If you were never really aware of the importance of your anus, you just had to be the object of a drill sergeant’s sense of humour for that to be rectified! Sorry, couldn’t resist the little play on words here! Staff Sergeant Cameron, Scots Guards, was an imposing Drill Instructor at The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1965. You can see him with his Pace Stick under his left arm at the rear of Burma Company Intake 39 during a drill competition and, yes, that’s me in front of him!

Of the many phrases that were designed to shock and insult in equal measure, their object of course to improve our abilities on and off the Drill Square, was this:

“Mr Yates! Sir! You are IDLE Sir! (Ed One imagined every word was followed by an exclamation mark.) What are you, Sir? Idle Sir! So, if you don’t get a move on and b’have, I’ll shove my pace stick where the sun don’t shine (Ed A reference to one’s anus!) and open it 30 inches! Do I make myself clear? … Sir!” (Note1) (Ed. But then there’s that expression: “The sun shines out of their arse!” Where the sun don’t shine???)

Some of my postcards that have received the most comments are ones concerning our habits of getting rid of bodily waste (PCs 47 Loo Paper (Aug 2015) and 54 The Loo (Nov 2015)), which is quite surprising as it’s not a subject for dinner parties, just that for lavatorial humour and historically smutty postcards.

We joke about our bottom! We call someone who cares too much about small details, about how things are organised, anally retentive. It apparently starts with poor parenting, shaming the child who becomes frightened of making a mess when pooing, obviously conscious they shouldn’t and tries to hold their faeces in. In adulthood they become anally fixated, meticulous, orderly, rigid and frugal! There’s the slang expression “Get one’s arse in gear” which means to start to do something seriously and quickly, but arse can also be used to describe a stupid person.

I often wonder why our creator, so wise and omnipotent, placed the entrance for procreation in the female body within a centimetre of the exit for our waste. Maybe designed by a committee?

One of my favourite songs is Rod Stewart’s “I don’t want to talk about, how you broke my heart ….” but I need to talk about it, my recent operation at the Nuffield Hospital in Brighton.

It was ‘day surgery’ so I had to be there at 0700 and was hardly awake when registering, but aware that the receptionist was commenting to a nurse about my hair. “Men can let their hair go naturally grey, but we find that a problem!” she said. I sort-of sleepily agree. ‘What’s your date of birth and postcode?’ is a question asked by any one of the number of people who come into my room to explain this, tell me that, give me an enema, take my order for lunch and they included the surgeon who has Tigger characteristics …… bounces in, asks some questions and bounces out.

“Oh! By the way. This form sets out what we are doing today and you need to sign it here and here.” I might have commented that this is you and the hospital covering your arse, but it’s not an expression to use today.

“The enema record is 10 minutes!” exclaims a nurse. Well, I am not one for breaking records and certainly not of this sort!

Why can’t the fashion industry design a full-proof hospital gown? I get that they are back-to-front but the little ties that would have closed the back were 10 cms long and no matter how I tried, they would not tie together. I am always envious of women’s ability to tie stuff behind their back, muscles used every day to connect their bra-straps. Feel a bit foolish, completely unable to gather some dignity but hey! ho! My assigned nurse, Denice, originally from Paraná State in the south of Brazil, has seen it all before so for the journey down to the operating theatre she puts another gown over my naked back! 

That trip is so odd; a male nurse pulls my trolley/bed, presumably in case I need to rest (?), and Denice and I follow. It’s so slow I am thinking ‘funeral procession’ and say to Denice, out loud: “Feels like a death march”. This produces a selection of responses from the various people up and down the corridor, from laughter to grim looks. Gallows humour?

This is not the first time I have undergone surgery so am relaxed as the anaesthetist mentions something about a canula and there’s a small prick and …… I am back in my hospital room.

Denice checks up on me: “You’ll need to pee and eat something before you are discharged.” Before the operation, I had liked the sound of ‘cold chicken on roasted vegetables’. Presented with some cold ratatouille under some dried chicken, I make an effort, sufficient to get discharged by 1530. Another long form, ‘sign here and here; just covering our arses’!

That night the peppers come back to haunt me!  

Since my return to the land of the living I have been trying somewhat unsuccessfully to cope with a continuing sensation of wanting to poo – all day. Too much information maybe, but I do take my hat off to those women who have given birth, as I am sure what I am experiencing is deemed normal postnatal. Celina and I discover one friend and one relative who have both had this operation. The length of recovery seems to be anything from 6 to 8 weeks and here’s me thinking a couple of weeks at most. I thought about writing a book entitled ‘Things the Consultants Don’t Tell You’ then decided I couldn’t be arsed.

Richard 9^th February 2024

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 As an aspiring officer, an NCO was required to address me as ‘Sir’. They joked that when you called them ‘Staff’ you meant it, whereas when they called you ‘Sir’ they didn’t. Their pace stick was like a large pair of dividers; it could be opened so the ends were 30 inches apart, the regulation length of a marching pace.