In Competition No. 2588 you were invited to submit spiced-up children’s stories or poems.
In the interests of good taste, I steered you in the direction of sauciness rather than smut, but perhaps I needn’t have bothered. According to a book by the amateur historian Chris Roberts, sexual wickedness and political subversion lurk behind the innocuous façade of many popular playground rhymes. Children trilling ‘Jack and Jill’ are inadvertently singing about the loss of virginity, he claims; while ‘Oranges and Lemons’ is a rude wedding song.
Commendations this week to Shirley Curran for ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bares’, a raunchy reworking of an old favourite, and to Bill Greenwell for a tantalising glimpse into the future of the insufferable James James Morrison Morrison Weatherby George Dupree — one of many entertaining Milne pastiches.
The winners, printed below, get £25 each. King of the castle this week is W.J. Webster who gets an extra fiver for a saucy take on Janet and John. Ooh, you are awful …but I like you.
Where is Janet? Janet is in bed. Where is John? John is in bed. Janet is in bed with John. Where is Spot? Who can find Spot? Can John find Spot? No, John cannot find Spot. ‘Let’s try to find Spot together,’ says Janet. ‘Is Spot there?’ asks John. ‘No, that is not Spot,’ says Janet. ‘Is Spot there?’ asks John. ‘No, that is not Spot,’ says Janet. ‘Is Spot here?’ asks John. ‘Oh, yes, that is Spot,’ says Janet. ‘Ah!’ says John. ‘Oh!’ says Janet. Now Janet is under John. See, John is on top of Janet. ‘Oh, yes!’ says Janet. ‘Oh, no!’ says John. John is all over Janet. ‘Oh, no,’ says Janet. John is off Janet. Janet is off John. Now John is next to Janet. John forgets about Spot. John is asleep. Janet is not asleep.
W.J. Webster
Mary had a little chum,
she thought him pretty cool;
she loved the way he joked with her
while on the way to school.
One day as they were coming home
he went behind a tree,
and Mary, peeping round at him,
said: ‘Goodness, gracious me.’
Her little chum — Tom was his name —
just smiled and made a joke;
while Mary, much surprised, exclaimed:
‘I nearly had a stroke’
A broader smile lit Tommy’s face,
(his thoughts were sometimes bad);
he sighed and looked her in the eye
and said: ‘I wish you had.’
Frank McDonald
The guards are changing at Buckingham Palace —
Christopher Robin’s walked out on Alice.
He’s dating the sergeant who washes the socks.
‘Chris loves his colourful slinky frocks’, says Alice.
The guards are changing at Buckingham Palace —
Off-duty they listen to Thomas Tallis
And shampoo their tresses with scented soap.
‘I’ve seen them giving each other a grope’, says Alice.
The guards are changing at Buckingham Palace —
They’re changing partners like something from Dallas.
The sergeants compete to bring up the rear.
‘To see them kissing is very queer’, says Alice.
The guards are changing at Buckingham Palace —
The quarrelling now is quite without malice.
They simper and flirt like a load of old queens.
‘Tell that, said Her Majesty, to the marines’, says
Alice.
Virginia Price Evans
Cinderella spent her time in a closet with Buttons. She soon found out why he was called Buttons. Cinderella had very few dresses because her brothers, who were never in the closet, used to wear them, though they still looked like men dressed up. Cinderella dreamt of a handsome prince, and one day a nice Fairy said, ‘Cinderella, you shall go and ball.’ Her ragged jeans were very fashionable, and the Fairy looked at her top and said something about not needing pumpkins with those melons, darling. She just needed some classy slippers, so the Fairy lent her some leather stiletto boots. By midnight, Cinderella had lost quite a lot of things, including a shoe. The prince found it, but since he had very specialised tastes he kept it. Cinderella went back to Buttons and everyone lived happily and gaily ever after.
Brian Murdoch
The owl and the pussy cat went to sea
With a shamelessly shocking young shrew,
They said, ‘We agree that to do it with three
Could be far more exciting than two.’
They all of them swooned when the pussy cat
crooned
A naughty but nautical song
And they sighed, ‘This is nice or, indeed, nice
times thrice,’
As they frolicked and frisked all night long
Till the shrew shrewdly said, ‘We can never be
wed,
No Turkey would deem it quite right,
And a fowl of the cloth would be fuming with
wrath
If he knew of our capers tonight!’
So they settled as one for a lifetime of fun
And when asked if they clicked as crew,
They tittered, all three, and responded with glee,
‘Oh we do, yes we do, yes we do!’
Alan Millard
Little Jack Horner sat in a corner,
With Little Miss Muffet close by;
He put in his thumb while he fondled her bum,
But then stopped when she started to cry.
Little Miss Muffet had fancied some rough: ‘It
Was fun, but not quite rumpy-pumpy!’
She was longing for love, when there fell, from above,
Plump into her lap, Humpty-Dumpty.
Humpty Dumpty had witnessed it all.
Humpty Dumpty was destined to fall,
And when he had tumbled atop Muffet’s lace,
Humpty was soon left with egg on his face.
Then all the King’s horses and all the King’s men
Helped Little Miss Muffet feel happy again…
Frederick Robinson
No. 2591: Inconsequential
You are invited to submit an extract from either a gripping thriller or a bodice-ripping romance containing half a dozen pieces of inconsequential information (150 words maximum). Entries to ‘Competition 2591’ by 9 April or email lucy@spectator.co.uk.
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