Pop Goes the Weasel: The Secret Meanings of Nursery Rhymes, by Albert Jack – review

Jack has pulled out the occasional plum in these super-footnotes to nursery rhymes, plus a few songs most children get to know. These include a crisp summary of a major parliamentarian coup in the civil war (and its resultant propaganda ditty) – the destruction of a powerful royalist cannon that had fired to lethal effect from the top of a church tower. It was called Humpty Dumpty, and crashed to the ground when its tower was destroyed. No eggs were broken until Lewis Carroll's later riff. And Jack's sequence on the plot of Oranges and Lemons — every church bell tolling so audibly in a small, walled London for those about to be executed by the headsman — is careful, although I could have done with a fact, or even possibly three, on dates of origin, printed mentions etc. Alas, that's the problem throughout: even when Jack cites names, dates and situations from history, they feel Wiki-sourced – as if he's done a shallow scratch in response to the itch of curiosity, and seldom really dug into the subject.