Day 15

Much Ado About Morton Pigffuk (pronounced MeridewPiffick)

06.12 Fucking Hell, another morning!
Subject: Artichokes

Dearest Darling Forsythia,


ANOTHER PENNETH OF DOGGEREL


Artie chokes on a pod of soup
A-sittin’ on the loo,
Bernie pokes at goiter goop
And eatin’ goober poo.

Freda’s hot for Fred the cop
But never has her way,
Mary Black’s so full o’crap
I wish she’d go away.

How unfortunate it is that when this masterpiece finally sees the light of day on your computer it will undoubtedly be lumped all out of shape and totally unrecognisable. How tiresome it is that messages never seem to arrive in the immaculately justified and divinely proportioned aspect in which they are engendered. One can only surmise that email, mimicking life as it does, was invented by the same man responsible for airline luggage handling and middle age spread. In case you were unaware of this man’s name and regretted your ignorance, it is Morton Pigffuk (pronounced MeridewPiffick), and he has a lot to answer for.

It was ever predestined thus. Born in a rabbit hutch in the shadow of Notre Dam, somewhere under a mouldering bog, Morton was one of three sisters. Morton, or Edsa as she was known before certain necessary adjustments were made, never really did much of anything with his life, and certainly nothing really very nice. Oh yes, there had been the occasional citation for sexual proclivities of a baser nature, and the odd arrest for illegal substance inhalation and political party membership, but basically he was just a lazy prat.

One day, when Morton was rooting around looking for someone or something to chew, he spied a large shape in the middle of the road. Curious, but lacking the intellectual ambition necessary to initiate a proper sort of investigate, he immediately set about destroying it with is Handy Dandy Item Atomiser®. And thus his career was launched, and his destiny revealed to a trembling world. Morton Pigfukk, pronounced Meridew Piffick, would spend the remainder of his short, pathetic and simply marvellous life making everyone else completely and utterly miserable.

Almost before a single moment had passed, Morton applied for and obtained the position of Italian Minister of Postal Services, Communications and Efficiency, where he set about developing technology capable of diverting vast quantities of each day’s first class mail to highly inventive destination, usually at the bottom of the ocean, just south of Napoli. The unparalleled genius of his system, for which he owned the patent, lay in its ability to ensure that all solicitations for (1) time-shares, (2) demands for money, (3) catalogues from Amurkun Mail Order Companies not operating in Italy and recognising only US “zip” codes, and (4) unwanted communications from ex-wives, would continue to be delivered in an uninterrupted flow, thereby providing the government the wherewithal to deny that anything was ever amiss.

Morton was unbelievably effective in his new post, and was therefore instantly promoted to State Laundry Ombudsman, a position carrying the rank of senior cabinet member. He felt deeply about what he saw as his ordained manifesto, and acted quickly and arbitrarily to ensure that nothing which went into any washing machine or dryer, anywhere in the country, was ever the same again. Shredding was his speciality, to be followed in rapid succession by his invention, development and deployment of (1) hand-crafted buttons guaranteed to [a] split in half at the touch of an iron and/or [b] be twice as large as the corresponding button hold, and (2) a patented system of permanent stain enhancement. The latter was to prove especially popular with manufacturers of shirts for those hardworking men and women who were suddenly forced to buy three times as many garments as they could safely afford.

The next step on the ladder to immortality and success for Morton Pigfukk, pronounced MeridewPiffick) was a highly-effective and universally praised stint as Director of Planning and Scheduling for Cheap Airlines at all principal European Airports, also a senior cabinet post – where he was rumoured to have rubbed shoulders more than once with the Prime Minister’s cat’s best friend’s dog dish. The position carried with it, as a result of new European legislation, the supplemental brief of coordinating the scheduling for all of the UK’s passenger rail services, such as they were. Morton immediately invested billions of euros on computers to ensure that no one could get anywhere at anytime, and eliminating the time wasting practice of passenger refunds. Such outmoded concepts as connections and comfort and service and attractive seating were meticulous excised. He lobbied successful for the production of many important and deceptively literate television dramas from prestigious and serious television channels showing glamorous, clean, freshly-painted and efficient trains and planes zooming hither and yon, to and from, and around and around various pristine countrysides, carefully omitting all evidence of poor people, minorities, those with obnoxious opinions, and undesirables whose principal hobby was texting live television shows. Interior views, secretly filmed at Cinecitta by Fellini’s best friend’s dog, were peopled by blessedly quaint and deferential employees, who frequently tugged at their forelocks and uttered suitably obsequious phrases on demand.

