To get an idea of what these poor bastards go through, I spent some time cruising online Christian forums.
But the bastard scorched through his verses, unfettered by self-consciousness.
This engaging picaresque tale about the adventures of Tom, a high-spirited bastard, rollicking through England, was an instant hit, selling some 10,000 copies at a time when the population of London was only around 700,000.
Imagine stand-off situations with this bastard rolling through the door and then skittering across the marble floor of Oslo City Hall straight into a crowd of hostages, aiming right at the gunman.
"We'll let those bastards talk through Christmas," he told his aide Bob Haldeman.
"I'm channeling everything that has happened in my life so far through Bastard Life," he said, explaining, "I've made Bastard Life the one true reflection of who I am".
It turns out that a Long Island teenager can find herself packed off to a psychiatrist's office if she goes around quoting Plath lines like "Daddy, you bastard, I'm through".
Plath herself, in a recording, will read the collection's most famous poem, "Daddy Daddydaddydaddyouyou bastard, I'm through"), with the evening to be introduced by Plath and Ted Hughes's daughter, Frieda Hughes.
Within seconds of his arrival the bastard was crashing through the Square like a herniated tank, spraying wide-boy aphorisms everywhere, insulting Pat's earrings, calling Michael Moon's handshake "a bit mincey" and banging on about his time "inside" and ow fings ain't wot they used to be wot wiv the lack of "respect" and the current proliferation of "Liffooanians".
At one time I got pregnant by a sick bastard and went through an abortion.
