2481. Sing a song of sixpence

To put it mildly, the king was sick to death of four and twenty blackbirds popping out of his pie and singing their heads off.

“This is not a dainty dish at all,” said the king. “In fact it’s downright disgusting. Try eating pastry that’s had twenty-four birds plopping around on it. I shall once again go out into the scullery and boil myself an egg.”

The king exited. Next thing there were loud screams emanating from outside the scullery window. The king reappeared in the dining room. “Call an ambulance,” he cried. “One of those birds has pecked off the maid’s nose while she was hanging out the washing.”

The queen arrived, having heard all the noise. “Oh,” she said. “The king is boiling an egg again. There’s plenty of bread and honey in the parlour, darling. There’s no need to boil Humpty-Dumpty every day.”

“Nowhere,” said the king, “does it say that Humpty-Dumpty is an egg.” With that the king issued an edict: From now on no one may refer to Humpty-Dumpty as an egg.

And they all lived happily ever after in a little crooked house.

2113. Mother Goose

Hello kiddies. If you would like to sit in a circle on the floor six feet apart and pretend to hold hands. Let’s sing some nursery rhymes behind our masks.

1.	Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater,
Had a wife but couldn't keep her;
He put her in a pumpkin shell
Because he was white and she was black.

2.	Baa, baa black sheep
Have you any wool?

Children! Children! We don’t sing this anymore. It’s John Doe stealing black wool.

3.	Here we go round the mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush.
Here we go round the mulberry bush
On a cold and frosty morning.

It’s alright kiddies. Don’t cry. It was a black frost.

4.	Hey diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the 


Stop! Stop! – What colour is the object we’re singing about?
Don’t say it! We don’t use that horrible word!

5.	Hickory Dickory Dock
The mouse ran up the clock
The clock struck one.

Isn’t that typical?  I bet the one struck was black.

6.	Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King’s horses and all the King’s men,
Put him back together because he was a brown egg.


7.	Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown,
And Jill said, you got your due you f**king racist.

Well done, children. Now it’s time to go home to the caregivers I have allotted you. They won’t brainwash you like your parents.

1997. Hickory dickory dock

Little Jack Horner
Sat in the corner,
Eating a Christmas pie;
He put in his thumb and pulled out four and twenty blackbirds. He said to the Grand Old Duke of York, “What the hell are all these blackbirds doing in my Christmas pie?”

And the Grand Old Duke of York said “I dunno. Ask Little Miss Muffet.” So he did that, and she said, “If he’d been sitting on a tuffet and not in a corner and been eating curds and whey and not gutsing out on Christmas pie none of this would have happened. So there.”

Miss Muffet has always been a little so-and-so. When Humpty-Dumpty fell off his wall and Jack broke his crown, she laughed. Laughed! Like the whole thing was a joke. Same for when Whatya-ma-call-it lost her sheep. And she thought Little Boy Blue blowing his horn was an absolute scream.

After that, I’m not surprised that Lucy Locket lost her pocket, are you? The next thing we’ll hear is that Jack jumped over a candle stick.

What is needed is an old woman who lives in a shoe whipping everyone soundly and sending them to bed without bread. Let them eat broth.

This just goes to prove that blind mouses running up and down houses of government are a bit short of a few hickory dickory docks.

1627. Plummeting education

Dear Editor

I usually don’t write to the newspaper to vent my frustration, but enough is enough. I think that personal opinions are just that – opinions that should be kept to oneself. But I can’t hold back in this matter any longer. I see our education system plunging into a dark and bottomless abyss. Here are a few questions I would like to ask today’s young people. The paucity of correct replies should serve to emphasize the lack of cultural historicity being taught in today’s classroom.

1. What exactly was in Little Red Riding Hood’s basket? Was it buns or muffins or perhaps bagels? Was it scones? Or maybe it was little bottles of honey and various jams that she was taking to grandma. I am prepared to bet my bottom dollar that today’s generation will be lost for words when it comes to this aspect of our cultural heritage. I wouldn’t be at all surprised, given the lack of morality prevalent in today’s society, if some people suggest that Little Red Riding Hood had non-perishable goods in her basket. Pickled onions for example. Or even some sort of health food. That is what the world has come to. If students were taught properly what was really in Little Red Riding Hood’s basket then the world would be a better place.

2. Was the Big Bad Wolf that confronted Little Red Riding Hood the same wolf that hounded the Three Little Pigs? Teachers want us to believe that toxic males permeate society and are far more common than they really are. They think the world is full of nasty wolves like the Big Bad Wolf. And anyway, was the woodsman who in the end chopped off the head of the wolf as nice as some make out? What was the woodsman doing hovering around Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother’s house in the first place? The woodsman with the axe, not the Wolf, was oversexed and violent.

3. Why was Little Red Riding Hood wearing a hood? Was she ashamed of who she was? What uneducated person these days knows that the reason Little Red Riding Hood wore a hood was perhaps because she was Little Bo Peep in disguise. Or perhaps Goldilocks? Or Cinderella? Or Sleeping Beauty? Need I go on and on? Who is to say that Little Red Riding Hood wasn’t a toxic male such as Little Jack Horner trying to lure the Big Bad Wolf into sticking his thumb into a pie?

4. When Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater put his wife inside a pumpkin he wasn’t being nasty. Those were different times. There’s no need to rewrite history. One can only hope that the pumpkin had a kitchen sink.

Whatever happened to our fine education system when students were taught real answers to real questions? I bet you anything that few people these days know that getting a pail of water was the last thing on Jack and Jill’s mind when they went up the hill. Our world has indeed plummeted into savagery and barbarousness.

Yours faithfully
Old King Cole