Origins: Arabella Shufflebottom

Subject: Origins: Arabella Shufflebottom
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 30 Aug 26 - 02:00 PM

this just came into my head- nothing on Mudcat or Google-

'My girlfriend's name is Arabella Shufflebottom
She comes down from Stoke on Trent
When she goes out riding on her bicycle
She always gets her handlebars bent'

to a light classical melody I can't place!

Subject: RE: Origins: Arabella Shufflebottom
From: cnd
Date: 30 Aug 26 - 06:23 PM

A similar verse from this thread led me to the thread on Ella Wheeler Waterbottle, where MGM Lion recalled it was from "Kenneth Horne and Richard Murdoch's nonsense song," to the tune of Luigini's Ballet Egyptien.

That enough to get you started?

Subject: RE: Origins: Arabella Shufflebottom
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 31 Aug 26 - 10:09 AM

sounds close & maybe it WAS the Round the Horne crowd?- just checked the music and you're spot on, cnd- did I mishear the words in 1968 - seems so & maybe that'all there is!

Subject: RE: Origins: Arabella Shufflebottom
From: Jack Horntip
Date: 31 Aug 26 - 06:17 PM

Richard Murdoch's "Ballet Egyptien" parody - extract as heard on the Radio tribute.

My aunt's name is Ella Wheeler Waterbutt,*
And she lives down in Burton-on-Trent.
When she goes out shopping on her bicycle
She always gets her handlebars bent.
Steak and kidney, seven and a tanner's worth,
A little bit of chicken and a marlin-spike.
Hutch and Ted Ray at the Metropolitan
Are doing even better than at Heckmondwyke.
Sabotage at Poole in Dorset,
Camouflage my uncle's corset ...
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
Saturday, Sunday, Monday ...
Plastic pyjamas,
Are never quite what they ought to be.
Gentlemen farmers,
Are never quite what they're taught to be.
Seventeen fiddles in a second-hand suitcase
Semolina pudding in a very old flute-case
Cabinet Ministers shout
"What a very silly song" - I'm out!

* or 'Waterbottle'. A reference to the authoress of “Poems of Passion”, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, of course.

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