Spawn of a profligate hog.

May the hand of your self-abuse

be afflicted by a palsy.

May an Order in Council

deprive you of a testicle.

May your teeth be rubbed with turds

by a faceless thing from Grimsby.

May your past begin to remind you

of an ancient butter paper

found lying behind a fridge.

May the evil odour of an elderly male camel

fed since birth on buckets of egg mayonnaise

enter your garden and shrivel up all your plants.

May all reflective surfaces

henceforth teach you to shudder.

And may you thus be deprived

of the pleasures of walking by water.

And may you grow even fatter.

And may you, moreover, develop athlete’s foot.

May your friends cease to excuse you,

your wife augment the thicket of horns on your brow,

and even your enemies weary of malediction.

May your girth already gross

embark on a final exponential increase.

And at the last may your body, in bursting,

make your name live for ever,

an unparalleled warning to children.

PETER DIDSBURY