It goes without saying this all transpired years before Morton Pigfukk, pronounced MeridewPiffick, became Sir Morton Pigfukk, pronounced SIR Meridew Piffick-Heinbothom, for his development of the Pigfukk (pronounced Piffick) Airline Baggage Transport System (PABTS). He was also rewarded the Howard B. Spuckler Humanitarian Award by the Association for the Preservation of Happy Bladders, named International Man of the Year by Time Magazine and received the Turner Prize for his Tate Modern installation entitled Pigfukk’s (pronounced Piffick’s) Brain, in which he asked the cognoscenti to wallow through a thirty metre trough of chartreuse and puce mud.

Sir Morton Pigfukk, pronounced DameMeridewPiffick, is the current chairman of the International Committee for Cyber Security and Postal Prevention, and resides in Brussels with his wife and eighteen children by ten other men, all named ‘Herve’. He may be reached most Tuesday afternoons in his office in the third stall of the mens’ room on the fourteen floor of the seventieth annex of European Ministry of Fabulous Causes and Onion Legislation.

But beware! For what it is worth, Mr. Pigfukk (not Sir Morton and pronounced as written and not as Piffick) has done much to discredit the miracles of Miraculous Almostasanta Ruchl™ Immaculata™ Ultimata™ Empress of the World® and Patron Saint™ to Ugly People®. He is actively campaigning for a seat in the Lower House of the Ducal Parliament of Chlamydeous® and is to be considered highly dangerous, if not a nuisance. Perhaps you or the director of marketing can dig up something truly complimentary about him which will render him unelectable. - HWISGAAOMRIU®

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10.30 I can bend my toenail backwards quite painfully
Subject: Gamey Footies

Dearest Darling Forsythia,



Are you in love with feet? Have you ever been fascinated by or obsessed with chunky pedal digits?

I myself am having problems with feet. Oh yes, I quite like them, in a general sort of way, and I certainly appreciate what they do for one, what with walking about, helping one with the shopping, dealing with so much dexterity when it comes to the accelerator, clutch and brake pedals in the Veyron and Lambo, and giving my backside something on which to rest whilst curled up in a chair with a book. That being said, the very idea of drinking Champagne out of a slipper bothers me no end.

I saw a commercial the other day in which a man was drinking bubbly out of his paramour’s slipper. This was followed, not thirty seconds later, by an advertisement extolling a miraculous cure for toenail fungus. It quite put me in mind of a cable screening of something called “The Rainmaker”, which was interrupted every forty-five seconds by a commercial, in which a forlorn-looking man stands in a downpour under an umbrella, while a stentorian voice intones Rain is no fun when you have diarrhoea.

But I digress. Returning to feet, may I say that feet are all right in themselves. Not exceptionally attractive, of course. I mean, if you were God and planned to create some sort of practical appendage for your supposedly ultimate invention, would they end up looking like feet as we know them? Would they have toenails? It is my personal opinion that in this department He has let Himself down. Let’s be honest here, if feet were meant to be masterpieces of design, why would we feel compelled to hide them underneath layers of socks or stockings and shoes? Do bears have this problem? No. How about dwarf hamsters? Emphatically not. As far as I am concerned, we should demand our money back.

