[John Whitworth]

Ah, this is more like it. Give us some more of the old.

No. 2803: Lost

You are invited to supply a nostalgic poem about a product that is no longer available (16 lines maximum). Please email entries, wherever possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 19 June.

[John Whitworth]

And of course here is a golden oldie I have had here before. If at first, don't you know.

Lost

This was a very small backward-pointing periscope marketed in the 1950s.

Throw out my fangs, my stick-on boils,
My stink bombs, my potato-gun,
My fornicator’s unguent oils,
My exploding rat (just see him run!),
My itching powder by the ton,
My pubic wig, my black face soap,
My cornucopias of fun …
Just bring my old Seebakrascope.

Desires as sweet as chocolate mice,
Desires that nothing else can reach,
Need just this submarine device;
It offers more than books can teach:
Young girls undressing on the beach,
Breasts that would tempt the very Pope,
And bottoms downy as a peach …
Yes, bring my old Seebakrascope.

[Brian Allgar]

Ah, what a compendious bottom drawer you must have, John. I don't know if you were ever a Boy Scout, but you appear to have adopted their motto: "Be prepared!"

[John Whitworth]

I was a boy scout, Brian, but I didn't like it much. I much preferred being wolf cub with a green jersey covered in badges. In was a senior sixer and our cub pack sat on a tiger skin donated by my father.

[Adrian Fry]

'Fornicator's unguent oils', John? What manner of child had those?

[Graham King]

Originally Posted by Adrian Fry

'Fornicator's unguent oils', John? What manner of child had those?

Probably it was all the the sitting on the tiger-skin that started it. (Aphrodisiac body parts, 'tis said...)

[Marcus Sevat]

My pubic wig

What a precocious lad you were. I was well into adulthood before I discovered what a merkin was.


Just bring my old Seebakrascope.

But I remember seeing an advert for a Seebakrascope though I didn't buy one. Jaspistos presented that competition and my old friend, now gone, Paul Griffin, was a winner.

[Graham King]

A merkin was a pubic wig... but how was it attached?
And was it liable to come adrift if idly scratched?
Was it worn in flagrante for verisimilitude?
Or doffed some moments ante lest mussed-up by what ensued?

(I ponder the etymology of the word, and wonder if it is cognate with the German Chancellor.
Perhaps it is as well that their use is not -is it?- prevalent today, or we should doubtless see adverts where these articles parade as cute furry talking creatures: 'comparethemerkin.com'.)

[Brian Allgar]

‘Tis said that prostitutes would wear a merkin
To hide those parts that syphilis might lurk in.

Today, some actors are required to work in
This garment, like a tiny, furry jerkin,
To stop the viewers going quite berserk in
The cinema, on glimpsing Brad Pitt’s gherkin.

[John Whitworth]

I have to say, Marcus, that I have never seen a pubic wig. Do people go bald down there? I suppose double-sided sellotape is the thing. I never entered this for the previous outing. Indeed I originally wrote it for a Literary Review competition with another verse. It failed to find favour, but whether because of the pubic wig I do not know.

Did the Emperor Tiberius, who was sexually active when quite unbelievably old, wear a pubic wig? You would know, Marcus.