Speccie Competition That's Life
Brian Allgar comes in first, Bill Greenwell a nose behind and Peter Goulding and me just out of the money. Do you know this is my first near success since half way through last year. Hallelujah and Thank you dear Lucy! (Sorry, that's a personal note)
In Competition No. 2789 you were invited to supply the facts of life as explained by a well-known figure from history or the character from a well-known novel.
Most of you chose characters from novels. Godfrey Ackers presented a gloriously pithy Mr Micawber: ‘Nightly coition five, rigidity positive — result happiness; Nightly coition nil, flaccidity perpetual — result misery.’ While at the other end of the spectrum John Whitworth finds Humbert Humbert on expansive form: ‘The facts of life, my chickabiddies! The birds, my own sweet birds of youth a-flutter, and the bees, my hot honey-bunches, bristling, whistling, rustling, hustling all abuzz!’
Commendations also to Steve Baldock and Peter Goulding. The winners get £25; Brian Allgar takes £30.
’Tis time, methinks, to speak of manly things
And of those pleasures fornication brings.
I therefore bid thee, harken to my words:
I shall not weary thee with bees and birds,
But rather teach thee how thou may’st contrive
To have thy way with maids — in fine, to swive.
The day thou feel’st thy manhood doth awaken,
Go to’t; a maidenhead is swiftly taken,
And virgins long to taste thy rampant yard.
So imitate the minstrel or the bard
By counting the innumerable ways
Whereby thy quill shall lead to pleasing lays.
But to begin with, take a lady who
Shall seem demure, yet knows a thing or two.
In short, seek thou a wench who’s skilled in bed,
Especially if she’s good at ‘giving head’.
Henry VIII and Brian Allgar
Procreation, sir. The act of administering the seedling that may one day be a homuncular entity, and by turns a child, and an adult thereafter. An act peculiar to the opposition of genders. An act, sir, that may be neither heard nor seen. An inflorescence of the tumescent male within the vasocongestive. Produces an egg, sir, which, in being vitalised, becomes the child in process and progress. Lives in the womb, sir, although scarcely aware of it. And then, unless of a fissiparous disposition, the mother discharges the child. Origin of the process, sir: ocular in the first and most singular instance, but neuro-anatomically by the clandestine process of touch, the which sensory excitation leads to the phenomenon of insertion, sir. Said to be pleasurable by credulous sources, the most of them vicarious in the extreme. A great maker of orphans, foundlings, groundlings. Of liquefaction, it is claimed. Procreation.
Bitzer and Bill Greenwell
Uncle Toby laid down his pipe, ‘Hum! Diddle. One day you will marry and have children.
‘How? Look at it as conquering a city. Now —’ he blew his nose, ‘like in a siege, the first thing you do is find that soft spot where you will make your entry.
‘Your fingers will be your foot soldiers. Let them walk over the terrain. Encountering two banquettes, they linger, but continue exploring, until finally they come to a little fosse. Aha! Your soldier-fingers stop. Your uh, General, immediately stands ram-rod straight and will now advance. Before you know it he will make his way into the fort. Then he fires his paderero, but instead of pieces of shot, he fires tiny, perfectly formed human beings into the interior talus of the bastion. Too small for us to see, but they grow inside your wife. After nine months a perfect human appears.’
Captain Toby Shandy and Johannes Kerkhoven
Procreation, Sir? Duty of life forms, flora and fauna — keeps show on road. Both genders required, mark you — fox and vixen, man with woman. Bird/bee combination prohibited — inadvisable to sting Dame Partlet, what? Diffidence no problem — Mother Nature always calls shots — guides shy ones to inevitable. Funny old game, lovemaking — bizarre, time-consuming — much research required here. Certain folk actually declare pleasure from procedure — delusion brought on by momentary mental derangement — each party seeking reassurance from other — mandatory oral observations include ‘how was it for you?’ — ‘absolutely wonderful, darling’. Doesn’t suit everybody — too old, tired, bored, idle — limp excuses — no blame upon ladies. Some day perhaps magic potion — tincture — stiff one in fellow’s nightcap. Me, can’t see appeal — noisy, messy business — at least over double-quick — then mumble brief endearment, roll onto side, Land of Nod — job done, Sir!
Mr Jingle and Mike Morrison
‘It’s a doddle, dear,’ said the White Rabbit, ‘more a matter of bucks and does than of birds and bees — and rabbits should know, not that I’m one to blow my own trumpet. Bunnies are born, or begot, when the buck excites the doe by removing his waistcoat. The doe, like you, must remember the rules she was taught, such as red hot pokers will burn if they’re held too long. The buck, for his part, must get the timing exactly right,’ the White Rabbit added, tapping his watch, ‘or dear, oh dear, he could be too late! When the buck is ready (and potions exist to enlarge any part that might be shrunk) it is simply a case of “down the hole”. Does that make it clear?’ To Alice it seemed as clear as a bowl of Mock Turtle soup but she held her tongue.
The White Rabbit and Alan Millard
All first is order’d by Divine Decree:
‘Set here a Soul, here let a new Life be.’
Then Nature stirs, and with a practis’d hand
Makes ready where the bidden Birth is plann’d.
Couched deep within the Mother’s inmost Bow’r
The Egg elect awaits th’appointed Hour;
Instinct it lies with ev’ry vital Source,
Wants nothing but an animating Force.
Here Father must with Mother play his Part
And loose, as Cupid did, a loving Dart.
His Shaft is raised and so engages hers
To make most welcome what he now confers.
For from his Pouch a winged Flèche is drawn
Whereon the fecund Seed of Life is borne.
As Man and Wife, so Sperm and Egg unite
And then, as one, are born to see the Light.
Alexander Pope and W.J. Webster
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