This And That

[poliphilo]

1. Ailz is watching Wallender on the BBC i-player. She calls out to tell me I have a better body than Kenneth Branagh- which is nice, . Apparently he's all doughy and white- with saggy tits.  I watched the show the other night- and can't say I noticed.

2. Odi rings. We haven't seen her since the other side of Christmas. She says Fabi has been touching his palm with his forefinger, then moving it up under his arm- which she interprets as him missing his grandad (me)  because I'm the only one who plays that game with him. You know the game I mean? You trace a circle on the child's palm, walk your fingers up the arm them tickle him, whilst reciting,
 
Round and round the garden
Like a teddy-bear
One step,
Two step,
And tickley under there.

The suspence is delicious. My dad used to play it with me. I hated it- but always wanted him to do it again.

3. More verse- from a song I used to play on my mother's wind-up gramophone.

The kings horses,
The kings men,
They marched up the road and they marched down again;
The kings horses
And the kings men.

For some reason that's going round and round my head this morning. There must be more to it, but that's all I know.

Comments

[jenny_evergreen]

I am now stuck wondering why, of all things, it's "like a teddy-bear", and betting someone somewhere forgot the original second line and stuck that one in there.

My grandmother has a similar thing in Czech, but you also touch each finger while saying something that sounds like "domadily", after the circling, before the tickling. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

As haikujaguar says (above) "tickling appears to be a universal language."

Goodness knows why it's a teddy bear. A spider would make more sense :)

[jenny_evergreen]

It certainly does! :)

*laugh* True! Oh, I bet that's it; though it was probably a three-syllable insect (I think I'd use ladybug - you call them ladybirds, yes?), and someone didn't like bugs (or the double entendre)! :)

*slaps forehead* Ladybug would wreck the rhyme, silly me, but ladybird is still viable, I think. :P

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, we call them ladybirds.

Actually, you're probably right. "Bear" was chosen for the rhyme. Nursery rhymes don't have to make a whole lot of sense.

Teddy bears were named for President Teddy Roosevelt- which would imply that the rhyme- in this form at least- is no older than the early 20th century.