I had a bit of very welcome chat
That went down nicely with my wine and chips.
Together in the pub we chewed the fat,
Insulting chicks with flabby thighs and hips.
Our mixture of abuse and blackened hate,
Coloured by our dirty words and patter,
Had managed to reduce the clean debate
To vulgar forms of common subject matter.
The best and worst bits of our earthy discourse
Left us giggling like naughty school boys:
When ladies lay thus they shouldn't divorce
Then the stroke of axe will destroy her poise.
But talking out loud made the strangers cuss;
They wanted us hanging more treasonous.
And when we left the pub slurping Chablis,
They struck us, cut us, hung us from a tree.

Catherine Howard, 5th wife of Henry VIII, was executed today in 1542.

Oliver Reed, English actor and hellraiser, was born today in 1938.