Nanny is clearly feeling a little bored with life at the moment; she has commissioned, at great expense to her charges (that’s you and me folks!), a study into violence in nursery rhymes.
The study, carried out by the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, found that the frequency of nursery rhyme violence was more than 10 times greater than in programmes shown on TV before the watershed.
The study focussed on 25 popular rhymes, including; Humpty Dumpty and Jack and Jill.
The scenes of violence included:
- Humpty Dumpty being hurt in a fall
- Jack and Jill tumbling down a hillside
- Simple Simon being thrown to ground by a cow
- Rock a bye baby crashing to earth, as the cradle falls (wouldn’t that be covered under a manufacturer’s warranty or something?)
Nanny will therefore be decreeing that the current nursery rhymes are unsuitable for children, and ban them. She will then issue new, “sanitised”, rhymes that are less harmful to young minds.
As you all know, this site is happy to co-operate with Nanny in any way.
Therefore, I am launching a special competition; whereby visitors to www.nannyknowsbest.com can write their own Nanny style “sanitised” nursery rhymes.
These new “sanitised” rhymes can be based on traditional ones, or be entirely “free form”.
Please submit your entries to me, marking them for the attention of the Rhyme Sanitation Department. The winners will earn the kudos, and “notoriety”, of having their names and creations published on this site.
Good luck!
Rock-a-bye, baby,
ReplyDeleteIn one of the sustainable forest's tree's above average,
When the wind blows, in addition to powering affordable key workers' homes across the Welsh EU region,
The cradle will rock.
When the bough breaks,
The cradle will fall,
And down will come baby,
Thus prompting a full and frank report by the Health and Safety Executive into the actions of Forest Enterprise which results in a case of corporate manslaughter.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteHumpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
ReplyDelete(But only after his employer had carried out a thorough risk assessment)
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,
(No win, no fee solicitor called, Health and Safety close business, family demand public inquiry)
All the King's horses and all the King's men were either in Iraq or their regiments were being amalgamated,
So grief consellor puts Humpty together again
(But only after weekly conselling for five years)
Should also have mentioned that far worse than the violence in nursery rhymes is their sexual imagery.
ReplyDelete