In Re De Motu Ante Nos

I have been called, in the arcane language of this hoarily venerable institution [hic] to speak to the motion. Not contra the motion, a task that falls to Mr. Grinchman over there. Not for the motion, which would seem conventionable and logicafull. I am called upon to speak to the motion. So here goes:

“Motion my dear, you are a very silly motion indeed.”

Just in case any of you have dozed off, let me remind you of the motion our chair (who not having four legs and never being sat upon is not actually a chair) has just read out to us:-

This house is of the duly considered and properly and demurely debated opinion that nursery rhymes are extremely harmful to our children’s psychological and emotional health, physical constitution and safety and general culturality and thus are a deeply pernicious intrusion upon the sanctity, cohesion and robustness of our society and should for this reason be extirpated thence with all conceivable vigour and expedition.

My jaws, ladles and crinclemen [hic], there is a word I would wish to lodge in your minds……. Wait for it…… patience…… There is a word I wish I witch to lodge in you minds. That word is plasticity.

The human brain, throughout life, but no more so that in [hic] in early childhood, is an endless round of nervy speed dating. An endless round of speed dating between neurons and their silly nappies. An endless round of love affairs, alliances, conspiracies in the literal sense of whisperings together, lovehate relationships and break-ups. And into this maelstrom we, in our unbounded wisdom, chose to throw nursery rhymes of all things [hic].

Nursery rhymes that are sheer baloney. No cow ever jumped over the moon. Nobody goes to the top of a hill to fetch water. Eggs have more sense than to sit on walls. Come to that, stars do not actually twinkle.

A pocket full of posies makes no-one fall down. A black sheep grows a thinner fleece than a white one, far less than sufficeth to fill three standard wool sacks. Geese never wonder into chambers and throw old men down stairs. You can grow neither silver bells nor cockle shells in any garden, even if you eschew the sin of peat. No rider of a pony would be so daft as to name his hat “macaroni”. London bridge has not fallen down. It is almost impossible to catch and cut the tail off a mouse, even one visually impaired.

Only a fool circles round a [hic] round a mulberry bush while face washing and tooth brushing with anachronistic toothpaste. It goes on…... It gets worse…...

Uh Oh! I see that our respected chair is now fast asleep on [hic] on his four surrogate legs! My apologies to him and to any others for whom my witterings are proving boring and somniferous.

Nevertheless, age old tradition of this venerial society dictates that I must keep talking until the sand has run through the great egg timer set upon the table before me. An egg timer that would serve to hard boil the egg of an ostrich, emu, rhea or even moa were such an oeuf to hand.

Onwards!

To resume, my flaws, labiles and crinklemen. It might be argued that to expose our young to such absurdities equips them to recognise both theories of the origin and nature of the universe that we appear to inhabit which are simultaneously [hic] simultaneously attractive and indefensible, and indeed [hic]

indeed wilder and yet more absurd constipation theories. Some might accuse me that in saying this I am stealing the thunder of my veneered opponent Mr. Wonkleman, if thunder he has. That would indeed have been naughty, but it is allowed within the rules of debate of this antique society to attempt to muffle such growling of the supposed heavens, somewhat.

Ah! Goody Goody Gumdrops – a phrasing that might seem rreverent in this hallowed hall were it not for the fact that our motion of the day is the appropinqity of certain fodder for the minds of the juvenile.

Goody Goody Gumdrops – I see that the sands of time are [hic] are running dry. My apologisms. If I have bored the pants of any of you my gentle listeners, I urge you to pull them up again – we are in

mixed company.

So ‘tis time to hand over to Mr. Winchman whose onerial task it to see if he can find any substantial argumentation in my preceding oration to counter. I wish him luck. Should any remain is a state of

puzzlement after his [hic] his ill fated attempt, and any contribulatons from the floor (or indeed the ceiling), your course of action is clear. You should exit this building through the voting lobby door that has Aye in near illegible, curliqued, once gilded writing over its gnarled ancient oak lintel.

I meanwhile shall sit gratefruitly and gracefully down and finish this glass of gin……...….water I mean.

______________________________

Pssssst! Your Chairship, wakey wakey! Time to call upon Mr. Sprincleman to Responderate.

The Case Against the Motion

Members of this house, I am called to speak against the motion.

We have been subjected by my respected opponent by a scatter-gun attack lodging spurious and ill-considered critiques against a very large number of nursery rhymes. It is my contention

that each and every one of these can be countered. However it is certain that time will not allow to do so before the sand has run through King Henry’s hour glass before me. I must therefore resort to a stratagem to convince you that such rebuttals exist in all cases.

I have here a cardboard box containing no less than twenty nine sealed envelopes. Each contains the text of a different nursery rhyme and speaking notes that I will use to demonstrate

to you that, far from being harmful, that particular rhyme is beneficial for and educational of its juvenile hearers. Mr. chairman, can I ask you to select two for me to use in my subsequent answer to this motion.

