Lucy Vickery

Right-on rhymes

In Competition No. 2966 you were invited to filter popular nursery rhymes through the prism of political correctness.

Some years ago, CBeebies came under fire when it took all the fun out of ‘Humpty Dumpty’ by changing the words to give it a happy ending. And it wasn’t just Humpty;-Little Miss Muffet and the spider lived-nauseatingly happily ever after too. Now that this culture of avoidance has well and truly taken hold, with the explosion of safe spaces and trigger warnings, it felt like high time to invite you to recast other favourite rhymes into a format that will be acceptable to the offspring of Generation Snowflake.

The first five winners printed below earn £20; the remaining seven take £10 each.

Solomon Grundy
Born on Monday
Named on Tuesday
Entered into a mutually-supportive non-patriarchal non-binary relationship on Wednesday
Took ill on Thursday
Grew worse on Friday
Got better on Saturday
Tweeted inappropriately on Sunday
And that was the end of
Solomon Grundy
Frank Upton
 
Twinkle, twinkle little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Way above the world so high,
As what do you identify?
Twinkle twinkle little star,
You are just what you say you are!
 
There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.
She had so many children, but what’s it to you?
She gave them some broth without any bread,
but gluten-free, organic rice cakes instead.
Robert Schechter
 
Three visually-impaired mice,
three visually-impaired mice.
Let’s celebrate their skill at running;
let’s marvel at how they are running.
As a team they run behind the woman
who is in equal partnership with a farmer
and who removes their tails (allegedly)
with a sharp kitchen implement.
Have you ever encountered a similar sight
to these three visually-impaired mice?
D.A. Prince
 
Mary had a little lamb
Its colour an irrelevance;
To say that it was white is but
A piece of racist arrogance.







































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