Taking the Bull by the Horns

I find myself in the smoking area outside the local pub, accompanying Nicole as she sneaks out of the pub quiz for a quick half-time cigarette. Outside are two eccentric village ladies, about the age of my mother, one with a thick cockney accent, the other with a thick Norfolk accent. A young man comes to join us and the conversation turns to Shambo

The man had been listening to the saga unfold on Radio 4, as the officials who had been sent to destroy the bull were first turned away for having the incorrect paperwork and then kept waiting outside while the longest prayers in the history of religion were being recited in the name of delaying tactics.

"But really, is there a danger of bovine TB actually infecting a human?" one of the old ladies asked.

"Well", said the young man (a farmer, I suspect), "I'm going to have to be crude. But the only way a human can be infected is by drinking an infected cow's milk. And as this is a bull...."
"Ah", Nicole and I nodded, getting his point and assuming the slight pause was so as not to have to put the argument into words inappropriate for the occasion and present company.

".... the only way you could catch it, is if you were to give the bull a blow job!!", he finished, rather triumphantly.

A moment's shocked pause. Then the two older ladies screech with laughter.

"Barbara doesn't know what that means!!!" says Norfolk Lady, pointing at her friend and nearly peeing herself laughing.

"Oh yes I do", said Barbara very indignantly, "I watch Sex in the City I'll have you know".

And there you have it. A typical evening in our new life in a tiny village in Norfolk. The worrying thing is that there is little difference in the level of smuttiness in conversations wherever we go and whatever the social group - Cambridge, Norfolk, young, old, farmer, student, OAP - it all boils down to blow job jokes sooner or later!