Thank you.

_______________________

Ah! I see that my first chosen rhyme is “Little Bo Peep”. It would appear that I have cast my net somewhat wider than my esteemed opponent, and that the lottery I have contrived has picked

a rhyme that he did not include in his diatribe. Had he done so, it would be to be surmised that he would have criticised the young lady in question for losing her flock in the first place, and

then the rhyme itself for the lax and laissez-faire solution to the dilemma it encouraged. I shall confine my analysis to the first and commonly only used quatrain of the poem.

Particularly in the sixteenth century and wide open grazed lands where it arose, the “loss” in the sense of temporary absence of knowledge of the whereabouts of a flock was, and in places

and times remains, a common feature of shepherding. That they would spontaneously return ‘home’ at as appropriate time was a reasonable assumption. Although these ancient mammals

are equipped with neither GPS receivers nor means of picking up broadcast weather forecasts, to doubt their ability to anticipate coming inclement weather and navigate their way back to the

fold would be to do them a gross injustice.

Presumably my honoured opponent would have also poured scorn on the tautological last line of the first quatrain had the sands of the late lamented King Harry’s glass permitted. This would

have been a profound misunderstanding of modern educational theory. Unlike some smaller less complex mammals, our young are born with expansive memory and prodigious mental computational capacity but pre-loaded with virtually no informational content. In a word, they need programming, and are designed to absorb it. Howsoever, the developing and essential self-definition of the young that we call naughtiness can set up barriers to this process. Barriers that must be bypassed by guile. Thus it is that this final line slips into young minds, bypassing the natural defences, the fact that a tail of a sheep is attached to the rear of the animal. In a word, the ditty is well fit for purpose.

_______________________

Ah. I come to the second envelope. Oh yes, this is about the tale of Humpty Dumpty. If I remember aright, my esteemed opponent critiqued this superficially on grounds of plausibility.

Even allowing for shortness of time, this is lax and inadequate. The crucial point here is that one does not, or at least should not, grab a child by the ear and pour nursery rhymes down it with a funnel. One should actually talk to them!

The Humpty Dumpty tale is material for an instructive chat. Discussion of taking care of personal safety, although important, is a mere start. The plausible but unproven theory that it was a ribald reference to the fall of a great so-named gun or siege engine mounted perilously on an ill-constructed wall in the seventeenth century siege of Gloucester or possibly Colchester can smuggle an interest in history into a small mind by the back way. The alternative theory that it was ribaldry directed at Cardinal Wolsey or even the disputed King related to his girth can introduce instructive discussion of personalised criticism and fat-shaming. This can lead on to inculcating in the young mind, all within an innocuous wrapping of froth, an understanding of the limits to knowledge and an open minded scepticisms.

All that would be before the subject of the late lamented Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and his tales of Alice is introduced. This could both help the important process of introducing the child to the joys of reading (and onwards to writing) and extend to a consideration of the slippery meaning of the words we use and thus expand the mind without recourse to surgery or forceps.

_______________________

Ah. In the memorable words of the proponent of this moment, I perceive that “the sands of time run dry”. You have but my assurance that few nursery rhymes exist of the slightest pernicious

nature and that virtually all can be beneficial for children if presented appropriately. Thus I urge you to vote Nay to this motion. Thank you for the loan of your ears.

Ladies and gentlemen. Before we proceed to this evening’s debate on the appropriateness of no-platforming of any statue of a person who has had any connection whatever with the enslavement of his fellow humans, I have unfortunate information to impart and a distressing announcement to make.

Those present will recall that last weeks primary opponent of the motion concerning nursery rhymes, whose oratory was so admired and which carried the day, offered myself as chair the choice of a large number of sealed envelopes,

asking me to make a random choice of what the house was led to believe were different rhymes, each of which he implied he could defend as beneficial to the young.

==========================

Following the meeting, a member of our staff discovered that he had discarded the box and unused envelopes in the recycling bin outside our kitchen. Thinking that, since the debate was televised and achieved wide media coverage, these might have a value as historic documents, she recovered these with a view to seeing whether, in online auction or by sale to a newspaper they could augment her salary.

Imagine her surprise when, upon opening the envelopes she discovered in each two sheets of paper, distinguishable by a subtle colour difference, each being speaking notes on one of exactly the two rhymes that this gentleman’s witty speech actually referred to. In other words, the contrived apparently random selection of examples was an hoax . In view of this employees prompt disclosure of this material to us, no disciplinary action is contemplated.

The steering committee has met. Although there is nothing is our Standing Orders explicitly to forbid such an unanticipated ruse, we are of one mind that this gentleman (whose name shall henceforth never be spoken in these halls) has violated the ethos, culture and ethics of this society and should be barred from it forthwith and his

membership annulled.

Our rules dictate that he should be offered a refund of the cost of his life membership. His only, if not certainly predictable course of action would be to decline such an offer of repayment.