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From: green@phx.mcd.mot.com (Jim Greenfield) Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett Subject: hedgehog Date: 4 May 92 21:07:28 GMT Organization: Motorola Computer Group, Tempe, Az.

Maybe there already is a hedgehog song. But just in case there isn't, here is one.

The hedgehog can never be buggered at all, Unlike your sheep or your goat. To start with, the varmint is too blasted small, And then there's its prickley coat.

The hedgehog can never be buggered at all, There is no way to get in. It rolls itself up in a prickley ball, And covers its arse with its chin.

The hedgehog can never be buggered at all, No matter it's night or it's day. It will not reply to your beckon or call, But rolls itself out of your way.

The hedgehog what meets with a hedge-sow he likes, She lists up her tail to wiggle it. They carefully lines up the both sets of spikes, Nor else there won't be no hedge-piglets.

From ajn@physics.wm.edu Fri May 8 11:49:05 1992 From: ajn@physics.wm.edu (Alastair Neil) Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett Subject: Re: hedgehog Date: 5 May 92 01:08:55 GMT Reply-To: ajn@physics.wm.edu Organization: Rio de Caca Illuminati Nntp-Posting-Host: physics.wm.edu

how about:

you could try on a cat taped down to a mat, or a giraffe with a stool oh so tall. And friendly young horses are glad to be noticed, as long as they're locked in their stall.

Bats and some rats, there's no challege in that and dogs always run to my call. Apes are most willin' for a thrupence or shillin' But a hedgehog can never be buggered at all No a hedgehog can neeeverrr be buggered at all...

More verses please!

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+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |..Alastair Neil................................| | |..(804)-221-3533..[ajn@physics.wm.edu].........| None Shall Sleep | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

From gwc@root.co.uk Sat Aug 8 23:16:57 1992 From: gwc@root.co.uk (Geoff Clare) Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett Subject: The Hedgehog Song Date: 4 Aug 92 18:11:25 GMT Organization: UniSoft Ltd., London, England

Here is the version I remember. I learned this in the Venture Scouts about fifteen years ago.

The Hedgehog Song

In the process of civilisation From anthropoid ape down to man, It is generally held that the Navy Has buggered whatever it can. But recent extensive researches, By Darwin and Huxley and Ball, Have conclusively shown that the hedgehog Has hardly been buggered at all.

I therefore believe my conclusion Is incontrovertibly shown: That comparative safety on ship-board Is enjoyed by the hedgehog alone. Why haven't they done it at Spithead, As they've done it at Harvard and Yale, And also at Oxford and Cambridge, By shaving the spines off its tail?

I hope it lived up to expectations! -- Geoff Clare <gwc@root.co.uk> (USA UUCP-only mailers: ...!uunet!root.co.uk!gwc) UniSoft Limited, London, England. Tel: +44 71 729 3773 Fax: +44 71 729 3273

From tpratchett@cix.compulink.co.uk Fri Aug 14 08:53:27 1992 From: tpratchett@cix.compulink.co.uk (Terry Pratchett) Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett Subject: Hedgehog Song Date: 6 Aug 92 15:15:28 GMT Reply-To: tpratchett@cix.compulink.co.uk Cc: tpratchett@cix.compulink.co.uk

Hooray...I've just sent of the MS of Johnny and the Dead to my editor so's she can get comments to me to work on over Worldcon, which means technically I've got nothing to do today...

...except consider the Hedgehog Song.

I was sufficiently intrigued to contact the aforesaid Oxford don, who was not at all abashed about it, and he vouchsafed as follows:

The four lines...

... recent extensive researches, By Darwin and Huxley and Ball, Have conclusively shown that the hedgehog Has hardly been buggered at all.

or something very similar featured in a rhyme 'in his youth' (he's in his 70s) specifically about Oxford and the sex life of its academic inhabitants. He recalls no Naval connotations.

The earlier verse about the Sphinx is, it is suggested, an entirely seperate song which has got added because of the identical metre and, um, similar content. I'm inclined to agree, because when I started out on newpapers in the 60s there was a chief sub-editor who quoted the lines 'Which accounts for the hump on the camel' etc as a kind of punchline to just about any comment.

The suggestion is that the quatrain which appears in all versions is a kind of folk module, expressing as it does an important truth, and can be adapted to suit any circumstances.

So there it is. I'm adamant that there is a certain almost inevitable cadence about the phrase, that I've never been a student at Oxford and had as little to do with rugby as possible....but since the relevant bit is clearly public domain, I can't be buggered to worry about it.

This probably is a good time to raise the 'lonesome valley/lonesome desert' lines from SMALL GODS, with apologies to you who, because of finance, heel-dragging by publishers or because you threw all that tea in the harbour, haven't read it yet. Yes, I know variants of the song have turned up on various folk/country/spiritual albums over the last forty years, but some American friends tracked variations of it back to the last century and the anonymous mists of folk Christianity. So I used it, like everyone else has done. Like Lord of the Dance, it's one of those songs that transcend a specific religion -- and also a very attractive use of language.

Terry