I keep getting these letters from my Uncle Bert
from his twilight home
and you know they quite upset me
but no way am I visiting him
the last time I went it took me
three visits to the laundrette
to get the stench out of my clothes.

"Dear niece Edna" (old Fred wrote,
in his spidery wavering hand,
the notepaper spodged with snot)
"I am a bit more depressed than usual today
which is saying quite a lot as the only thing
which cheers me up is when the old fool
in the next bed gets diarrhoea
after I slip a cat's **** in his soup
when he's not looking, so, dear Edna,
I'd be very grateful if you'd send me some more as
old Mrs Bloggs in the next ward deserves one too
for teasing me about my gangrenous foot.

"It seems I've been in here for centuries
but it's probably only a couple of years
and the pain since my dear wife Linda passed
over to what surely-to-*******-God
has to be a better place than here
bearing in mind the noisome odours
emanating from the rest of the patients
in the run-up to bath night
which doesn't help much in the long run
if you are fifth or sixth in line as the water
gets a bit soiled by then, especially
if that ****** Mr Ali has done a brownie.

"I'm getting more and more worried
about the Bulgarian who has taken up residence
in the linen cupboard as he could well be
some sort of carpet-slipper thief or even worse
a homosexualist after my ringpiece -
or he might be an Islamist who wants
to behead me which would be a blessed relief
if I am to be totally honest with you.

"We had a bit of fun the other week when one
of the Nigerian nurses forced my that Mr Jenkins
to use the bedpan in public as a reward
for stealing Mrs Jackson's home-made enema kit
or she could have been from Liberia
as the accents are broadly similar
(so I read in the Sunday Times travel supplement
they gave us instead of toilet paper when
supplies run out during the dysentery outbreak).

"All the best under the circumstances
from your Uncle Bert and don't forget you stay
disinherited unless you visit me soon -
no more excuses about your car having
broken down - what do you think i am,
some sort of addled dementia case?"

It's all very sad, but I have checked Uncle Bert's
bank account and he's just trying it on
as there's no more than a hundred quid in it
and no way am I visiting him for a lousy hundred;
for Christ's sake, the smell is enough
to knock a cowboy off his horse.