Feet as we know them encourage highly questionable behaviour. Sucking toes has got to mark the low point in humanoidal existence. Number One, there is the smell factor. The essence du pied is, if you ask me, completely off-putting and may well have something to do with shepherds’ fondness for sheep. Number Two, there is the matter of where they have been. One simply has to consider the proclivity of feet for seeking out and stepping on the most uninviting substances, and it only proves that feet have very few brains in their heads and even poorer taste. Have you noticed that the instant one encounters a doggie mess in the street, one’s feet are drawn to it like lemmings to a cliff. The great hypnotist living in the steaming pile chants you will come to me, you will come, and the feet comply. This is especially true when they are incased in one’s favourite Hedi Slimane’s or Alexandre Plokhov’s and one is headed for a night of, well, you know…

And what about toenail fungus? Did your mother in her former maternal incarnation ever warn you about that particular scourge of the earth? About what it does to the soul and environment? About how it makes the wearing of sandals an extremely risky proposition (as if one would be caught dead in the things to begin with)? No, she said nothing at all. Families such as our don’t have fungals of the feet, she intoned. We barely have feet at all, adding quickly, what are servants for? Of course, this outburst was a blatant moment in an otherwise pristine and dreadful life, an abysmal failure in the arena of child development and antipubertal management. Saint or no saint, she must repent or be denounced.

However much I might regret having to bring this up, it is only for the benefit of your good self. You are, after all, the darling mamelles of untold pairs of tiny feet. How fortunate you are not to have left it as one pair. One pair is really not worth considering, is it? One tiny pair, especially when fresh and unsullied, is nothing more than twin gum-teasers, and later, when it inevitably finds its way to the floor, all is lost forever. That is why (no doubt you concur) one should have a standby set virgin baby waiting at all times. May I enquire about Marjorie Bankdraft’s digits? Are they still as sweet as jasmine unguent. Or have they already turned to Limburger?

But I beg your indulgence, for I digress once again. Toenail fungus. Is there indeed really such a thing? As far as I am concerned, I suspect it is not so much a festering reality as an urgent nonproblem awaiting a promising marketing nonsolution. Preferably one aimed towards wireless subscribers or anyone given to calling any number with a surcharge, as in calls cost you forty euro from landlines. Charges from mobiles vary, but we won’t tell you what they are until you receive the bill. Personally, I feel such numbers should be reserved for medical emergency promotions, Sorry to interrupt your evening’s television viewing, Madame Bécasse, but have your bowels unaccountably open this afternoon? (Or) Is this number seven, rue la Troisième Jambe? Monsieur Corniaud? Have you recently had your sphincter tested for cockroaches? Such a service would be a much more appropriate use of premium rate telephone lines.

I do realise, my dear forsythia, that deep down you are a foot-fetishist. However, I promise to love you anyway and not to compromise your integrity. Furthermore, as a mediation, I am gifting you the following tender chanson:


All About Feet

To Be Recited Very Loudly & Even Faster Than Is Humanly Possible. Like A March. Or, if you prefer,
Fortizzimo & Allegro Non Tropo


Two little footiepeoples padding ‘cross the floor
Narsty cheesy stinky stonks stompin’ thru tha door.
Horrble bulgy bunion butties sloppin’ in da shits
Uncle Bernie Bingleschminck’s dingle’s like a nit’s.

Funny flabby footiepeoples marchin’ two by two
In da cold da toesiekins are turning nicely blue.
A hundred dozen donynuts they make yer tummy wobble
And Uncle Bernie Bingleschminck’s nose it squirts da globble.

Shiny blingy toesy nails are stuck on with da glue
In da shops da footiechavs they buy da boots wot’s nu.
Elephants in undergrowth they eat a bitty lunch
And Uncle Bernie Bingleschminck’s ears they flap a bunch.

Fat and pinky footypads they’re not so very nice
Squichin’ squashin’ rottin grapes in barrels made of mice.
Elephants got bottoms wot can make a mighty breeze
And Uncle Bernie Bingleschminck’s toes they taste of cheese.

Oh yer dear ferukhas, they are so very sweet
And when I trip and trod on dem you say you fuckin freet.
Oysters do not taste so nice when they are old and stinky
And Uncle Bernie Bingleschminck’s goiter’s name is Binky.

Lice gots feet that are so sweet they make you wanna blub
Toadystools and horny tarts and drinks of syllabub,
They make you fart and sing off key “Britannia Rule the Wayvels”

And Uncle Bernie Bingleschminck is turning in his grayvels.

Fin

And leaving you (temporarily) with this gentle mediation, I bid you goodnight, but definitely not good-byeeee. Hasta mañana!!!! - HWISGAAOMRIU®