In Competition No. 3211 you were invited to submit a nursery rhyme inspired by the pandemic.
When I set this challenge, I had in mind ‘Ring-a-Ring o’ Roses’, the rhyme that is said by some to date from the Great Plague of 1665 (though its origins are a subject of hot scholarly dispute).
In a medium-sized entry, Brian Murdoch, Nicholas Lee, Leslie Bresnen, David Shields and Barbara Jones caught my eye and earn honourable mentions. Equally impressive was Tom Singleton’s clever twist on the ‘Hokey-Cokey’: ‘Keep the public in, let the public out,/ In, out, in, out, you mess them all about,/ You make a slow decision, then you turn around, that’s what it’s all about… Oh, the jokey blokey! Oh, the jokey blokey! Oh, the jokey blokey! U-turn, never learns! Rah-rah-rah!’.
But the prizes go to those entries printed below, which earn their authors £30 apiece.
Blow, blow, blow your nose, queue up for vaccine, Fight your friends for toilet rolls.
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