[Steve Bucknell]

Sorry Maryann and Janice. My wife and I were rolling on the floor laughing at your bewilderment. The mystery to me is how Bill gets this.

It makes me realise how difficult humour is to explain. This is regional, related to Yorkshire dialect and South Yorkshire ways of speaking. Ian is parodying plain-speaking local folk wisdom. These are the sort of phrases you hear in the chip-shop or the canteen or the bus-shelter, attempts to fathom the meaning of life. He scrambles them all up and brings out their absurdity and black hilarity. Everything is surly and dark and getting darker, yet full of subversive humour.

In performance the poem's last line always gets a great roar of laughter/recognition from the audience who recognise their own black humour reflected back at them.

Now Bill needs to tell us.