A Closer Gander At Mother Goose

Deans Of London put out a series of Mother Goose rhyme books in the '70's that were gorgeously illustrated by the sisters Janet & Anne Grahame Johnstone, whom, I can only imagine from their work, were either spinsters whose biological clock had a broken alarm off switch, or they'd been manhandled at a very early age by a thuggish hairy brute whose breathe reeked of turnips and tobacco; because all of their wee lads and young men were sorta'... girls.

Their haughty androgynous beauty projected an air of narcissistic self-satisfied smugness onto their accompanying rhymes...


...which are not wanting for pedohomoprostiphelic subtext for those who can read between the lines.


The rhymes with the prettiest ladyboys tended to revolve around the same themes: currency, compensation, and performance - usually performance compensated by currency.


These overly sophisticated street "boys" of course had their own language to discretely advertise their special skill sets, thus the hitherto unheard of "street wool seller"...


...and, in all the days of Fairyland, have you ever seen a more lecherous Old King Cole!?! The way he's eyeing those pages in their tights, legs spread wide in confident expectation; I've no doubt that night involved a bowl, fiddlin', a threesome, and the making of sweet music... even, if only for some, to earn a shiny bit and stave off the executioner.


Good thing he never saw Boy Bunting here, or else he'd be out his kingdom...


...though, as his father's gone a-hunting to fetch a rabbit skin wrap, maybe not such a good thing for the Boy after all.

The few men who weren't androgitutes, were either pretty boy gigolo's preying on wealthy old women...


...or eccentrically flame-buoyant, albeit mercilessly fickle, dandiegramp's.


Because, honestly, peeved as I'd have been to have such a flawlessly tailored ensemble ruined by the rain, I would have given Glouchester a second day.