One day came over all goosy.
Although it seemed strange,
She got used to the change,
And by Christmas was really quite juicy.
A white cocker spaniel from Poole
Had a thing about Peter O’Toole.
When he came on the telly,
He’d roll on his belly
And do funny things to the stool.
There was a young man called Potter,
Whose girlfriend resembled an otter –
About three feet long,
Smooth fur, fairly strong:
No one quite liked to ask where he’d got her.
There was a young fellow called Owen
Who had to keep goin’ and goin’.
Psychiatrists said
Being dropped on his head
Had caused all the toin’ and froin’.
A strange man called Ron took a bet:
He’d swim three lengths without getting wet.
With commendable cool,
He emptied the pool,
Dived in, and he’s not come round yet.
There was a surveyor from Kent
Whose theodolite got rather bent.
The result you can see
On the A423,
Which never goes quite where they meant.
A boxer from Malta called Raymon
He broke both his arms
And three lucky charms –
One with his grandmother’s name on.
An aspiring young MP from Tring
Invented a very neat thing.
He created a voter,
Complete with a motor,
Which he found would support anything.
A curious young fellow named Kurt
Used to climb Alpine peaks in a skirt.
He said it felt nice
In the snow and the ice,
And it kept those below more alert.
A curious man named McGraw
Caught part of his head in a door.
When he came back next week
With his wife, who was Greek,
He found it, still there, on the floor.
There was a young fellow called Kamp
Who sunbathed in his loo with a lamp.
But a flash in the pan
Gave him more than a tan –
The result of the wires getting damp.
An elderly lady from Fleet
Once scored a goal with both feet,
And, despite her great age,
Earns a reasonable wage
As reserve centre forward for Crete.
A butcher’s assistant called Phil
He tried to cut meat
Using only his feet
But the sight made the customers ill.
A dog from Sri Lanka called Patch
Sat down on a tree stump to scratch;
But he found that the flea,
Was not one, but three,
And the first of a very large batch.
There was a young man from the Cape
Who swallowed his hat for a jape.
It was easy to tell
Why he felt so unwell
By his stomach’s extraordinary shape.
A retired metal-worker called Noades
Used to solve little problems for toads,
Like where to jump next,
Or a hard Latin text,
Or how to avoid major roads.
A man on a length of elastic
Decided to do something drastic.
When he jumped off the cliff he
Came back in a jiffy,
And screamed to his friends, ‘It’s fantastic!’
A sensitive boy named McKay
Let out the most terrible cry
When he found something shocking
Inside of his stocking
That was slimy and green and could fly.
A little boy spied Santa Claus
After hours in the grotto
He’d got a bit blotto,
And was heading, quite fast, for the doors.
There once was an author called Palin,
For whom limericks seemed just plain sailin’,
He wrote ninety-four*
But when asked for one more,
He just ran down the street screaming, ‘Leave me alone!’
(Author’s note: One hundred and fifty-five, actually, but you try and rhyme that with ‘more’!)
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Epub ISBN: 9781473538436
Version 1.0
Copyright © Michael Palin 1985, 2016
Illustrations © Tony Ross 1985, 2016
Michael Palin has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Many of the limericks in this collection first appeared in Michael Palin’s Limericks.
First edition published by Hutchinson in 1985
This edition published by Random House Books in 2016
Random House Books
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London, SW1V 2SA
www.penguin.co.uk
Random House Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781847947994