Noel Coward Remembered (WARNING: PG13)

Yesterday evening I played back all 3 of Noel Coward's vinyls that I own - scratches and all - and was transported to the wonderful days when, on our family wind-up gramophone, Abi and I would listen to "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" (or, later, on my first Zenith Stereo, to that utterly delightful "I Wonder what Happened to Him").

Last night I had a conversation about NC and recalled two of his ribald poems I first heard in the late 60s - from Les Eley at a pub in Manchester (Are you still around, Les?) - over a pint of Bulmer's Extra-Strength Cider. I hope you'll enjoy them as much as I did.


The Dromedary
The sexual urge of the camel
Is stronger than anyone thinks:
This perverted but passionate mammal
Has designs on the rear of the Sphinx.

But the Sphinx's posterior orifice
Is choked with the mud from the Nile,
Which accounts for the hump on the camel
And the Sphinx's inscrutable smile.

=================


… here's the even more risqué

C**T
Those portions of a woman
That appeal to men's depravity
Are fashioned with considerable care
And what to many may appear
A simple little cavity
Is really an elaborate affair.

Now doctors of distinction
Have examined these phenomena
On numerous experimental dames …
And classified these articles
Of feminine abdomena
And called them nice exciting Latin names.

There's the Vulva and Vagina,
And the jolly Perineum,
And the Hymen that one hopes to find in brides;
And lots of little gadgets
That you'd love (if you could see 'em) -
The Clitoris ... and God knows what besides.

So, isn't it a pity
When we common people chatter
Of these mysteries to which I have referred,
That we use for such a delicate
And complicated matter
This very short and unattractive word?