Clean as Clown can be.

No nose-picking. No grungy fingernails. No sweaty shirts (freshly laundered and steam-ironed, if you please).

Oh yes. We hospital clowns are squeaky clean clowns. I love it! What my friends affectionately termed "obsessive-compulsive tendencies", are now career must-haves. I can now not only justify my strange taste in clothes and fondness for toys, I can also get away with not shaking hands, having a nail brush at every sink in my house, and making people leave their shoes at the door.

For at Docteur Clown, such things are smiled upon. Nay, BEAMED upon. My clown shoes, for instance, mustn't be worn on the streets, only in hospital, so that I don't tramp any outside dirt (and there is quite a lot of it in this city) into the wards. My hands must be thoroughly scrubbed - no hasty run under a tap. Clothes must be clean and only worn once before laundering. And bodies must be bathed both before and after visiting a hospital.

Ah, sweet, sweet-smelling clowns. May our tribe increase.