SOME while ago, CBeebies rewrote the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme so that ‘all the king’s horses and all the king’s men/ Made Humpty happy again’.
Let’s just look at what really happened.
Humpty, a sort of egg-man, fell off the wall and broke into bits.
The cavalry found itself incapable of putting him back together again.
Tragedy though this is, it is nevertheless incontrovertibly how the nursery rhyme goes.
Nobody at the BBC has the right to make it more palatable for sensitive youngsters.
A BBC spokeswoman at the time denied anything was amiss.
“We play nursery rhymes with their original lyrics all the time and the small change to Humpty Dumpty was done for no other reason than being creative and entertaining.”
Labour MP Tom Harris was furious.
He said he’d seen Little Miss Muffett changed on the channel, so that she made friends with the spider instead of running away.
Where will it all end?
Rock a-bye baby will not be allowed to be in the tree top, that’s for sure, when the nanny-state agents get their carefully disinfected hands on it.
More likely it will be in a cradle supported in an ambient temperature nursery – and the baby will fall gently into the rescuing arms of a firefighter and onwards and upwards into a loving and responsible social worker’s care.
Those who sneeze in the ring-a-roses saga will be issued with nasal wipes and will fall on to thoughtfully positioned, health and safety approved bean bags.
The three little pigs will invite the wolf to eat vegetarian pizza with them.
London Bridge will be shored up using wood from sustainable forests, Jack and Jill will visit a government approved jeweller to get that crown properly mended – none of the vinegar and brown paper nonsense – and Baby Bunting will cry no more, especially when wrapped in the synthetic rabbit skin its father will have purchased at an environmentally-friendly online store.
