Cock and bull

No more do we believe in phrenology, it has been deconstructed, constructed, reconstructed, redeconstructed, deredeconstructed to be scientifically unsound. It is a physiognomic fallacy. No longer do we look upon the prognathous chin and speculate about the mettle, the bravery; the same with a long nose, no longer are we caught in jealous conjecture about the size of the pudenda membra under the long nose. This pseudoscience was the brainchild of Franz Joseph Gall. However, let’s not just snigger at poor old Gall, even the mighty have fallen into the trap of trying to read into bumps, and other incongruities, for instance, Aristotle attempted to locate faculties of personality within the head. We know phrenology to be another cock and bull story. I don’t mean, coq-a-l’an, this piece has nothing to do with donkeys.

Now some people believe that the phrase cock and bull came about when coaches carrying weary travelers on the old London Road at Stony Stratford near Buckinghamshire, England had to choose between two inns. Rivalries arose between the groups of travelers who favored one inn over the other inn. The names of the two inns? The Cock, and The Bull, of course.

But this is cock and bull. Don’t you see the iconography of this? I sense Chaucer and his Canterbury Tales. English mythology is full to the rim with journeymen and their tales, Bunyan, need I say more. The phrase cock and bull derives from the fashion of having one’s prized bull depicted on the canvas with much exaggeration. Look at Thomas Bewick’s Hedge Sparrow. The bull has been pumped with steroids and possesses a mighty member. The pride of the bull owner looks like a Lilliputian compared to the bull. Now this is no cock and bull. However, this might be:

Obesity is a fecundating problem not only in the United States of America, it is now a world problem, I have traveled and I have become melancholy with the plethora of obese who sweat, fart, burp, belch, hiccup, piss and shit. Therefore, I now deliver my proposal. I must add I deliver this proposal with a heavy heart. It was while in Moscow that the epiphany came to me. The epiphany was made concrete in London. I articulated this epiphany in Charlotte. To cure this propagating problem of obesity we must eat the fat. Yes I reiterate, eat the fat. Anybody
that has three chins and a protruding belly must be spit roasted and consumed. I know at first you will grimace but think of the space we will be creating. The next time you are sitting on a train, a bus, a plane and the seat next to you is taken by an obese person think about my proposal. I believe at that moment you will concur with my proposal.

Those that have only two chins and an expanding belly will be fed crack cocaine. I have never seen a fat junkie. Those that have only one chin but showing signs of developing a second will be sent to the plastic surgeon. See, I can be merciful.

This problem of obesity is not hyperbole. Together we are one huge heart attack waiting to happen. I can see the vein clogging even now as I write this. The farts of the obese cause pollution, I have been told, as cows cause pollution. A fat person’s farts are worth fifteen farts of a healthy person, fifteen, now compute the farts you release in a day. If you do not believe me, be empirical, take the test: position yourself behind a runner, run behind, keep up; and then go to McDonald’s, get in the long queue and wait. Now suck in just one of those deep farts. I believe that it is inexorable; you will find yourself concurring with me.

There is nothing left for us to do but eat those people who weigh more than one hundred and ten pounds. Consider the aesthetics of this proposal; I have never seen a fat Mona Lisa, a rubicund Helen, and a chubby Cleopatra. How many times do we have to walk down Broadway or Oxford Road and see a large woman in a tight dress with animated undulating flesh? Recall those sweat marks permeating the fabric. I see your grimace as clearly as though you are sitting opposite me.

Now when I say eat I mean eat and nothing else. We will fry in garlic butter the appendix, bladder, brain, ears, eyes, gallbladder, female genitals, kidneys, large intestine, liver, lungs, male genitals, pancreas, skin, spleen, small intestine, stomach, tongue, and voicebox. The arms, hands, feet, legs shall be roasted. All bones with pelvis, ribcage, joints, skull, spine, and teeth will be boiled down with the huge amount of fat and made into a soup. I have been told that the heart is sweet and so the heart will be cooked in glucose and piss and served as a dessert. See I have thought of everything. Even the fingernails and toenails will be roasted, salted, and served with beer.

For this to work all we have to do is change a fundamental, a simple ethos, that is all. All we have to remember is that the belly is more important than the eye. If it were up to the eye we would all be dying of hunger right now, is food aesthetically pleasing? The eye is a snob whereas the belly welcomes all. The belly is an egalitarian compared to the supercilious eye. Once we have overcome the tyranny of the eye everything is possible. The belly will digest the heart of a fat person in the same manner it will digest a strawberry. Remember this. Let us move beyond the horror and look upon this with pragmatism. For us to succeed we have to look towards the future.

You might think this is hyperbole, but we must be swift. I reiterate we must be swift. The future is bleak. The sun is being blocked out. A tenebrous shadow is looming over me now. My proposal to eat the obese is delivered with the utmost sincerity. Remember we must be swift for this work.

I have just come across this, but I believe this to be mendacity. The first known use of the phrase ‘cock and bull’ was in John Day’s 1608 play Law-trickes or Who Would Have Thought It: ‘What a tale of a cock and a bull he told my father.’

Paul Kavanagh

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Paul Kavanagh is the author of The Killing of a Bank Manager and Iceberg.