The Big Wet

Mad Teddy's web-pages

The Big Wet

When human beings committed sins
Like putting Baked Beans inside tins
And peeling small spuds and chucking out the skins,
Did God consign them to rubbish bins?

Or did He simply growl and pout,
And say: "I'll sort the buggers out!
I'll show them what I'm all about -
They'll change their ways, without a doubt!"?

And did He tell old Noah to build
A big boat, which was to be filled
With animals, so they wouldn't be killed
While floodwaters around them milled,

And take his wife and sons aboar',
Together with his daughters-in-law,
Until mankind would learn the score?
Give me a break - I've heard it all before!

Sometimes, when my Dad was in a silly mood, he'd put on a mock-serious vicar-like voice and intone the following little piece of doggerel:

"Dearly belovèd brethren,
Is it not a sin
To peel little potatoes,
And throw away the skin?"

- which no doubt is the main source of inspiration for "The Big Wet".

I've had a bit of a look around the WWW to see if I could find any other references to this. I found a few; I've included them here - the first, just as "food for thought"; the other two, basically to pay homage to the way things were said and done in a bygone era. You might lift an eyebrow; you might raise a chuckle. (But please don't try to glean anything too deep and meaningful from them regarding my world-view.)

http://www.fathom.com/feature/121696/index.html

http://www.militantesthetix.co.uk/yealm/yealm22.htm

http://www.paultomlinson.co.uk/Main_Pages/Text_Pages/Tomlinsons.htm

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Just one other thing:

If you are the sort of person who has a strong point of view one way or the other on the "creation vs. evolution debate", you may be inclined to attempt to draw some kind of conclusion regarding my beliefs from the last line of "The Big Wet".

Well, I have an open mind about it. In the absence of any way of testing the matter experimentally, I believe that this is a reasonable, scientific approach (as opposed to the unreasonable, scientistic approach of having a closed mind about it).

So there!

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UPDATE, Thursday 31st July 2008

I noticed recently that the first of those three links had stopped "working", much to my disappointment - but today, when I checked again, it was back!

While I was in the right frame of mind, I decided to see if I could find any further references to the subject, and I found three more (UPDATE, Friday, 12th June 2009: Only two now - one seems to have disappeared):

http://swallowedwhole.blog.co.uk/2007/06/10/the_text_for_today~2428393

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/NZ-MEMORIES/2008-01/1201208199

The first of those, in addition to addressing the issue of waste, also has something to add to the evolution vs. creation debate.

The second, which appears to be a discussion-type page with a strong New Zealand connection, has plenty of wry comments about potatoes and other things besides, and may cause you to smile.

If I find any more along similar lines, I'll update this page again and include the links. In the meantime, just to give you something to think about, here's a link to a Wikipedia article on the origin of the word "spud".

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