Poetry for a modern age

I don't know if you're a regular reader of the Daily Mail. Come to think of it, I'd rather not know. But Richard Littlejohn's column on Friday last had me in stitches.

He referred to the fact that the Government had been ordered to drop two adverts based on nursery rhymes which, in the view of the Advertising Standards Agency, had "exaggerated the risks of so-called global warming."

One of the ads, from the Department of Energy and Climate Change, went as follows:

Jack and Jill went up the hill,

To fetch a pail of water,

There was none as extreme weather due to climate change had caused a drought.

Seriously - and we, as taxpayers, footed the bill.

Sticking to the theme, Littlejohn then set about adapting several other well-known nursery rhymes to reflect "modern Britain."

Below are what I thought were the best:

The Grand old Duke of York,
He had 10,000 men.
But he told the Chilcot inquiry he would have had 20,000,
If Gordon Brown hadn't cut defence spending.


Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
So they took him to an NHS hospital,
Where he caught MRSA and died.


There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,
She had so many children by a number of absentee fathers,
So the council knocked two houses into one and bought her a plasma TV.


Hey diddle diddle

They're all on the fiddle,
They claimed it was within the rules.
Four of them had their collars felt for fraud,
But the rest ran away with the money.


Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town,
Upstairs and downstairs in his nightgown.
Trying escape the lynch mob who think he's a paedophile.
When they catch him they'll string him up, the dirty *******.


Jack Sprat would eat no fat,
His wife would eat no lean,
So social services took away their children and put them in a home.


Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard,
To get her poor doggie a bone.
When she got there,
It was groaning with oven chips, turkey twizzlers, bumper bags of crisps and lashings of fizzy drinks.
But there weren't any bones because health and safety had threatened to prosecute the butcher if he didn't stop selling them.


Hot cross buns! Hot cross buns!
Have been taken of the shelves by the diversity department,
In case they offend Muslims.


Ding dong bell,
Pussy's in the well,
Who'll pull him out?
It's no good asking one of those community support officers.

They haven't been trained for it.


Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep,

And doesn't know where to find them.
That's because the Government slaughtered them and threw their carcasses on to a bonfire during the foot and mouth panic.


Tom, Tom, the piper's son,
Stole a pig and away did run.
But he got let off with an Asbo,
And now he's doing burglary and dealing drugs.


Three blind mice, three blind mice,
See how they run, see how they run.
This ward's been crawling with mice since the NHS contracted out the cleaning.


Rub-a-dub-dub,
Three men in a tub,
And who do you think they be?
They're all consenting adults and they got a grant for it from the council.


Doctor Foster went to Gloucester,
But when he got there
He found they'd already given the job to a foreign GP who can't speak English.


Georgie Porgie,
Pudding and pie,
Kissed the girls and made them cry,
Now he's on the sexual offenders' register.

Yes, very Daily Mail - but I'll bet you still laughed.