Announcer:

Before the days of newspapers, the events of the day were retailed by the street ballad singers. And here to sing one such eighteenth-century ditty, The Ballad of the Woggler's Mooly, is Rambling Sid Rumpo. Now, what exactly is a woggler's mooly?

Ramblin' Syd:

Well, a mooly is a sort of smoked cuttlefish of the whelk family, or a brother-in-law you might say.

Announcer:

Yes.

Ramblin' Syd:

And they were considered a great delicacy in those days. And of course they had to be woggled before you could eat 'em.

Announcer:

Yes, of course. Nowadays you can get them frozen and pre-woggled, but they don't taste the same, do they?

Ramblin' Syd:

No, no. Now this is a sad story that first appeared in 1738 on a broadsheet, and I've set it to a tune of that time which I found in my ganderbag covered in loom powder and fish paste.

Announcer:

Fish paste. Yes, what exactly is loom powder?

Ramblin' Syd:

If I started explaining that, we'd be here all night. Now, so to the song.

Joe, he was a young cordwangler,
Munging greebles he did go,
And he loved a bogler's daughter
By the name of Chiswick Flo.

Vain she was and like a grusset
Though her gander parts were fine,
But she sneered at his cordwangle
As it hung upon the line.

So he stole a woggler's mooly
For to make a wedding ring,
But the Bow Street Runners caught him
And the judge said "He will swing."

Oh, they hung him by the postern,
Nailed his mooly to the fence
For to warn all young cordwanglers
That it was a grave offence.

There's a moral to this story,
Though your cordwangle be poor,
Keep your hands off other's moolies,
For it is against the law.