Whoever wrote that sort of stuff for publication in the 20th Century? I am surprised it passed the Medieval Censor, let alone the Puritan Press Complaints Commission. It would probably have impressed the Reformation poetasters and their lap-smacking spaniels.
Anyway, yesterday my baby made sixteen.
A bit of a milestone for me: she, of course, was nonplussed. We journeyed into lands long forgotten: the highest bits of Holborn and the Greekest bits of Soho. HoHo! A splendid dim sum followed by a little bit of meeja culcha in the smoke. My daughter being by far the best behaved of the agglomerate.
Why did no-one think that a Beatle could be bad? They always seemed to be the acceptable face of the Sixties, but they were just like the rest. Macca welcomes Jimi to England with a giant joint; Lennon becomes Christ Almighty; George becomes Harry. And then Ringo became Paedo!
Of course, in 1960, when the song was written, it was acceptable: they were still hanging niggers for riding on buses in those days, so a little bit of what you fancy was sauce for the gander. But in the 1970s in England one thought that things had moved on apace. Obviously not! And by the news that occasionally erupts in the Sunday papers from the wilds of Wight and Durham, the evil is manifested only when nothing can be traced, or proven. Probably the song is a karaoke favourite in mid-Wales, Lincolnshire and Norfolk. If they have karaoke there, yet.
I should know: in my village they had a saying about age and bleeding, and I learned it in the 1970s! Vive le Roi, Henri VIII!!
Perhaps the kindest note should be that the composers of this teenage lust were also responsible for the Disney classic 'It's A Small World After All', or whatever it's called. Bloody thing seems to be played at every fairground, let alone the looney bins that that Walt erects around the globe.
On second thoughts....'small' could be 'young'? A libel notice is in the post, so I must dash!
Back Off, Boogaloo!
(Study hint: Richard Starkey and Thomas The Tank Engine, to whom I shall return)
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