POETRY SPOT: ROALD DAHL

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My wife, Kate, and I don’t differ on many things but there is one on which we part company. She has no fondness for fart humour, whereas I am a fan of flatulent foolery, the art of the air biscuit, the buffoonery of the butt burp, in films, songs, jokes and literature.

Which gives me an opportunity to firstly tell a golden oldie joke of Her Maj and a raspberry tart and secondly to post a poem that shows that even Roald Dahl dealt in such humour.

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Queen Elizabeth was showing the Archbishop of Canterbury around the Royal Stables when one of the stallions close by farted so loudly it couldn’t be ignored.

"Oh dear," said the Queen, "how embarrassing. I’m frightfully sorry about that."

"It’s quite understandable," said the Archbishop, and after a moment added, "as a matter of fact, I thought it was the horse."

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Attention please! Attention please!

    by Roald Dahl

'Attention please! Attention please!

Don't dare to talk! Don't dare to sneeze!

Don't doze or daydream! Stay awake!

Your health, your very life's at stake!

Ho–ho, you say, they can't mean me.

Ha–ha, we answer, wait and see.

Did any of you ever meet

A child called Goldie Pinklesweet?

Who on her seventh birthday went

To stay with Granny down in Kent.

At lunchtime on the second day

Of dearest little Goldie's stay,

Granny announced, 'I'm going down

To do some shopping in the town.'

(D'you know why Granny didn't tell

The child to come along as well?

She's going to the nearest inn

To buy herself a double gin.)

So out she creeps. She shuts the door.

And Goldie, after making sure

That she is really by herself,

Goes quickly to the medicine shelf,

And there, her little greedy eyes

See pills of every shape and size,

Such fascinating colours too ––

Some green, some pink, some brown, some blue.

'All right,' she says, 'let's try the brown,'

She takes one pill and gulps it down.

'Yum–yum!' she cries. 'Hooray! What fun!

They're chocolate–coated, every one!'

She gobbles five, she gobbles ten,

She stops her gobbling only when

The last pill's gone. There are no more.

Slowly she rises from the floor.

She stops. She hiccups. Dear, oh dear,

She starts to feel a trifle queer.

You see, how could young Goldie know,

For nobody had told her so,

That Grandmama, her old relation

Suffered from frightful constipation.

This meant that every night she'd give

Herself a powerful laxative,

And all the medicines that she'd bought

Were naturally of this sort.

The pink and red and blue and green

Were all extremely strong and mean.

But far more fierce and meaner still,

Was Granny's little chocolate pill.

Its blast effect was quite uncanny.

It used to shake up even Granny.

In point of fact she did not dare

To use them more than twice a year.

So can you wonder little Goldie

Began to feel a wee bit mouldy?

Inside her tummy, something stirred.

A funny gurgling sound was heard,

And then, oh dear, from deep within,

The ghastly rumbling sounds begin!

They rumbilate and roar and boom!

They bounce and echo round the room!

The floorboards shake and from the wall

Some bits of paint and plaster fall.

Explosions, whistles, awful bangs

Were followed by the loudest clangs.

(A man next door was heard to say,

'A thunderstorm is on the way.')

But on and on the rumbling goes.

A window cracks, a lamp–bulb blows.

Young Goldie clutched herself and cried,

'There's something wrong with my inside!'

This was, we very greatly fear,

The understatement of the year.

For wouldn't any child feel crummy,

With loud explosions in her tummy?

Granny, at half past two, came in,

Weaving a little from the gin,

But even so she quickly saw

The empty bottle on the floor.

'My precious laxatives!' she cried.

'I don't feel well,' the girl replied.

Angrily Grandma shook her head.

'I'm really not surprised,' she said.

'Why can't you leave my pills alone?'

With that, she grabbed the telephone

And shouted, 'Listen, send us quick

An ambulance! A child is sick!

It's number fifty, Fontwell Road!

Come fast! I think she might explode!'

We're sure you do not wish to hear

About the hospital and where

They did a lot of horrid things

With stomach–pumps and rubber rings.

Let's answer what you want to know;

Did Goldie live or did she go?

The doctors gathered round her bed,

'There's really not much hope,' they said.

'She's going, going, gone!' they cried.

'She's had her chips! She's dead! She's died!'

'I'm not so sure,' the child replied.

And all at once she opened wide

Her great big bluish eyes and sighed,

And gave the anxious docs a wink,

And said, 'I'll be okay, I think.'

So Goldie lived and back she went

At first to Granny's place in Kent.

Her father came the second day

And fetched her in a Chevrolet,

And drove her to their home in Dover.

But Goldie's troubles were not over.

You see, if someone takes enough

Of any highly dangerous stuff,

One will invariably find

Some traces of it left behind.

It pains us greatly to relate

That Goldie suffered from this fate.

She'd taken such a massive fill

Of this unpleasant kind of pill,

It got into her blood and bones,

It messed up all her chromosomes,

It made her constantly upset,

And she could never really get

The beastly stuff to go away.

And so the girl was forced to stay

For seven hours every day

Within the everlasting gloom

Of what we call The Ladies Room.

And after all, the W.C.

Is not the gayest place to be.

So now, before it is too late.

Take heed of Goldie's dreadful fate.

And seriously, all jokes apart,

Do promise us across your heart

That you will never help yourself

To medicine from the medicine shelf.'