So there I was carrying out my daily

ablutions when I reached that point involving

some cotton balls. I stood before the mirror

and, almost pleased with what I saw, began

to cleanse my handsome, nearly perfect face.

I took a cotton ball and dipped it in

some cool, clear, refreshing cleansing liquid

(bought from a store in Paris by a minion,

then flown ten thousand miles to where I was).

And as I drew the half-soaked ball across

my face, I realised that if I wanted

to buy, let’s say, a thousand cotton balls

a day, then that was my prerogative.

But why stop there? I thought; I could afford

fifteen times that amount! But why stop there?

at fifteen thousand cotton balls a day.

I could make it my thing and be the man

who bought a million cotton balls a day.

I’d send my forty employees around

the world in search of cotton balls which they

could buy in crates and ship to my address.

I’d end up owning billions of the things,

my multi-hundred-million dollar fortune

reduced to one, vast, pointless cotton mountain

in which I could luxuriate forever.

I basically need saving from myself.

[After Mark Waldron’s ‘So I was at home doing the washing up’.]

'If I want to buy 15,000 cotton balls a day, it's my thing' - Johnny Depp