806). Although Fox published An Essay upon Wind anonymously, it was very publicly dedicated to the Tory Lord Chancellor, Edward Thurlow (1731-1806).  

 

I have heard, from several of your brother peers, that your lordship farts, without reserve, when seated upon the woolsack, in a full assembly of nobles. This is honest and impartial in Your Lordship, and you merit the thanks of the nation at large… Now this is manly – I admire great Nature in all her operations, and detest the wretched affected being who would check or counteract her in any of her sublime and beautiful works. Fame, my Lord, with her shrill loud trumpet, reports that Your Lordship’s farts are as STRONG, and as SOUND, as your arguments – as VIGOROUS as your intellects – as FORCIBLE as your language – as BRILLIANT as your wit – and as SONOROUS and MUSICAL as Your Lordship’s voice… May Your Lordship continue to fart like an ancient Grecian for many years.

(Charles James Fox – An Essay upon Wind 1787)

Lord Thurlow Squeezes One Out

Politicians were still making cheap scatological jibes in the 20^th century. F.E.Smith, Lord Birkenhead (1872-1930), a one-time Tory Lord Chancellor and a confidant of Winston Churchill, used to pop into the National Liberal Club in Whitehall Court to use the urinals on his way to the Houses of Parliament. Having done this for years, he was eventually accosted by a porter who pointed out that he was in a private club of which he was not a member. "Good God!" replied Birkenhead. "You mean it's a club as well?".

 

The National Liberal Club

Churchill himself, it is said, was once standing at the urinals in the House of Commons when the Labour Prime Minister, Clement Attlee (1883-1967) walked in. Churchill turned his back on him. “Feeling stand-offish today, Winston?” asked Attlee. “No,” Churchill replied, “scared. Every time you see something big, you want to nationalise it.”

 

How Churchill and Attlee Normally Greeted Each Other

However, sexual fraternity could sometimes overcome political antipathy. The Labour MP Tom Driberg (1905-1976) was renowned for his promiscuousness. Churchill allegedly said that “Tom Driberg is the sort of person who gives sodomy a bad name.” In his autobiography, Driberg described his entry to the House of Commons in 1947 and how he was assisted by the bisexual Tory MP, Henry ‘Chips’ Channon (1897-1958). The suggestion that cottaging went on in Parliament between knowing members of rival parties should give today’s puritans pause.

 

Only a few hours after I had been introduced to the House, when I was still wondering about in a daze, and lost, Chips kindly showed me round the most important rooms – the Members’ lavatories. This was an act of pure, disinterested, sisterly friendship, for we had no physical attraction for each other.

(Tom Driberg – Ruling Passions 1977)

 

For his part, the Conservative Enoch Powell (1912-1998) urged restraint. The documentary maker Michael Cockerell (b.1940) once asked him if it was true that he always liked to make a speech on a full bladder. “Absolutely,” Powell replied. “You do nothing to decrease the tension. If anything you seek to increase the tension before you speak… I speak with more passion on a full bladder.”

 

Enoch Speaking on a Full Bladder

However, the greatest piece of political scatology dates back to the seventeenth century. It is often said that the House of Commons today resembles a bear pit – but it is a shadow of its former self.

In 1607, Henry Ludlow farted in Parliament during a debate about the naturalization of the Scots. This may have been an accident – his father Sir Edward Ludlow was renowned for having farted in a committee meeting – but the House fell about and Ludlow’s farting Nay-vote passed into folklore. Endless poems were written about the fart – the best-known being The Censure of the Parliament Fart from the 1620s which begins thus:

 

Never was bestowed such art

Upon the tuning of a Fart.

Down came grave ancient Sir John Crooke

And read his message in his book.

“Very well,” quoth Sir William Morris, “So.”

But Henry Ludlow’s Tail cry’d “No.”

Up starts one fuller of devotion

Then Eloquence; and said a very ill motion.

“Not so neither,” quoth Sir Henry Jenkin,

“The Motion was good; but for the stinking.”

“Well,” quoth Sir Henry Poole, “it was a bold trick

To Fart in the nose of the body politic.”

