Hello sick people. The reaction to my first medical corner has been nothing short of. With that still ringing in my ears, I present you with my second presentation. I also bring you good news – last Tuesday I took part in a seminar slash workshop in Cymm which means I am now certified to work on your emotional and personal problems as well as your medical ones. Of course, I have already counselled Mrs Groyn during her recent bereavement and helped her to understand that her shadow will in fact return the next time Bendaton is visited by the sunshine. She felt a little foolish at this perfectly natural mistake so I prescribed her a course of heroin addiction to help her get her current problems into perspective. Now that she is breaking into cars and stealing from children on buses, she realises how small her previous troubles were. She thanked me effusively only last night while relieving me of my mobile telephone at knifepoint. Now let us turn out attention to today’s letter.

Dear Doctor Flapjack,

I am suffering from a mysterious itching in my pubic region that refuses to go away. I’ve tried soaps, special combs, shampooing the area with carpet foam and even asking my husband to have a rummage round to see if he can find anything. But we’ve had no joy. Well, no luck – there was a bit of joy during the rummaging – but that’s neither here nor elsewhere. What I’d like to know is whether there are any new treatments for this complaint because, as I say, we’ve tried everything else?

Yours sincerely

Mabel Stable

Dear Mrs Stable,

My first thoughts, after Tuesday’s seminar, are that this is a psychological problem. You may well be suffering from what my handy text book calls “Klapp’s Syndrome” which is named after Germany’s leading psycho-groinal therapist. He postulates that so called “sexually transmitted diseases” are in fact caused by deep psychological traumas suffered in ones past. The itching you are currently experiencing (or merely think you are currently experiencing) may well indicate that you feel guilty about your – and let’s not be shy about this, the genital region is nothing that a trained medical man has any need to be coy about naming – furry valley being touched, either by yourself or your alleged husband. You feel in your mind that you must justify fingering your moist front door and so you invent an itching. Thus you can stroke and prod away without feeling dirty, sinful, wicked, evil, naughty, disgusting, depraved, sick, twisted, vile, nauseated, polluted, grotesque or revoltingly unpleasant.

If, unlikely as this sounds, your symptoms do indeed refer to a physical complaint, I would recommend you treat the cause of the troubles rather than worry too much about the symptoms. You should look at your lifestyle and if it involves seedy strangers of dubious hygiene paying you money to engage in sexual acts then you might want to consider cutting this out. Sexual intercourse is one of the main causes of sexually transmitted diseases and eliminating this from your life would be beneficial. You should also stop smoking, talk lots of exercise (though not swimming or gymnasiums where you could conceivably pass your disgusting ailment to healthy people) and be sure to burn your undergarments after use rather than giving them to jumble sales and thereby risking an epidemic of your immoral plague.

If all else fails I could give you a tube of Liceokill which will burn the little shits from the inside and make them die in fiery agony. If you wish to consult me, please wear the enclosed pair of see through plastic pants as I would sooner not touch your infected mossy pond during this difficult time.

Yours medically,

Doctor St. John Flapjack