GOOD FOR YOUR GARDEN, BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH,
STAY INDOORS. LIE DOWN, KEEP AWAY FROM WINDOWS,
BOIL YOUR WATER. COMMUNISTS ARE EVERYWHERE.
DEATHBIN NUMBER 1
Fuck, there's just no end of things against which we must be vigilant. Now it's compost. Can give you Legionnaire's Disease, whatever that is. I think they make these things up. Somebody dies from something they don't understand and they call it a new disease. Remember Munchausen's Disease by Proxy, that was a good one, irresistible urge to kill people, as I recall. Now it's Compost Fever, Heard it on BBC Radio Four's You And Yours Anxieties Programme, so it must be true. Some geezer inhaled the moisture from his compost and now he's marching around the hospital, saying Oui, Mon Capitaine, I vill die for ze Legion, Zut alors!
DEATHBIN NUMBER 2
I make it on an industrial scale, layer upon layer of clippings, cuttings, peelings, shredded paper, cardboard, teabags, coffee grounds, seaweed, rhubarb, sawdust, vaccuum cleaner contents, beanstalks, potato haulms, comfrey, autumn leaves, anything organic apart from flesh, just guess the proportionality of it and normally it's great. Without my fleet of lawnmowers and my arsenal of strimmers, clippers, shears, loppers, scythes, secateurs and machetes it'd be like a fucking jungle out there, the way stuff grows, full of nasty little Japanese bastards with big swords, probably, or Labour ministers, looking for badgers, as they call lorry drivers; that compost is good shit, in my opinion. Now, they tell me, it's lethal, unless I do as Professor of Compost Studies, John Gob, tells me, thermometers and all that stuff, gloves. And masks, Risk-averse, that's what we must be. Oh, Brave New World, first the Swingers' Coalition of We're All In This Shit Together, Even Though We're Not and now, Compost Monsters From Mars Will Drink Your Blood. Why don't they all just fucking shut up, just for a day or two'd be good. Everybody's so fucking clever, know-it-all, turn on the radio and there they are. Sperm to worm, womb to tomb, that's the way of it. Apart from on Radio Four, where, if you pay attention, you can live forever.