“Indeed I must confess,” quoth Sir Edward Grevill,

“The matter of itself was somewhat uncivil.”

“Thank God, quoth Sir Edward Hungerford

“That this Fart proved not a Turd…”

 

It is too long to reproduce in full but those who are interested – or have still to decide which way to vote – can view it here. 

Happy voting...

The Volcanic Ash Cloud: A Deliberate Icelandic Attack?

The dust has begun to settle after the Eyjafjallajökull eruption in Iceland and recriminations are flying around instead – most notably from the airlines and the insurance industries.

But before this descends into a tedious financial dispute, in which Iceland is largely forgotten, it is worth briefly considering the history of Anglo-Icelandic relations over the past 70 years because in this context it is apparent that Iceland has played an absolute blinder.

The Smoking Gun

Iceland and the UK have never got on well. In 1918, after a long struggle, Iceland had become an independent sovereign state although still in union with Denmark. However, this triumph was to be short-lived for just 23 years later, in 1941, neutral Iceland was invaded by the British. This was not an opportunistic land grab but came about because the British feared Germany might invade Iceland herself, threatening British control of the North Atlantic. Nevertheless, it must have infuriated the newly independent state.

Britain and Iceland came to blows again in the Cod Wars, a fishing rights dispute between the two countries which dated back to the 19^th century but began in earnest in 1958. The Second and Third Cod Wars took place in the 1970s – summed up admirably in this parody of the Brotherhood of Man classic, ‘Save Your Kisses For Me.’

Britain lost the Cod Wars but relations between the two countries have not improved. While not attempting a full-scale retaliatory invasion, Iceland has attempted stealthy cultural incursions. The first was spear-headed by Magnús Magnússon who hosted Mastermind between 1972 and 1997 – primarily, one suspects, to make the British look stupid. The second foray was musical: first came Björk and the Sugarcubes; more recently we have had Sigur Rós. As with Magnússon’s mental assault, Iceland’s musical offerings are characterised by being recondite and obscure – again, one suspects that they are designed to make the British feel intellectually inadequate.

Björk

Evidence of a furtive financial offensive emerged in 2008 when Iceland’s economy went into meltdown, costing British investors billions. The Icesave Dispute is far from over and Britain hit back hard by provocatively using anti-terrorism legislation against Iceland.

So, to recap, Britain and Iceland argued about fish in the 19^th century. Britain then invaded Iceland during World War Two. The two countries argued about fish again between the ‘50s and the ‘70s before Iceland started bombarding the United Kingdom with abstruse intellectualism in the form of quiz shows and weird music while simultaneously tricking the British into investing their money in dodgy savings accounts.

Iceland’s latest weapon is the volcanic ash cloud which has already cost the British economy £1 billion – and may have even greater consequences.

This, of course, is a tactical masterstroke. The Icelanders would have the world believe that the eruption is a purely natural phenomenon. However, given the sorry state of Anglo-Icelandic relations, is it conceivable that the dormant Eyjafjallajökull volcano was deliberately and maliciously reawakened – perhaps by the placing of a mighty explosive charge when the wind conditions were favourable? And, of course, there is no possibility of investigating the crime scene when it is buried under millions of tonnes of hot lava.

The B52s sing 'Hot Lava'

However, there is a clue to the scurvy, nefarious nature of the Icelanders buried deep in their scatological history. Consider, for example, the Laxdœla Saga, written in c.1245. Here we read of the time when Kjartan Olafsson besieged the good people of Laugar:

In that time, it was the custom for the privy to be located quite a way from the house... Kjartan blocked all the doors and refused anyone exit and they had to relieve themselves inside for three days. [They] thought it to be a much worse dishonour, greater even than if Kjartan had killed one or two of them instead.

(Laxdœla Saga c.1245 CE)

Clearly, any nation that could behave like this would think nothing of covering their enemies with volcanic ash. Further evidence of Icelandic depravity is provided by Dittmar Bleecken who published an eye-witness account of their sanitary habits in 1565.

