Robert Rankin - Web Site Story

'Aw,' went the anglers. 'Shame.'

'Maybe next week lads. But this week, not bream. I have to say that I toyed with the idea of writing a poem about muleskinning.'

A cheer went up from a group of muleskinners over from Cardiff for the annual muleskinners' convention that is always held at the Function Rooms at the Station Hotel.

'Evening lads,' called Old Vic. 'Good to see you here again. I'll pop over to have a word later, I need a new eight-foot bull whip, I wore the last one out at the Easter fete.'

'Three lashes for a quid,' said Derek. 'He always gives good value. The money goes to charity of course. Small and shoeless boys in search of a good hiding, or something.'

'Eh?' said Kelly, tucking into her tucker, which had lately arrived at the bar counter. 'Could you pass the cranberry sauce, please?'

Derek passed the cranberry sauce.

'Now,' Old Vic continued. 'I must confess that I didn't write a poem about muleskinning.'

Kelly looked up from eating. 'What a fascinating man,' she said in a tone that was less than sincere. 'I've no doubt that he's about to tell us that he didn't write a poem about unicycling vicars either.'

'Let the old boy have his say,' sshed Derek. 'He's a venerable poet. And he was a prisoner of war.'

Kelly said, 'Pass the ginseng dip.' And Derek passed it over.

'Any unicycling vicars out there?' asked Old Vic.

Another cheer went up.

'Sorry,' said the ancient. 'Maybe next week.'

'My money is now on Yugoslavian junk bond dealers,' said Kelly to Derek. 'Or possibly Venezuelan gorilla impersonators, deaf ones of course.'

'So,' said Old Vic. 'I considered all and sundry, but I've decided to do a poem about the time when I was

'A Prisoner of War!' chorused all and sundry, except for Old Vic.

'Ah, I see,' said Kelly. 'It's a running gag.'

'It doesn't work if you don't come every week,' said Derek.

'I'm not altogether certain that it would, even if I did. Pass the crow's foot puree, please.'

Derek passed the crow's foot puree.

'I was once a prisoner of war,' said Old Vic. 'You won't remember the war in question. It's the one that they make movies about, although they always get the haircuts wrong.'

A group of visiting English hairdressers who worked for Pinewood Studios cheered at this.

'I call this poem "Blood and snot for breakfast again and only human finger bones to use for a knife and fork.'"

Kelly choked on her surf and turf and a small fight ensued between pimply young men who wanted to pat her on the back.

Old Vic launched into his poem.

'We was up to our eyes in pus and puke

There was only me and Captain Duke

Who could still stand up on where our legs had been

Which were oozing mucus and rotten with gangrene.'

Pimply men took turns at Kelly's back.

'We boiled up some phlegm to make a cup of tea

In the skull of the corporal from the infantry

Captain Duke drank the lot and left none for me

But I didn't mind, because I'd spat in it.'

'All right,' said Kelly. 'Stop patting my back or I'll break all your arms.' The pimply men stopped patting and Kelly sipped wine and tucked once more into her tucker.

'I spread some bile upon my maggot-ridden bread…'

'Pat,' gagged Kelly, pointing to her back.

Old Vic's poem was only seventeen verses long and when it was finished it drew a standing ovation even from those who remained sitting down.

Kelly heard the cheering, but she didn't join in with it. For Kelly was in the ladies, bent rather low above the toilet bowl.

'Are you OK?' asked Derek, upon her return to the bar.

'That wasn't funny,' said Kelly, who still looked radiant, as only women can, after a bout of vomiting. 'That was disgusting.'

'Perhaps the mandrake salad dressing didn't agree with you.'

'I'm going,' said Kelly. 'I don't want to hear any more.'

'I'll be on in a minute,' said Derek. 'You wouldn't want to miss me, would you?'

'Do your poems involve any pus or mucus?'

Derek thought for a bit. 'No,' he said. 'They're mostly about sex.'

Kelly stared at him. 'And what would you know about sex?'

'Oh I know a lot about it,' said Derek. 'It's just that I don't do a lot of it.'

'I overheard a pimply bloke saying that poetesses are easy. Surely if you're a regular performer you get your end away every once in a while.'

'Don't be crude,' said Derek. 'But actually it is true, poetesses are easy. Well, at least the fat ugly ones with moustaches are.'

Kelly gave Derek another one of those looks. 'That would be the fat girls are grateful for it theory, would it?'

'Listen,' said Derek. 'I'm not fat, but I can tell you, I'm really grateful for it.'

'Whose round is it, then?' asked Kelly. 'If I'm staying, you could at least have the decency to buy me a drink.'

'I think we'd started buying our own,' said Derek.

'No, I think you were still buying mine.'

'Barman,' hailed Derek. 'Barman, please, barman.'

Next up upon the rostrum was a poetess. She was not a fat moustached poetess who was grateful for it. She was a young and beautiful and slim poetess who could afford to be choosy.

She recited a poem about her cat called Mr Willow-Whiskers. Who was apparently her furry little soulmate.

Kelly was forced to return to the ladies and lose the rest of her supper. At length she returned, still radiant, to the bar.

'That's definitely enough for me,' she said. ' "Mr Willow-Whiskers with his soul of crimson sunset". That was enough to make anyone throw up.'

'The pimply youths seemed to like it,' said Derek. 'They're asking for her autograph.'

'I've never been comfortable with poetry,' said Kelly. 'It's either well meaning, but bad, or beautifully constructed, but unintelligible. I quite like limericks though, have you ever heard the one about the young man from Buckingham?'

'I have,' said Derek. 'It's truly obscene.’

‘Well, I'm off. Enough is enough is enough.’

‘I'm up next,' said Derek. 'Please stay until I'm done.'

Kelly smiled. 'And your poem will be about sex, will it?'

Derek grinned. 'I've been working on my delivery. The way I see it, with performance poetry, it's not so much what you say, as the way you say it. My poems aren't actually rude, but I inject into them a quality of suggestiveness which gives them the appearance of being extremely risque.'

'Derek,' said Kelly. 'We're friends now, aren't we?’

‘Yes,' said Derek nodding. 'I think we are.’

‘Then as your friend, allow me to say that you are a complete and total prat. No offence meant.'

'And none taken, I assure you. But you just wait until you hear my poem. It involves the use of the word "plinth", which as everybody knows, is the sexiest word on Earth.’

‘Plinth?' said Kelly.

'My God,' said Derek. 'Say it again.'

A round of applause went up as Mr Melchizedec, Brentford's milkman in residence, concluded his poem 'Oh wot a loverly pair of baps'. It didn't include the word 'plinth', but as his style of delivery owed an homage to the now legendary Max Miller, the two Olds, Pete and Vic, were now rolling about on the floor, convinced that they had just heard the filthiest poem in the world.

'Check this out,' said Derek, grinning at Kelly and pushing his way through the crowd towards the rostrum.

Kelly yawned and looked at her watch. She'd let Derek do his thing, then she'd get an early night in. She wanted to look her best for her first day at Mute Corp, tomorrow.

Derek mounted the rostrum and smiled all over the crowd.

The crowd didn't seem that pleased to see him, although Kelly overheard a fat poetess with a moustache whisper to her friend, a poetess of not dissimilar appearance, that 'he looks like he's up for it'.