As endorsed by Rachel Carson
Remember DDT? Wonderful stuff? Killed all life forms in a
matter of minutes. I remember my dad using it on his allotment in the 1960’s.
He used to shovel the stuff all over his vegetable patch. Beetles, spiders,
bees, the neighbour’s cat would be on their backs in seconds kicking and
spinning before expiring. Consequently, we had the largest and juiciest veggies
in the locality. No spots on Mr Saxon’s marrows. I was reminded of these halcyon
times the other day whilst cleaning out the garage. In the corner I found a
large container of the stuff unopened. As I was having trouble with boring weevils
on my tomatoes I thought it worth a try. I dusted the stuff liberally all over
my garden. I wasn't disappointed. Next day the garden had taken on the aspect
of a graveyard. Whole generations of creatures were bestrewn throughout. I suspect
I might have driven a couple of species to extinction. I was so proud. Anyway,
I was suitably impressed and moved to such an extent that I decided to pen a poem extolling the virtues
of this most wondrous and versatile of chemicals.
Ode to DDT
O, DDT where are you now, when we need you the most,
I sprayed you on my tomatoes, I sprayed you on my toast.
You killed the diptera, hymenoptera and all orders under the
sun,
Watching the buggers wriggle, jump and jiggle was always so
much fun.
The wasteland you produced gave me such a thrill,
The pleasure of watching things die quickens my pulse still.
O, DDT it is time for you to make a comeback,
The insecticides of today are weak and indiscriminate powers
do lack.
The local rats, the neighbour’s cat, have all to Vallhalla
gone,
I can’t think of a suitable end to this rhyme so I’m just
going to say, Herbert Lom.
"Drop Dead Twice" we used to call it. Marvellous stuff. Defunct now - like nigger brown paint and Contac400.
ReplyDeleteContac400 was wonderful stuff. Get a cold, take a Contac400. 400 little tiny time pills used to get to work and the symptoms disappeared immediately. So what happened? They replaced it with Contac - which doesn't work. After all, something that actually worked on the common cold would decimate a whole industry overnight. Contac400 - the DDT of cold remedies!
When I was a lad, some of my mates, who hailed from Dudley, used to drink a propriety cough medicine called phenzodol (or something similar-it's been a long time). Instead of having two spoonfuls, they used to drink the whole bottle in one gulp. The local pharmacist used to give them a discount if they bought 24 bottles. Oh, happy days.
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