GLUTEOUS MAXIMUS plus PERIPHERALS

That's right, Bums. The modern world seems to have a fixation about bums and their connecting anatomy - bowels.

Once upon a time your bum, well, was just your bum. You used it for the purpose for which it was intended, kept it clean and forgot about it. Except of course the worry about the size of it. But I'm not discussing the aesthetics of my bum or yours.

Now it's targeted by the marketing gurus as fair game for getting you to part with your money. How low will they go (ha ha).

Toilet paper has become an art form. It's longer, thicker, softer - bears in the woods use it, Labrador puppies represent it, though I fail to see what a Labrador puppy has got to do with my bum or anyone Else's for that matter. Who in their right mind would train their Labrador puppy to unravel the toilet roll and wrap it round the furniture. Not the person who does the cleaning up, I can tell you.

Some is even reputed to contain a balm for your bum. If you are in the habit of having rather hot curries every night and suffering accordingly on a regular basis, I can perhaps see the need. Whats wrong with the shower though, and some proper ointment?

It comes in a variety of colours and designs - why, and what is the point, when it's chucked down the toilet after use.

Children now have their own toilet paper and expect a cartoon character to appear and applaud their genius when they manage to wipe their bum.

Then we come to the attached apparatus known as bowels, and in particular the obsession with the bacteria in our bowels. We have been convinced it needs topping up, unless we want to suffer dire consequences.

If we do drink the drink containing the bugs or eat the yogurt which contains some other strangely named little beasties, we'll have the uncontrollable urge to leap about, jump up in the air at every available opportunity and generally make fools of ourselves in public, and yes, pay for the experience.

People actually part with money to have a pipe shoved up their bum and have their innards washed out. I am amazed - why - because once many years ago I had to have a soap and water enema in hospital - same principle, and it is humiliating, painful, and no it certainly did not make me feel better, and someone who pays for that needs to seek help about their obsessive masochistic tendencies.

I hate the person who discovered that colonic irrigation was a way to make money, I wish I had thought of it, but while attached to that rubber pipe it would never have occurred to me in my wildest dreams.

Then we are hounded by William Shatner challenging us to feel better after eating a cereal good for our bowels. Some people just can't retire gracefully after trying to act, and not succeeding, and even bigger fools pay them.

Oh, I just can't be assed with all this crap.

Kats