Neither is it lawful for any one to rise from the table to make water; but for this purpose the daughter of the house, or another maid or woman, attendeth always at the table, watchfull if any one beckon to them; to him that beckoneth shee gives the chamber-pot under the table with her owne hands; the rest in the meanwhile grunt like swine least any noise bee heard. The water being poured out, hee washeth the bason, and offereth his services to him that is willing; and he is accounteth uncivill who abhorreth this fashion.

(Dittmar Bleecken – Voyage to Iceland and Greenland 1565)

The connection between matters of excretion and volcanic eruption is well-known to the student of scatology. Charles James Fox, for example, had this to say in his instructive essay on the differing types of flatulence:

As to fart no. 5 – which I have emphatically denominated the sullen wind-bound fart, it is the most uncomfortable, unhealthy and troublesome of all farts whatever that have been yet discovered, as it comes slowly forth, with a painful sensation and sudden rumbling, like to pent-up air in a volcano, which sometimes produces earthquakes and horrible shakes of the earth from not having a free and open passage for the gas or phlogistic air to escape. Those who are unhappy as to issue such farts from their unwholesome premises are really patients; they cannot be well with such a plentitude of impure and foul air pent up in every cavity of their volcano.

(Charles James Fox – An Essay upon Wind 1787)

So, as the political and financial repercussions of the volcanic eruption echo around the world, just ask yourself this: is it not possible that it is simply the latest in a long line of cunning and dastardly attacks from a fearsome and somewhat unhygienic bunch of Norsemen?

A Typical Icelander

Berlusconi, Napoleon's Bed and Nocturnal Farting

Silvio Berlusconi has bought a bed that once belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte. This public act of narcissism is hardly surprising – Berlusconi has previous form, comparing himself to both Napoleon and Christ in 2006.

 Italy itself, of course, is divided between those who adore him and those who find him exquisitely embarrassing. The latter have long been aware of his Napoleonic fixation, even fearing that it could end somewhere quite sinister.  100,000 left-wingers took to the streets of Rome in 2002, amid rumours that what Berlusconi ultimately wanted was a dictatorship. In the vanguard of this protest march was a vast effigy of Berlusconi, characterised as Boney himself.  

 

But to return to the bed. It is well known that Bonaparte was short of stature and that this, in part, drove him to great things. Berlusconi has been similarly mocked for his size and for having something of a Napoleon complex – although he claims to be 5’7’’ (small in my view, but there you go).  But, tellingly, Berlusconi has asked for Bonaparte’s priceless bed to be, not lengthened, but widened. And at a stroke, Berlusconi has confirmed himself as both a cultural vandal and a short-arsed git.

In publicising this to the world, he probably assumes that it looks good - he, Silvio Berlusconi, can sleep in the bed of an Emperor (conveniently forgetting the ‘vertically challenged’ association). But it gets better than that, for he, Silvio Berlusconi, is such an extraordinary lover, such a demanding athlete of the night, that his bed must be wider than Napoleon and Josephine made do with.

Berlusconi’s sexual appetite is renowned. Salacious gossip suggests that he likes young women, escorts and anything in between. Napoleon too liked a bit of dirt – returning from a campaign, he is alleged to have sent a message ahead to Josephine with explicit instructions: “Will return to Paris tomorrow evening. Don’t wash.”

However, at 74 years old, the continuing rumours of Berlusconi’s rabbit-like libido grow increasingly surreal. This latest story about the bed-widening sounds, like much of the stuff that emanates from this arch media manipulator, like a lot of hot air…

…which segues neatly, if spuriously, into this excerpt from Donald Jack’s Me Too, one of the funniest descriptions ever written of a pompous old idiot lying in bed with a much younger lover who suddenly realises that he has to fart.

