...continued from part I.

In a magazine called Lovely Jubbly I read a strange article concerning the possible connection between shit and the invention of the alphabet. Original man, the article informed, was enchanted at the sight of his daily output. Driven by pride, he strove to find meaning. Through this process, in homage to the source of this primal stuff, he constructed the first letter of the alphabet; A. According to Lovely Jubbly, A is not a schematic ideogram of an upside down ox-head, as any encyclopedia will assure you, but an explicit representation of the sphincter. So the original A looked like this: . A for arsehole. By this logic incidentally, B describes the source of our secondary products. Those creamy, life-giving substances. B started life like this: °. Yes; B for balls, and B for breasts. But that's an aside. On.

Most people steer clear of bullshitters. I don't. I remember the time I sat at a bar with a bunch of Thai prostitutes at Pussy Galore in Bangkok. I had to be there for a couple of hours so I entertained them with funny stories and jokes. One of them, obviously in complementary mood, said, "I love your bullshit". It was that comment that made me realize. Bullshit is good stuff. In fact, it's the basic building-block of life itself. Ask yourself this: what would you rather put on your crops, bullshit or common sense? So there was another great revelation. From that day on I vowed to shoot from the hip.

Have you ever read a book that you hated from start to finish. I have. It's called The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. (Editor's note: we talked about that book here.) I hated his writing style as much as his semi-auto-biographical catalogue of soul-less female conquests. But there was one take-out that has stayed with me ever since. Kitsch, he revealed, literally means: picture a world without shit. The world of dolls without arseholes or balls. Musicals where everyone grins and no-one goes to the toilet or farts. Happy-family TV shows where everyone loves each other so givingly - yes, scary shit.

I can finally admit now, that I love to have a good shit. If our daily shit really is the most valuable contribution we can make to this world then I should feel justified in enjoying my bowel movements. I shit, therefore I am good. But this self-rightiousness lives short because as I understand it, mixing shit with water is the worst thing that anyone could ever do to the water. It becomes useless for any other purpose. In Europe, all water has been mixed with shit, then bleached, then drunk or washed with and then mixed with shit again. The only water that has never been shit-o-lated comes in bottles, and costs more than wine.

Shit and water is difficult to unmix. In fact, you can't unmix it completely, the best you can do, after filtering, is to add bleach to kill what's left of the shit. I'm sure that if everyone in the world had a flushing toilet, very soon there wouldn't be any water left to drink, or wash with, or put on crops. So my daily satisfaction at producing shit can only be spiritual. But it doesn't have to be. Human shit is almost as good as bullshit, as long as you don't add water. Simply pile it up and in no time at all, it becomes wonderful food, first for microbes and insects and later for plants.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not advocating that we start a whole new ecological movement - Brownpeace or Friends of the Turd. I'm simply saying that it's time to love your shit. Be like the Germans, look at it, poke and prod it, show your friends and family. Learn from Islam, make peace with your arsehole - have a feel. Shit is honestly not that dangerous, as long as you handle it with care. Most of all, enjoy a good shit - in some ways, the Jo'burgers are right: a good shit is easily as beneficial to you - and the world - as a good fuck with someone you fancy.

-- Colin Charles first appeared in Bob's Bar, Sept '95