Limericks in the News

I was pleased to learn recently that the comedian Ronnie Barker shared my views on Edward Lear’s limericks, namely that they were in need of improvement. He took matters into his own hands, and re-wrote a large portion of the poems in Lear’s Book of Nonsense. Now the edited copy is up for auction and they are expecting it to fetch £1,500 or more.

I wrote earlier about my plans to publish and program an interactive e-book featuring my own limericks. I am up to 81 now, and the Haxe programming framework is nearing* completion. I don’t suppose this recent limerick news is going to create any sort of limerick hype that I can cash in on, but it’s fun to suppose it might!

When I finally release my project it will feature such doggerel as this:

On a day when insufferably bored,
I attempted to swallow a sword.
The insertion I made
Badly twisted the blade.
Like an apple, I soon became cored.

*Where “nearing” means “movement exists”, not “ready soon”.