 

 If I let go, the sound would almost certainly issue forth as a veritable trumpet voluntary. The bedclothes would probably billow as well, assuming they weren’t blasted off entirely with a rending of sheets and a cloud of feathers. Anne would be absolutely disgusted – or worse, asphyxiated…

There was only one thing for it. Carefully reaching over Anne’s sleeping form, I covered her face with the sheet; then, inch by inch, hauled out the bedclothes on my side, cursing myself for having tucked them so firmly under the mattress; then slowly maneuvered until my bare behind was exposed to the chill air; and with bated breath, so to speak, concentrated intently on loosing the appropriate valve a quarter turn at a time, releasing the pressure as slowly and discreetly as possible, in a long, tightly controlled flow.

The faint hissing went on for so long that I began to get worried, imagining my entire form slowly deflating like the world’s largest sausage balloon. I had a frightful picture of Anne waking up in the morning to find nothing left of me but a puckered end – assuming she was not found dead in bed from fresh bread.

But the emission finally ended, concluding its efforts with a stertorous burst and a faint bubbling.

Five minutes later, after I’d finished waving to somebody in the darkness, and was just settling down again, another misshapen bubble of air started to build up, and by the time I’d dealt with it I was so thoroughly chilled in the exposed region that I even considered warming it up against Anne’s naked back; except that the shock of contact with a pair of icy buttocks would probably have shot her out of bed and embedded her in the far wall.

(Donald Jack – Me Too 1983)

 

Good Riddance to the Farting Cadburys

Much lamenting across Britain with the news that Cadbury (who has been making and selling chocolate since 1824) is to be taken over by the American Kraft Foods, the second largest food and drinks company on the planet. 

 

All very sad, of course, and one must worry whether the takeover will lead to job losses or make a profit for the shareholders but it is worth considering whether Britain might just not be better off without chocolate. Obesity concerns aside, it is a dangerous commodity. Take, for instance, Horace Walpole's account of the death of King George II in 1760.

He went to bed well last night, rose at six this morning as usual, looked, I suppose, if all his money was in his purse, and called for his chocolate. A little after seven, he went into the water-closet; the German valet de chamber heard a noise, listened, heard something like a groan, ran in, and found the hero of Oudenarde and Dettingen on the floor, with a gash on his right temple, by falling against the corner of a bureau. He tried to speak, could not, and expired.

(Horace Walpole - Letter to George Montagu 25th October 1760)

 

 

When I first read this passage , I assumed the cause of this untimely death was the water-closet. I now suspect that the chocolate at least played a part.

It is also worth remembering that the Cadburys were Quakers. Their dread of hard liquor is part of the reason why they went into the tea, coffee and cocoa business in the first place. I have since learned that these hot beverages have a pernicious, windy effect and, in extreme cases, can lead people to become Quakers themselves - as Jonathan Swift reveals in The Benefit of Farting Explained.

As in sipping of these liquors hot, there is commonly as much wind as water sucked in, which through modesty being debarred a passage downwards when nature offers, recoils up into the bowels, stomach and head, and there occasions all those dreadful symptoms usually ascribed to the vapours – all which one seasonable fart might have prevented. It has likewise been assigned as the first cause of Quakerism and enthusiasm, as Hudibras observes.

As wind in hypochondria pent

Is but a fart, if downward sent;

But, if suppressed, it upward flies

And vents itself in Prophecies.

(Jonathan Swift - The Benefit of Farting Explained 1722)

 

So three cheers for Kraft Foods. They are, unwittingly but at a stroke, ridding the United Kingdom from a substance that has caused the death of kings and led to social humiliation for many a commoner.

Earthquakes and Farting

The unfolding tragedy of Haiti’s earthquake should hardly be taken lightly. It is certainly not something to make religious capital out of as the right-wing televangelist nutjob Pat Robertson saw fit to do when he suggested that the earthquake was a divine punishment for the nation’s founders making a ‘pact with the Devil’ to liberate themselves from the French slave owners in 1791.   

Fortunately, Robertson’s comments were promptly slapped down by the Christian mainstream, the blog community and by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

Even the Presidential Palace, built in 1918, was critically damaged. 

But history tells us that structures can be built to survive such natural disasters. Pliny, in his Natural History, for example, eulogises over the solid construction of Rome’s Cloaca Maxima, the world’s oldest extant sewage system which dates back to 600 BCE.

