56- Mrs Gardner Takes a Hand in the Disagreement

Jerry, at Peroaks! Sales drop down, was as sad as sad as it could be. And we did speak only to break the silence of the sea.

Very good Marvin. Now the next stanza could at Dal Campbell. All on a hot and copper sky, the bloody sun at noon. Right up above the mast did stand, no bigger than the moon. That's right. All right, could at Phillips the next stanza please.

sense of please. Oh yes. Day after day, day after day, we stuck, nor breath nor motion, as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean. Yes, that construction does seem a little peculiar to us now, I know. But after all, Samuel Taylor Coleridge did write the rhyme of the ancient Maren in 1798, and the English language

has undergone some quite drastic changes in sin. The next answer please, Cadet Dugan. Yes ma'am. Water water everywhere. And all the boards did drink. Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink. Well that's... yes Bruce.

I beg your pardon again, Mrs. Gardiner, but that's not quite correct. You're right, Bruce. It isn't exactly as the poem reads. What is the correct reading, do you know? Yes I do. The last two lines should be water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.

And that's correct. Thank you, Bruce. It's always been amazing to me that well-known passages from classic poems could be twisted and turned and changed around until they become recognisable to us only in a very different form from the original.

But perhaps we can play some of the responsibility at the doorsteps of radio comedians. They're very... Now we... Oh, the period's almost over. Well, we'll go on at the rhyme of the ancient marinade tomorrow, continuing with part the second and going on from there with the third part.