Blancmange

He’s a man who prefers to have something blanc[mange]
whenever he has a dessert,
he gets what he can in his tummy,
he tries to get none on his shirt.
If there’s ever blanc [mange] as an option,
blanc[mange] is the option he’ll take,
there have been occasions when money’s changed hands
to encourage the kitchen to make
something blanc[mange].
Someone asked him one day
in a casual way
what made blanc[mange] so top-notch:
the gobbling… or was it the wobbling, they wondered,
which stirred something down in the crotch?
He answered, ‘it may seem absurd,
but the thing that I love
is the word: blanc[mange],
it’s French
and it’s funny

now what we do here is I sing “It’s French and it’s funny” and you answer and all give it back in the same way:

It’s French and it’s funny [It’s French and it’s funny]
It’s French and it’s funny [It’s French and it’s funny]
It’s French and it’s funny [It’s French and it’s funny]
It’s French and it’s funny [It’s French and it’s funny]
It’s French and it’s funny
as well,
to me it’s enchanting,
as you can see, I am under it’s wonderful spell.
It’s the pet name I gave to the love of my life
who has splintered my heart
like a fist might
a freshly blown egg shell.’

blanc[mange]
blanc[mange]
blanc[mange]
Merci beaucoup

Copyright: 'Blancmange', from The Sound of Paint Drying (Methuen, 1993), copyright © John Hegley 1993, used by permission of United Agents (www.unitedagents.co.uk) on behalf of John Hegley.

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The writer and performer John Hegley has been described as the Spike Milligan for our time, and as 'awesomely mundane' by The ...

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About Blancmange

This next piece is called 'Blancmange' and I'm going to go 'blanc' and I'd like you to go 'mange'. Let's try that, 'blanc' [audience: 'mange']

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