Predictably my fart based entry of a couple of days ago has proven popular with the kind of idiots who read my pages. The kind of idiots who think that what I do is funny. I suppose in a way I only have myself to blame.
Many of you had other suggestions of how you might describe in rhyme the instance where a fart is loud and yet does not smell.
Regular reader and pedant, Leila Johnston came up with quite a few that are mainly rubbish. "rackety but odorfree" was a typical one. This is unwieldy and is in any case not a true rhyme. rackety rhymes with backety, but not with anything that happens to end in a eee sound. Or otherwise the world of schoolyard rhymes would become a travesty. Similarly her artless suggestion "cacophonous but inodorous" must be disqualified. "Brutal but neutral" was closer, but still not quite a rhyme, whilst "set-free but scentfree" might be clever, but still holds no sway with me. "Blatant but latent" was her only truly impressive suggestion, but surely a fluke especially when you realise she followed it with the truly abysmal "turbulent but impotent". Hang your head in shame.
Other readers chose to turn your scorn on my own wonderful suggestion "flagrant, yet unfragrant" which any sensible grown-up person would see was perfect.
Ex small faced TV personality stalker David Darlington emailed me with this critique, "...well, yeah, but "unfragrant" (given that "fragrant" has connotations of "a pleasant smell" rather than just "a
smell") could equally apply to *any* fart rather than just a loud one that doesn't smell of much. Same applies to "non-fragrant" should you pursue that path, really."
Perhaps he is right. But if so we have still not solved the loud fart that does not smell conundrum. And no "loud, but proud" does not count you fools. For this does not address the non smell issue.
Even if we were to find the perfect coupling then we still have to work out how we describe a loud and disgusting fart and also that rarely detected beast, the silent and non-odorous air-biscuit. Or a fart that is silent and smells a bit, but not so badly that you could describe it as violent and so on.
Perhaps I was hoping for too much. We have opened Pandora's Box and found that it had an indescribable fart in it. But now the box is open we can't get the fart back in the box.
Don't send me your suggestions. Please place them in a big burning bin.