 

Occasionally, too, the Tiber, overflowing, is thrown backward in its course, and discharges itself by these outlets: obstinate is the contest that ensues within between the meeting tides, but so firm and solid is the masonry, that it is enabled to offer an effectual resistance. Enormous as are the accumulations that are carried along above, the work of the channels never gives way. Houses falling spontaneously to ruins, or levelled with the ground by conflagrations, are continually battering against them; the ground, too, is shaken by earthquakes every now and then; and yet, built as they were in the days of Tarquinius Priscus, seven hundred years ago, these constructions have survived, all but unharmed.

(Gaius Plinius Secundus – Natural History 77 AD)

 

The awesome power of earthquakes, of course, is not something that has gone unnoticed by comical scatologists. In 1607, Henry Ludlow farted in Parliament during a debate about the naturalization of the Scots. This may have been an accident – his father Sir Edward Ludlow was renowned for having farted in a committee meeting – but the House fell about and Ludlow’s farting Nay-vote passed into folklore. Endless poems were written about the fart – the best-known being The Censure of the Parliament Fart, a satirical work of unknown authorship. At one point, the act of farting is likened to an earthquake of devastating scale.  

 

Saith Mr. Moore, let us this motion repeale,

What’s good for the private, is ill for the Common weal.

A good year on this Fart, quoth gentle Sir Harry,

He hath caus’d such an earth-quake, thay my Coal-pits miscarry.

(Anonymous – The Censure of the Parliament Fart c.1620s)

 

The association of farting with earthquakes was taken further by the Whig politician Charles James Fox (1749-1806) in his slightly puerile Essay Upon Wind, in which he analyses the ‘different species of farts’.

As to fart no. 5 – which I have emphatically denominated the sullen wind-bound fart, it is the most uncomfortable, unhealthy and troublesome of all farts whatever that have been yet discovered, as it comes slowly forth, with a painful sensation and sudden rumbling, like to pent-up air in a volcano, which sometimes produces earthquakes and horrible shakes of the earth from not having a free and open passage for the gas or phlogistic air to escape. Those who are unhappy as to issue such farts from their unwholesome premises are really patients; they cannot be well with such a plentitude of impure and foul air pent up in every cavity of their volcano. However, this produces the sullen fart, issuing slowly, and mournfully murmuring at long and stated intervals; medicinal assistance is here necessary. As I have often suffered in this case myself (particularly last week, when, in a sleepless night, I thought of penning this useful essay), I think I may, with some confidence, take the liberty of saying to what I attribute the farting malady and, as a benevolent man always ready to assist my fellow creatures, and being a sincere friend to ease and liberty, I shall at the same time point out the cause.

(Charles James Fox – An Essay upon Wind 1787)

 

While humour is said to be the best medicine, none of this is likely to be of comfort to the Haitians who will be better served by generous donations to any of various disaster funds. Suggested places to donate are here:

Disasters Emergency Committee Haiti

and here:

Merlin USA

 

Pat Robertson, meanwhile, deserves the collective contempt and the combined farts of the world.

Flatulence, Not Sanctions, Will Bring Iran to Heel

The recent news that British sailors captured and then released by Iran has only fuelled speculation about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s real intentions. Nuclear brinkmanship, after all, carries the risk of going off in everybody’s faces.

 

With this in mind, perhaps those concerned for Western security should take a leaf out of the history books. It is worth casting our minds back to the eighteenth century Whig politician, Charles James Fox (1749-1806), who wrote so eloquently about how the Ancient Greeks, when threatened by a military aggressor, went off in the faces of Ahmadinnerjacket’s ancestors, the Persians…

 

The Ancients were prodigious farters, particularly the Grecians. Peditorius the Elder hath recorded that a very important post of the Grecian army was once saved from being surprised by the Persian army in the following remarkable manner. The Persians had a dangerous river to ford, and knew that a small opposition from the Grecians would defeat them if they were attacked in passing the river. They therefore made the attempt in the dead silence of a dark night, at some distance below the outpost of the Grecian army; here they began to ford the river, and several of the Persian soldiers in front had actually made good the landing – but fortunately for the Grecian army, one of the sentries of their advanced posts had strayed from his station to this very spot where the Persians made the attempt.

