Dead Iraqis
In a society like ours there are bound to be disagreements about this and that. It is only natural. But although we may disagree on many things, I think we can all agree on one thing. The nice thing about dead Iraqis is they don't smell.
Some years ago, as you may remember, dead Iraqis were turning up all over the place. At the time there were various theories about why this was happening but thankfully all that is behind us now and we can set aside our differences and get on with the business in hand.
Let me say something else about dead Iraqis. They are not nearly so much of a nuisance as dead Paraguayans. Dead Paraguayans are cumbersome, frequently blood-splattered and almost always attract flies. They smell disgusting. Dead Iraqis, on the other hand, are lightweight, portable and, on the whole, easy to manage. At most they give off a light powdery odour, not at all unpleasant, redolent of potting compost in a rose-bordered rural shed.
Of course, I am not pretending that there aren't sometimes difficulties. For example, you can (with much smoke, gasoline and difficulty) burn dead Paraguayans, whereas dead Iraqis are already so scorched and charred there simply isn't any more you can do in that quarter, no matter how great your resolve or your store of boxes of matches and jerrycans of flammable liquid.
It was a bright May morning when my wife Giacinta first came across Iraqi remains in the house. There must have been three or four dead Iraqis involved (it is always hard to be precise where dead Iraqis are concerned, because of the intermingling). They were scattered across the kitchen floor when she went down to make the breakfast. After the trouble we'd previously had with dead Sudanese she said it came as a pleasant surprise to find that all she needed to do was vaccuum them away with her portable electronic "Dust Devourer" (it re-charges itself at night and is a real money-saver). The handful of coal-black specks left smeared on the linoleum she wiped off in a jiffy with a few drops of lemon-scented liquid multi-surface cleaner specially forumlated to cut through greasy dirt, grime and human-remains with the minimum of fuss.
Then there was the time my son Jason came home late one night and found half a dozen dead Iraqis in his room. Not at all perturbed, he called up his friends and invited them round. Soon Mike, Jake, Jute, Ike, Jock, Pete, Jack, Packer, Dibs and Luke were sitting around, drinking beers and poking at the Iraqi remains with my daughter Dune's knitting needles. Dune didn't know of course, she was in Glasgow attending a conference on Dutch elm disease. After taking turns to taste the ashy remains on the tips of their tongues the boys decided dead Iraqi was best described as "gamy", "smoky" and "piquant". They popped half a cupful in the coffee grinder, then sprinkled the powder on eleven steaming hot bowls of tomato soup. "Hey, Jason, this is brill!" "Not half!"
All through the night they played loud music by Iron Maiden and discussed setting up a rock group called The Argonauts. Until dawn they argued about who should learn to play guitar, who should sing, and who should drum, then they all went home to sleep...(more from Ellis Sharp, Lenin's Trousers)
Update: Whaddaya know, Ellis Sharp has started a blog. Fittingly enough, it's called The Sharp Side.
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