Time for a feuilleton (writing genre that allows for much journalistic freedom as far as content, composition and style are concerned – Wikipedia.) on my verruca.Verrucas, like backside boils, hernias, kidney stones and ingrowing toe-nails carry no social cachet and very little literary potential. They lurk, infect other feet and are hard to get rid of. The word sounds faintly risible (perhaps because it rhymes with bazooka) but it is Latin and preferable to its English translation – wart. There is one bonus; in making this admission there is no way anyone can accuse me of advancing myself aesthetically, intellectually or socially. A man with a verruca is without doubt diminished, commonplace and unlikely to be asked to parties.
During and after the Brittany flight (qv) I talked freely but there was one subject I held back on. You may be able to guess what this was.
Treating a verruca is a right royal pain, especially if you’re fat. When Rupert Murdoch appeared before the select committee to utter monosyllables about phone hacking he said it was the humblest day of his life. Me, I just thought about my verruca.
Apart from filing the surrounding skin and immersion in boiling water one covers the verruca with a transparent paste which smells (entrancingly I must admit) like the glue for model aeroplanes. After a month I am told it will drop out of my foot like an upside-down mushroom. Can’t wait.
Why all this? Having regularly majored in self-aggrandisement I thought I’d try out humility but that got lost in the wash. Verruca is hard to spell and that displaced being humble. Cromwell, sitting for his portrait, told the painter to do it “warts and all”. Like The Great Commoner I do have other defects.
8 comments:
I made the mistake of pulling out the 'seeds' of a wart I had on the palm of my had, many years ago. Still have the puckered star-shaped scar for my efforts. Won't be doing that again!
Hope yours falls out as promised.
(Interesting subject, btw.)
I do like the word verruca so much better for that nasty thing. Good luck, it does take time.
What about treating the verruca with the a bazooka?
Beats a leaky bladder, I guess. Which I hasten to add I Don't Have.
ugh, mushrooms
Molly is the wart queen of dogdom, she has them all over.
Bowels are less glamorous than heart, brain or breast. Apparently we Brits are both obsessed and embarrassed by them. Though nothing beats a good French crise de foie (as opposed to a crise de foi), probably brought about by exposure to a courant d'air...
Good luck with the verruca, I remember Compound W.
The Crow: "A puckered star-shaped scar." There - added to your appeal and your mystery at one fell swoop. Though turning your hand round for best effect at dances must have been quite tricky.
Subject. I tell myself that anything can be made to read interestingly and am pleased that you may have recognised this. My recent success in pursuing this belief with other WW readers has, alas, been mixed.
M-L: Wart's one syllable against three for verruca. Your policy is no comfort for those who are short of breath.
Hattie: One upside with leaky bladder: more moments of relief each day.
RW (zS): Finally a subject arises that militates against our ever meeting. I might during our conversation (sure to be wide ranging) accidentally refer to mushrooms. Come on RW (zS); you're a grown woman.
Lucy: Which makes your love for her even more self-abnegatory.
Ah, I go all wobbly when you take a promenade in French.It was from you I first heard about racailles
Is Compound W a relative of Preparation H?
Compound W makes them fall out; Preparation H shrinks them back up. I wouldn't put the one on the other, were I thee.
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