I’m not at all sure what the fuss is all about.

There I am, lying in the bath with my finger in my eye and Curly Top says “That’s disgusting!” What’s so disgusting about putting your finger in your eye? I’ll bet you’ve all done it at some time. Of course if you’re as talented as me you’ll be able to hook the end of your index finger right round under the eyeball and make your left eye go in a different direction to your right. I do this quite a lot because I like the colours and funny patterns it makes. Smiley and Frowny have been told to stop me doing it… some nonsense about ‘going blind’ or something, I wasn’t really listening. But honestly, how are they supposed to stop me? As soon as they turn their backs I’ll just do it again.

While I’m on the subject, that’s not all you can do with your finger. If I’m bored with sitting in my chair – usually either waiting for food to arrive or when I’m waiting for everyone else to finish eating – I sometimes stick one of my smaller fingers right up my nose as far as it will go and make a kind of clicking noise with the bendy boney bit inside. That one really freaks them out. I tried this once on Smiley’s nose when he was carrying me out of the house to strap me into the car. I was a lot younger then; my fingers were very small and his nose looked very large so I thought I’d see how far up I could poke a finger. It turned out I could push it all the way up and hook it over the top into a kind of hole. I held on like that for a while but in the end it was too funny watching him hop around and I had to let go because I was laughing too much.

There seems to be a very fine line between what’s funny or disgusting and I’m not sure I completely understand the rules. For instance, when I was very little one of my uncles discovered I’d never tried ice cream and decided to give me a bit of his on a spoon. He held it up for me to taste and I stuck out my tongue and then everyone laughed. Quite frankly I was a bit annoyed by this, not so much by the laughing as by the fact that I wasn’t getting the ice cream. Apparently the thing that was amusing them so much was the fact that the end of my tongue was ‘forked’ when I stuck it out. They kept holding the spoon just that bit too far away for me to reach so that I was having to stick my tongue out as far as it would go. Frustrating. Eventually they got bored with this and just gave me the ice-cream so it turned out ok in the end and no-one mentioned the tongue thing again. Fickle lot.

I suppose the tongue isn’t really what you’d call disgusting so much as fascinating. Now if you want disgusting you can’t beat eating things. I’ve already told you about the various types of poo worth trying, but did you realise the sticky jelly stuff inside nappies is also good to eat? Leaves quite a dry taste in the mouth so you don’t need too much of it, but you can always amuse yourself by spreading the remainder over the sheets and carpets.

Of course if you’re thirsty then urine isn’t a bad drink and it’s always on hand. I usually refuse all drinks on principle – I can never remember what the principle is, but it’s something I stick to – so I generally get very thirsty by bath time. I never understand why more people don’t enjoy soapy water and it’s even better once you’ve pee’d in it… slightly salty but well worth a try.

Anything else? Well you can’t really count runny noses because everyone have those. And it’s hardly my fault if they never give me a tissue to use. Like most boys what I usually do is rub my nose on my sleeve or trousers, but why stop there? Sometimes I’ll wipe it across a wall, the sofa or the carpet – whatever’s closest. In fact now I come to think of it one of the best places to rub it is in people’s hair; Frowny’s is especially good for this as she’s got so much of it and it’s always dangling in my face.

And that’s it. Nothing really out of the ordinary.

Well, unless you count the nail biting. Of course, lots of people do that but I notice they don’t really put as much effort into it as I do… most of them seem to stop about a third of the way down the nail but with a bit of perseverance you can go a lot further. Ok there’s usually a bit of blood to deal with but I’ve never been the squeamish type. And why stop with your fingernails? Obviously you’re not all going to be as flexible as me but I find while I’m waiting for my fingernails to grow back a toenail makes an equally good snack between meals. Often better in fact because they smell so good at the end of the day. You have to be a bit more careful with toes because if you go too far the toe goes bright red and swells up for a few days and then you have to see the doctor for more medicine. But on the bright side it gets me out of having to walk for a while.

So what’s all the fuss about? It’s not as if I’d eat a croissant or anything like that. Now that really would be disgusting.