If thinking about the outcome of next month’s Synod, or the prospect that Jeremy Clarkson will swap his Top Gear for Archbishop of Canterbury gear, makes you feel ill, and you continually broadcast your discomfort, take heed from the cautionary tale that follows.
Our parish hypochondriac
Ambushed me in church today.
His aches and pains and yakkity yak
Had grown since last Sunday.
‘I take three dozen remedies
At breakfast every day
And more for my elevenses
To keep my ills at bay.’
‘When looking for a medic
My symptoms to review;
No good the local clinic,
Only hospitals will do.’
‘I know each top consultant
My ills are quite unique.
Referrals are resultant;
Ten X-rays every week.’
I tried to stem the moaning
As we ventured to the street.
‘Did you like the Vicar’s sermon?
Made me sit up in my seat.’
‘My ears too bad to hear it,
So I never caught a word.
Couldn’t even read Directions,
My eyes are now so blurred.’
‘Can’t join the Ordy-what’s it;
Movement makes me feel unwell.
And even if I’m tempted
It’s too difficult to spell.’
The best form of defence they say
Is to go on the attack.
‘Er, I feel a trifle sick today.
Perhaps a flu attack?’
‘Rot, you merely have a sniffle,
It’s me that’s got the flu.
Alan, you’re talking piffle.
And I’ve got measles too!’
He continued in his sorrow
And how he never made a fuss.
I’d have been there until tomorrow.
So I pushed him beneath a bus.