Now whether the Grecian was seized with a panic or whether he tried the experiment from former success cannot now be ascertained, as Peditorius and all the other historians of that period are silent in respect to his former notoriety in farting. However, the man did fart, and so loud and so many (Crepitus Juvenis says six thousand or more, but I think he must be mistaken or have exaggerated, as the strength of the most able farter could not possibly stand so many thundering convulsions) that the Persians, thinking the Grecian army was in motion and their artillery coming up, were at once seized with a general panic and retreated in such confusion that numbers of them were drowned. The Grecian camp was by this time alarmed; they soon assembled their army, pursued the disordered Persians, came up with and fiercely attacked them, and in a vary short time gained a complete victory. Thus, by the most noble faculty of farting, was the Grecian army saved from being surprised. Thus, by the vigorous exertion of one farting Grecian soldier, did the Persian army fly. And thus, by the effect of astonishing preternatural farting, did the Grecian army obtain a glorious victory over the numerous and powerful Persians.

(Charles James Fox – An Essay upon Wind (1787)

All of this also makes me wonder if this could be the origin of that legendary Ancient incendiary - Greek fire...

 

 

(with thanks to jeffssite.net)

Belle de Jour is not the First Prostitute Scientist

The fascinating revelation (and inevitable resulting comedy) that the London-based call girl and sex-blogger Belle de Jour turns out to be a 33-year-old American academic called Dr Brooke Magnanti, with a PhD in epidemiology and forensic science, puts me in mind of an old story about another prostitute who used a combination of scientific know-how and native wit to hoodwink her foreign customers...

I’ll clinch the matter by telling you the story of what happened to a French gentleman, the Sieur of Lierne, when he lay with a gay lady of Rome. She, after the fashion of her chaste sisterhood, had a store of little light pellicles or bladders, soft dainty things and filled with sweet musk-scented perfume. And with sundry of these little balloons secreted about her, the fair Imperia – that was her name – lay with the gentleman in her arms and let him love her. While the two of them were toying with the dainties of love and savouring its keen delights, the lady with a cunning twist of her hand slipped one of her little bladders high up near the place of state, and then with a tiny press of her thigh burst it. The gentleman, hearing the report, wished to take his nose out of bed to get some fresh air. “’Tis not what you think,” said Imperia; “one should know the worst before one begins to be afraid.” At this persuasion the gentleman put his head back and met with a delicious odour and one quite different from what he had expected. This pleasant trick having occurred several times, he asked the lady if such sweet smelling airs came natural to her, seeing that those which floated around the lower parts of French ladies were of quite another kind. She replied with a philosophic frisk that the natural air of the country and the aromatic delicacies upon which the Italian ladies fed were distilled inside ‘em and issued quintessential from the breech, as from the beak of an alchemist’s retort. “Very surely,” said he, “our French ladies’ wind blows from a different quarter.” – However, it happened that after several more these musk(et) shots, Imperia, by force of a superfluity of internal wind, let a real fart, a highly natural, solid and substantial one. The Frenchman, whose nose had got into the habit of chasing after these reports (from whence cometh the saying: to lead by the nose), hearing the short, sharp crack, quickly burrowed his diligent propboscis under the sheets, so as to catch every fragment of the sweet breeze for the better apprehension of which he had wished himself made all nose. But alas! he was mistaken, and he drew back his nose quicker than you could have done it for him with forty of those great wooden shovels they measure corn with at Orleans. Wherefore? He had met with a smell so shocking, coming from the very heart of the bad place, that none before or since had smelt its peer. “Oh lady,” quoth he sadly, “what have you done?” And as he opened his mouth to say this, in leapt that warm breeze and played across his palate. “Sir,” laughed she, “’tis a compliment to remind you of your native land and loved ones far away!”

