The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 14.0241  Tuesday, 11 February 2003

From:           Gabriel Egan <
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Date:           Saturday, 8 Feb 2003 11:15:40 -0000
Subject: 14.0226 Re: Worker
Comment:        Re: SHK 14.0226 Re: Worker

Many thanks to everyone who provided the information about the song 'The
Thing-ummy-bob' sung (separately) by Arthur Askey and Gracie Fields.

John W. Kennedy's information about Toshiba's version of the song was
especially useful. In their ad the female worker is Japanese, the
product is a part for Nicam TVs, and the ending changes from "...that
makes the thing that's going to win the war" to "....that makes the
thing that's going to make some more".

Toshiba's worker is considerable less alienated that the original's:
it's a "ticklish job" to make their Thing-ummy-bob "when you find out
was it's for".  (Fields and Askey, of course, think it ticklish "when
you don't know what it's for".)

Gabriel Egan

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