Allow me to explain. Hours after our third daughter came into the world, relatives and so-called friends gathered like anxious farmyard animals around my wife's hospital bed to catch their first glimpse of our gorgeous, newborn slut. "Slut?" you ask. Yes, sir, slut. I'm in the middle of explaining myself, fool, so please don't interrupt. My parents and Rosemary's (my wife) parents got into a barney (that's an argument) over the baby's name.

"She looks like a Catherine," my mother declared, stroking the young whore's cranium. Bullshit! I thought. She looked more like a Ginger or an Amber to me.

"No, she's an Estelle," Rosemary's mother shouted, admiring our daughter's bedroom eyes.

My father straightened his tie and shot in with: "Why don't we settle on our first choice: Kim?" Noses turned up. Sideways glances were exchanged. Kim hit the cutting room floor quick-smart.

"I still think Catherine's a beautiful name," my mother said with deliberate conviction, nudging father John aside. "Kim is the name of a cigarette, John."

"Was the name of a cigarette, dear," my father sighed. "Was."

"Well I don't like it one little bit," was Rosemary's mother's opinion before she turned to Rosemary and barked: "What about you, dear? Do you and John have any suggestions?"

Rosemary smiled. "Yes, mother, of course we do," she said. "We made up our minds six months ago."

A wind of discomfort whiffed into the room.

"Good heavens!" the older woman, whose name was Helen, exclaimed. "Why the dickens didn't you say so?"

"It was a surprise," I interrupted, admiring the swell of my wife's milk-filled breasts. "We like surprises in our family." I eyed my mother. "Don't we mother?"

When I was twelve, I caught my mother drinking the gardener's piss in the bathroom. I have never let her forget it, though my father still doesn't know. It's something I have on her for a rainy day.

My mother turned red and nodded. "Of course, son. We've had a few of those in our time, I suppose."

"Indeed we have, mother," I chortled, rubbing her face in it. "Indeed we have."

Howard, my esteemed father-in-law, picked this moment to make his presence felt. He swivelled his head towards me and blurted: "Well, for God's sake, man, what name have you picked for the confounded sprout?"

Everybody, save for Rosemary and I, looked affronted by Howard's use of the word "sprout". Personally, I found it amusing.

"Well," Rosemary began, sitting rigid in her bed, "John and I have decided to call our daughter Fuckity."

The room went silent. Actually, not just silent. The room, to put it bluntly, died. Sound ceased to exist. Mouths dropped. Hands shook. Tissues were applied to noses.

Rosemary, relieved now that the cat was out of the bag, looked up at me and smiled. Like the slut she was. And the slut she'd just produced. I smiled back.

A minute of vacuum-quality silence passed.

"Fuckity?" my father boomed as he nailed me with his steely gaze. "You're calling your daughter -- our granddaughter -- Fuckity?"

"Yes, dad, that's what we've decided to call her," I explained calmly. "Fuckity Fuck."

There was a loud thud, the sound of my mother hitting the floor.

"I've never heard anything so ridiculous in all my life," Rosemary's mother stammered. "This is an absolute outrage and I simply will not permit it."

"Mum, that's her name," Rosemary grinned. "That's the name John and I have chosen for her."

Howard, who had remained uncharacteristically silent throughout the aftermath of our "surprise", scratched his chin thoughtfully. "This must be some sort of joke," he said, faking a smile. "Has to be, surely. I mean, nobody calls their little girl Fuckity."

"It's Fuckity Fuck, dad," Rosemary repeated. "Fuckity Fuck.".....(cont)