(Francois Béroalde de Verville – Moyen de Parvenir 1610)

 

A 17th Century Italian Courtesan              Dr Magnanti: The Real Belle de Jour

Farting while Dying Endangers the Soul

Even if one accepts that death is inevitable, farting can still present a serious hazard. In medieval times, some believed that the soul left the body by the anus. In the 14th century farce, Le Muynier, this acutely important moment goes desperately wrong for a poor miller.

 

[The miller] warns the priest to absolve him from his sins, saying: “My stomach is in control of me. Alas! I don’t know what to do; turn around.”

The priest answers: “Ha! Saving your grace!” 

Then the miller remarks: “Turn around! I’m going to shit myself!”

The wife and the priest pull the sick man to the edge of the bed and place him in such a position that if the doctrine of soul-departure by the anus be true, they may witness the miller’s final performance. The phenomenon of rectal flatulence is now observed, when suddenly, to the consternation of the wife and priest, a demon appears and placing a sack over the dying miller’s anus, catches the rectal gas and flies off in sulphurous vapour. 

(John G. Bourke – Scatalogic Rites of All Nations 1891)

 

Farting - A Vital Sign of Life

The fart is not seen by everyone as a harbinger of death. Rousseau (1712-1778) here records the last words of one Madame de Vercellis, with whom he was staying when she died.

 

Towards the end of her illness, she assumed a sort of gaiety, which was too regular to be unreal, and which was only a counterpoise to her melancholy condition and was the gift of reason. She only kept her bed for the last two days, and continued to converse quietly with everyone to the last. Finally when she could no longer talk and was already in her death agony, she broke wind loudly. “Good,” she said, turning over, “a woman who can fart is not dead.” Those were the last words she spoke.

(Jean-Jacques Rousseau – Les Confessions 1781)

 

 

Roald Dahl - How Fizzy Drinks Make You Fart

Roald Dahl (1916-1990) has once again been gaining attention - most recently because of the film version of his book, Fantastic Mr Fox.

In The BFG, he describes frobscottle, a fizzy drink where the bubbles fizz downwards instead of up. Upward-fizzing bubbles make one burp, something the giants in the book find ‘filthsome’. Sophie, the heroine, takes issue with the alternative.

 

“With frobscottle,” Sophie said, “the bubbles in your tummy will be going downwards and that could have a far nastier result.”

“Why nasty?” asked the BFG, frowning.

“Because,” Sophie said, blushing a little, “if they go down instead of up, they’ll be coming out somewhere else with an even louder and ruder noise.”

“A whizzpopper!” cried the BFG, beaming at her. “Us giants is making whizzpoppers all the time! Whizzpopping is a sign of happiness. It is music in our ears! You surely is not telling me that a little whizzpopping is forbidden among human beans?”

“It is considered extremely rude,” Sophie said.

“But you is whizzpopping, is you not, now and again?” asked the BFG.

“Everyone is whizzpopping, if that’s what you call it,” Sophie said. “Kings and Queens are whizzpopping. Presidents are whizzpopping. Glamorous film stars are whizzpopping. Little babies are whizzpopping. But where I come from, it is not polite to talk about it.”

“Redunculous!” said the BFG. “If everyone is making whizpoppers, then why not talk about it? We is now having a swiggle of this delicious frobscottle and you will see the happy result.” The BFG shook the bottle vigorously. The pale green stuff fizzed and bubbled. He removed the cork and took a tremendous gurgling swig.

“It’s glummy!” he cried. “I love it!”

For a few moments, the Big Friendly Giant stood quite still, and a look of absolute ecstasy began to spread over his long wrinkly face. Then suddenly the heavens opened and he let fly with a series of the loudest and rudest noises Sophie had ever heard in her life. They reverberated around the walls of the cave like thunder and the glass jars rattled on their shelves. But most astonishing of all, the force of the explosions actually lifted the enormous giant clear off his feet, like a rocket.

“Whoopee!” he cried, when he came down to earth again. “Now that is whizzpopping for you!”

(Roald Dahl – The BFG 1982)