PERSIL

And now for something completely different.

When I was young, a friend recited the rhyme below. It was really seaside penny postcard stuff and the equivalent of saying "knickers".

Beyond that, not to be taken seriously.

And certainly not in the class of the winning slogan for Time beer which never saw the light of day: "Pissing is a waste of Time".

Were it not for the rhyme I'd have totally forgotten it.

But it came to mind the other day when a friend, who had participated in it, told me that after the Liffey Swim the participants used to be taken to Tara St. Baths and told to wash themselves with VIM.

That's how polluted the Liffey was then.

But, sez I, that's not PERSIL.

Ah, sez he, I once knew a man who always washed himself with PERSIL. Whiter than clean he always was.

So truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, rhyme or no rhyme.