The Viagra Truth

There’s been some talk in the media about my experimenting with Viagra. I think I should explain all before it gets out of hand and I have every Tom, Dick & Sir James asking me about my sex life. The plain truth is: yes, I have experimented with Viagra. But I didn’t experiment on myself.

I actually gave it to the dog. Barney (right) had been looking a little under the weather lately and, to be perfectly honest, it was a rainy Saturday and I’d got myself a little bored. Judy had nipped to Iceland (the supermarket, not the country) and left me at home doing The Times cryptic crossword. It had taken me longer than usual to finish but, after five minutes hard work, it was done. I scribbled in the word ‘metempsychosis’ and threw my pencil down and turned my mind to what I was going to do next. Not being a man who likes to sit on my hands, I looked for something to do. Only, Judy had already done everything. The house was tidy. The garden looked good. The lawn was cut.

That’s when I spotted the Viagra bottle. We’d picked it up on the show last week when Dr. Raj come in to talk about troubles south of the trouser line. Not really thinking what I was doing, I took a few of the tablets, crushed them up, and dropped them in the dog’s bowl. You know… Just to see what would happen.

That was about eleven o’clock in the morning. I think I must have dozed off. I woke up an hour later when I heard Judy scream. I found her standing in the hallway looking as white as a sheet as Barney was straddling a frozen turkey in the middle of the hall.

‘Oh Richard! Get him off!’ she cried.

I leapt into action. Only, I could prise him away. The poor animal was frozen solid to the bird. Not only was he frozen solid, he was frozen by a very delicate part of his anatomy. It wasn't the sort of job you could go at with a chisel and a crowbar.

An hour later, a few bowls of hot water and some details you’d probably not like to hear, we’d got him off the turkey. Barney had suffered frostbite in places it’s not natural to get frostbite unless you’re a Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes. The vet says he might not be right down there again, which, actually, is a bit of blessing. We’d been talking of having him neutered so this saved us the job.

That's pretty much the whole story. Judy threw the Viagra down the toilet and set to work preparing the turkey for our Sunday dinner, which, despite all its adventures, tasted even better than ever.

Which leads me, I suppose, to some turkey facts. Did you know that the turkey is actually the national bird of Turkey? It not flightless, as many believe, merely overweight. A properly trim turkey can fly as well as any bird, and, in some African nations, they are raised for sport and flown in races, much as we race pigeons in this country. The biggest every turkey weighed in at over twenty stone and fed a family of twelve for Christmas and through to Easter, two years later.