Colonic irrigation at the Celtic Manor

When I was a driving instructor I was being driven towards a busy roundabout by an 18-year-old female. In Newport we know it as The Coldra roundabout – a very busy junction where the M4 motorway from London meets the A449 from the Midlands. Here, traffic converges on South Wales from all over the country, with three lanes going around it, numerous sets of traffic lights on it, and even a road passing through it. It generally fills learner drivers (and some experienced drivers) with fear. To non-locals, it’s the roundabout that is within a golf swing of the grounds of the Celtic Manor, one of the world’s most famous venues, hosting such events as the Ryder Cup and the NATO summit.

On the approach, I was preparing myself to keep my student calm with the appropriate words of encouragement and support in all the right places. As I was weighing up the situation, clearly oblivious to my (and what ought to have been her) concerns, completely out of the blue she asked, “What’s colonic irrigation?”

Somewhat thrown of course, I suggested that we should discuss it after we’d negotiated the roundabout. After we’d done so, I said, “Right then, back to your original question...”

Although it was unrelated to job at hand, I felt that I had some responsibility towards her, as it would be better that she found out from someone who wasn’t going to try to make her feel stupid. So I explained. She accepted the explanation with no apparent surprise or shock and with no smut or innuendo, as if we were talking about the price of potatoes. She then added that she and her boyfriend had been discussing it the previous night, trying to establish the difference between colonic irrigation and artificial insemination.