Here's a coincidence. Just after posting the previous (now attached to this post), I'm in the middle of scanning the art for the big Alec omnibus and the next page up is the one from Graffiti Kitchen that begins like this:

"talk about buncakes my girl's got 'em"
"A national dance craze in Ivory Coast has spawned a black market in treatments claiming to increase one's bottom size. (BBC News monday feb 18) In the sprawling Adjame market just north of the city centre in Abidjan, women sell "bottom enhancers". Bottom enhancing treatments sell for $2 "You need to inject this liquid into your bottom once a day," says a market trader, showing a vial of coloured liquid labelled "Vitamin B12". Most women I spoke to preferred to avoid the treatments.
"Me? I prefer to be natural so you can know your true value. It's best not to use these medicines. It's not good - it's actually very dangerous," one said.
Another woman was happy with what came naturally.
"I do the bobaraba because I already have a big bum. When I dance, everyone looks at me.""

For the incurably curious, Youtube demonstrations of the Bobaraba in which girls perform the dance in the privacy of their houses. I find myself fascinated by the television playing in the background, and by the revealing little details of daily life in another part of the world.

(photie pinched from here, BBC link via wee hayley campbell, whose email 'subject' bore the Spinal Tap line used above)

DOES MY BUM LOOK BIG IN THIS?
Researchers at a Scottish university are aiming to answer the question. Heriot-Watt University's School of Textiles and Design has launched what is believed to be the world's first study on how clothing affects the bum. Four female models with various sized bottoms will wear different types of clothing as part of the research. The study will examine how designs, colours, patterns and fabric types affect perception. The university believes the research could have major implications for retailers.
Female volunteers wearing hundreds of different types of clothing will have their rears photographed for the research. Dr Lisa Macintyre, who is leading the research, said four models had been chosen to provide as representative as possible a sample of female rears. One has a "standard" womanly backside while another has a much fuller "pre-Raphaelite" bum.
It's difficult to continue reading after that. Don't they know the 'pre-Rapahaelite ideal' had the tragic wasted look of the consumptive?
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IN other news that has nothing to do with arses, my pal Bob Morales just informed me that Robbe-Grillet, pioneer of the 'new' novel, is dead at 85

PARIS (AFP) — Alain Robbe-Grillet, the French writer who pioneered the so-called "new novel" genre in the 1950s, died Monday at the age of 85, the Academie Francaise (French Academy) said.
He had been admitted to hospital in the Normandy city of Caen over the weekend after suffering a heart ailment.
In a series of essays published in 1963 Robbe-Grillet developed the theory of the "new novel" which sought to overturn conventional ideas on fiction-writing.