When correctly viewed, everything is lewd

At least he's still alive: happy 80th birthday Jim Davis, creator of Garfield

"Apart from that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?"

I owe one of my most-used catchprases to one of the geniuses of sardonic repartee, the singer-songwriter and pianist Tom Lehrer, who has departed for the great That Was The Week That Was reunion in Fabulon, aged 97.

Bizarrely, his performing career only lasted a few short years, and in the late 60s Mr Lehrer apparently became disillusioned with "showbiz" - some say he decided to retire when the award of the Nobel Peace Prize went to Henry Kissinger ("political satire just became obsolete" were his words).

Needless to say, he left us a fine legacy of classics - and in a bit of a different "take" on the usual Tacky Music Monday "wake-up call" fare, here are just a few examples of his brilliance:

Tom Lehrer - Vatican Rag

Tom Lehrer - Poisoning Pigeons in the Park

...and here is the great man on a subject close to all our hearts...

Tom Lehrer - Smut

Smut!
Give me smut
And nothing but!
A dirty novel I can't shut
If it's uncut
And unsubt-tle

I've never quibbled
If it was ribald
I would devour
Where others merely nibbled
As the judge
Remarked the day
That he acquitted my Aunt Hortense:
"To be smut
It must be ut-
Terly without redeeming social importance."

Por-
Nographic pictures I adore
Indecent magazines galore
I like them more
If they're hardcore

(Bring on the obscene movies, murals, postcards, neckties, samplers, stained-glass windows, tattoos, anything!
More, more, I'm still not satisfied!)

Stories of tortures
Used by debauchers
Lurid, licentious, and vile
Make me smile
Novels that pander
To my taste for candour
Give me a pleasure sublime
(Let's face it, I love slime.)

All books can be indecent books
Though recent books are bolder
For filth (I'm glad to say) is in
The mind of the beholder
When correctly viewed
Everything is lewd

(I could tell you things about Peter Pan
And the Wizard of Oz, there's a dirty old man!)

I thrill
To any book like Fanny Hill
And I suppose I always will
If it is swill
And really fil-
Thy
Who needs a hobby like tennis or philately?
I've got a hobby: rereading Lady Chatterley

But now they're trying to take it all away from us unless
We take a stand, and hand in hand
We fight for freedom of the press
In other words

Smut! (I love it)
Ah, the adventures of a slut
Oh, I'm a market they can't glut
I don't know what
Compares with smut

Hip hip hooray!
Let's hear it for the Supreme Court!
Don't let them take it away!

RIP, Thomas Andrew "Tom" Lehrer (9th April 1928 – 26th July 2025)

They're dropping like flies at the moment...

Have a good week, dear reader.