“The Ultimate Book of Farting” is winner of the Failure of Nerve Award. The Award Committee found much to praise in the mechanism which produced a fart each time the book was opened. 

In 1936 women are mostly employed applauding their men or demonstrating domestic bliss. “Oh Tom!” swoons one ecstatic wife “I’m so proud of you, you've gone ahead so fast in Radio!” Another kneels helpfully at her husband’s feet demonstrating the effectiveness of a purse-sized trouser press. 

Each year thousands of pilgrims, or “People of the Book” as they are known, join the pilgrimage to  place called Founders Park,  where under the welcoming arms of a giant windmill, they come in search of books, relics of an almost bygone age. Some come hoping to find enlightenment, succour, and revelation within the relics. Others wish merely for some hints on growing roses or the autograph of an All Black scribbled on a flyleaf. 

Epiphanies often arrive in the most ordinary of circumstances - while you’re lolly-gagging your way along the road to Damascus for example - and this week’s epiphanies were no exception. The first arrived as I flicked through a women’s magazine at a local garage, while waiting for a friend to get a W.O.F. for her car. 

Kate Winslet Is That You?

A Las Vegas woman 's body - crushed under piles of junk in her home - was not discovered until four months after she’d been reported missing. In spite of the fact that police sniffer dogs had searched the house, and that her husband still lived in it. The Hoarder Gene killed her.

Is your kitchen drawer a repository of half-empty matchboxes, bits of string, rubber bands, jar lids, screws, dried-up ballpoint pens, corks and bottle caps, unidentified keys, scraps of Xmas paper and those little scribble pads that real estate agents send you?  If so, you may carry the recently identified Hoarder Gene. Researchers believe that the gene is a legacy of our Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer ancestors and affects the behaviour of a significant proportion of the modern population. People in whom the gene is dominant, are strongly predisposed to collect objects from their environment and store them as a hedge against future shortage or calamity.

Sample Questions from  The Hoarder Gene  Discovery & Diagnostic Tool Can you still walk into your walk-in pantry? Is there enough room in your garage to park a car? Can you locate your car in the garage? At what age did you begin began renting an off-site storage facility? Are you plagued by irrational thoughts that arson may be the only way to de-clutter your:-            sitting room /  home office/  dog’s kennel? Thousands of years ago, the Hoarder Gene prompted useful survival behaviours like gathering plant materials for food, fire and shelter, and hunting wild animals for meat and clothing. Ironically, in the 21st century, it seems the gene may actually be endangering our personal survival.

I have it on medical authority (Dr Google) that simmering in a stew of unexpressed negativity can cause serious illness. Which is why I’m going all out this week with a bit of spleen venting.  

If you are disturbed by graphic descriptions of human deterioration, you should read no further: I feel an irresistible urge to descend once more the underworld where human frailty is writ large and intimations of mortality are ubiquitous. You have been warned.