Mammoth

If you are (and I hope you are) following O'Hara's thoughts on palaeoecology, you will find yourself presented with a cure for hiccups.

Personally I intend to stick with the "folk" methods.

I might persuade the hiccupee to stand on her head and drink a glass of water.

I might blow up and burst a brown paper bag, which contained the currant buns that we had just fed to the elephants at the zoo.

But I would not put my finger up her bottom, at least not on a first date.

In the British Museum some thirty years ago, I bought my then sweetie a cup of tea. It cured her hiccoughs. O tempora o mores.