[Orwn Acra]

On the subject of babies and plugholes, John Whitworth has this one:

Bathwater Chorus

I know a rule that any fool
Should treat as more than maybe.
When you throw out the bathwater
You don't throw out the baby.

So listen up, my buttercup,
Pin back those hairy lugholes --
This rule of thumb, my sugarplumb:
Keep infants out of plugholes!
They gurgle and they gargle so
As out the liquid swishes.
Then horrorshow! Away they go
And mingle with the fishes!
So here's a song that can't be wrong
However bad the day be.
When you throw out the bathwater
You don't throw out the baby.

Or - down the pipe and down the drain
And down the Swanee River,
With joyous squawks they bob like corks
Across the sea forever.
Alas, alack, they won't come back,
Those dainty little putti.
They're all the same, the only game
They know's cosi fan tutti.
This little verse is true and terse
And clear as any gaby.
When you throw out the bathwater,
When you throw out the bathwater,
You're up the spout without a doubt
If you throw out -- so don't throw out,
NO, DON'T THROW OUT THE BABY!

[John Whitworth]

The plughole song (not mine - thank you Orwn) has a tune. I think it was sung on the Music Halls (that's vaudeville to you yanks). The last liner should read:

'Not LORST, but gorn before!' or possibly 'Not LAWST but gawn before!'

Cocknet 'skellington' whymes with wellington. Something ought to be done with that. A translation of Rimbaud into cockney perhaps? Les squelletes de Saladin = Saladin's skellingtons

[Petra Norr]

Glad you and your grandson liked the poem, Birthe!
I should have said before that "Dahn the Plug'ole" was written by that most profilic of poets, Anonymous. I have the cockney version in my "Rattle Bag", which is an anthology edited by Heaney and Hughes. And John, you're quite right -- it's should be "lorst", at least that's what "The Rattle Bag" has.