Untimely ignorance

‘Take a pew,’ said the doctor, scanning my medical notes. ‘Been to Africa and playing the field with the local beauties, have we?’ The tone was brisk, enthusiastic, conspiratorial, perhaps even a bit nostalgic. I nodded dumbly. ‘Right-ho, old man, drop the trousers.’

My underwear was a natty repeated pattern of the international warning symbol for radioactivity on a vivid yellow background (Top Man, £4.99). If he registered my little joke, he gave no sign. Instead, an impatient little wave of his hand ordered these down, too. The instant they were down he lunged forward, and without a word of warning assaulted me in an extraordinarily intimate manner with a cotton bud, causing me to jack-knife forward in pain and surprise. After twisting the bud this way and that, he withdrew it, I unbended, and then he whipped out a fresh one and did it again.