katlaughing, are we talking about the same Robert Service poem? The one I have in mind is definitely unsuitable for schoolchildren! (It's been attributed to RS, but more usually to Anon, but it was definitely written by a poet of some sort.) What do you know that bends in the middle like a one-string fiddle then?

Jo, I'd love to get my hands on your phonofiddles! ... Sorry, just had to go and lie down for a few minutes there ...

Back in, oh, about 1965 or 6, I passed a junk shop in Walsall (it was next to Di Cicco's, the ice-cream people, if anyone's old enough to remember). In the window they had two or three phonofiddles, all slightly different from each other, I seem to recall. I'd forgotten all about it till this came up. They're high up on a long list of things I've been kicking myself for not buying.

Steve