Playing hardball …
The New Scientist magazine’s latest podcast is all about a worrying decline in the fertility of western men. Apparently sperm counts have more than halved in the past 40 years and the more sensationalist reporting of it has suggested that the human race is doomed due to a collective failure to reproduce sufficiently.
Personally, my count reduced to zero at some point in the 1990s when I went under the surgeon’s knife. Still, if I got a good enough offer, I may consider having the ‘procedure’ reversed to do my bit to avoid the ending of humanity. I could become a prima gravidad (except it wouldn’t be prima obviously, but I had to work hard enough to get that pun into this post without worrying about details like that).
On the other hand, I have no real ambition to undergo the ordeal of undoing what was done back in the 90s! My clearest recollection of the occasion was a surgeon of Asian origin, clearly unversed in the British film industry’s Carry On humour, announcing to me and the assembled theatre staff “Just a little prick, sir” as he lent forward to jag one side of me with local anaesthetic. (And that is not made up; he repeated the same words as he jagged the other side a few minutes later). Cue stifled laughter from the theatre team and a confused look on the surgeon’s face.
Anyway, that resulted in the following limerick which lies in my archives and that I now present to the world …
Although it may make you feel sick
(And it’s not an experience you’d pick)
You’ll end up abashed
If your scrotum is slashed
To a chorus of “Just a small prick!”
and abashed I was!
