MORE PROBLEMS WITH DA REAR THAN YOU CAN WAVE A STICK AT

Woke up this morning to find... a wrinkled bottom. Now how did THAT get there? So I googled it. And that's when I realised... there are a lot of people who let their arse go. Or is it ass? I'm never sure. Except I know I have one and I know it's wrinkled. And it wasn't the last time I looked. But one interesting fact I did pick up from an online message board - or is it forum? - is that it is a common complaint among nuns. And chief executives. Wrinkled bottom. Not even Wikipedia dares to include an entry but on present estimates 1.2 BILLION... let me say that again, 1.2 BILLION people worldwide suffer from it and the medical profession hasn't got a fecking clue where it comes from or what to do about it. Try all the creams you like. Consult your local plastic surgeon. See a faith healer even. Nothing but nothing works. And here's the worst thing about it. It gets worse. Yes. That's right. It doesn't stay a little wrinkled. It gets more and more wrinkled until you find your grandparents have pitched up on your derriere. Oh, shit, feck, foch even, you've just noticed you've got a wrinkled bottom too, right? Help! You say? OK, well, I don't know if this works, but I have devised a series of exercises to try to unwrinkle the butt based on old Sanskrit texts and ancient recipes for toejam brulee. Bear with me on this, I think we might have cracked it. Geddit? There's only five of them so even a cretinous single-celled swamp dweller - yeah, just like your next door neighbour - will be able to follow them and get some sort of relief.

1. Raise your left arm in the air, spread your legs as wide as they will go, then bounce up and down off a bed of approximately ten nails for a minute.

2. Attach a clothes line peg to each cheek, then attack one peg by using a strong piece of cord to the nearest locked door and pull hard for 3o seconds, and/or until you feel a burning sensation.

3. Rub your arse/ass/butt hard along the nearest cobbled surface for five minutes or until you feel faint and smell blood or pus.

4. Lower and raise your arse/ass/butt onto the side of a bath 5o times then grab the nearest hairbrush and scrape any residue or dead skin away and check on the results.

5. Get someone who's very special to you and will do literally anything for you without asking questions or worrying about medical bills to suck hard on each cheek for five minutes at a time every hour on the hour for seven days.

And if that doesn't work, try shoving a cigar up the crack and lighting it. Cigar smoke contains a chemical known in the hairdresser's profession as ZLT16 which is proven in laboratory tests to relax hair follicles and smooth out dermatological deluvial cavities. If blistering occurs, consult your doctor, lawyer, teacher, cleaner, butcher, baker, banker, dentist, economist, agent, priest, local bystander. Or better still, buy a dog.

OR... contact wrinkledbottomsputtothetest@weirdbuttdiseases.com

Arf, arf!

CATERING FOR THE BELOW-AVERAGE OIK

WATSON: I say, Holmes...

HOLMES: What is it now, Watson?

WATSON: Did you read that article by Rochester in the Times?

HOLMES: That confounded old wind bag? What's he been saying now?

WATSON: Says we can't be held responsible for gaps in other people's education what what what.

HOLMES: A-ha! Some sense from the big lump of lard at last!

WATSON: But he does take a pop at you, old thing.

HOLMES: What's that?!

WATSON: Claims you make the solving of crimes over-complicated and difficult to follow.

HOLMES: (sighs) The man's riddled with contradictions. The triumph of the oiks is upon us, I can see it coming.

WATSON: Quite, but he does have a point, old man. I mean, that last case, The Mysterious Mr Peg Leg & His Performing Piccolo... well, I'm blowed if I could follow the counter revolutions.

HOLMES: Convolutions, Watty Botty. The fault lay not in the explanation, which was an outstanding example of lucid thinking and deductive reasoning, but in the 15-second attention span of both you and the masses at large.

WATSON: What's that, old bean? Oh, yes, quite. Well, you see, since my bicycle accident when I fell into the mire and swallowed that trout, I find the ringing in my ear and in my posterior impedes my ability to concentrate.

HOLMES: It doesn't exactly aid your ablutions either, but that's another kettle of sea bass. Just be grateful dear Hudders is so understanding.

WATSON: She's an absolute treasure, that woman. What would we do without her?

HOLMES: Yes, candlelit Su Doku does have its limitations.

WATSON: I say, you're a bit frosty today, old boy. It wouldn't have anything to do with the contents of that letter delivered by hand but five minutes ago?

HOLMES: Watson, you never cease to amaze me. Just when I think your cerebral activity has fallen below that of a dehydrated sickle cell, you pull another rabbit out of the hat.

WATSON: Let it out, old bean. It's the best of therapies.

HOLMES: In all honesty, I am not inclined to "let it out" as you suggest, but I suppose that you will have to be told sooner or later.

WATSON: Holmes, you're crying.

HOLMES: Nonsense, Watson. I have merely suspended the act of blinking so that an eyelash may be removed from the tear duct in my left eye.

WATSON: Oh, for Pete's sake, man. Tell me what's in the letter. You'll get me at it in a minute.

HOLMES: Well... old... chum... it's... Samantha Hardcastle.

WATSON: Samantha Hardcastle?! That fallen waif of the night who met an untimely fate at Limehouse down by the docks?

HOLMES: Yes... she's... been found in a field in Kent eating grass and responding to the name Daisy.

(Holmes turns away and hides his face in his bathing towel)

WATSON: Holmes, you mustn't blame yourself. You did all you could to save her.

HOLMES: I... just... think... if I hadn't prized her away from that blackguard Gerald Bonkerbottle, she'd still be...

WATSON: A fallen woman with boils, jagged teeth and rancid gums. You found her a dentist, paid for the dermatologist, hired a dress maker to give her a new start.

HOLMES: I know... and now she thinks she's a cow!

WATSON: Yes, well, you know, you win some, lose some.

HOLMES: Thank you, Watson, you've been a great comfort.

WATSON: Good Lord! Have I? Yes, I suppose I have. Well, maybe the lesson here is that you should, um, stick to solving crime and leave the social engineering to someone else... someone more qualified.

HOLMES: Indeed. The oiks have it again. As Plato once said, if the tree is meant to fall, leg it.

WATSON: Clever chap, that Plateau.

HOLMES: Farewell, dear Samantha. May your glades be forever moist and supplemental.

WATSON: Um, quite.

HOLMES: Buttercups at eleven.

WATSON: Arf, arf!