A postscript excerpt from Richard Dawkins latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth.
I have been warned that 'All things bright and beautiful' will not necessarily strike my readers as nostalgically as it does me. It is an Anglican hymn for children written by Mrs. C. F. Alexander in 1848, comfortably extolling the beauties of nature (and, in one verse, the political status quo) with the refrain, 'The Lord Gog made them all'. It is the subject of a splendid parody written by Eric Idle and sung by the Monty Python team:
All things dull and ugly
All creatures short and squat
All things rude and nasty
The Lord God made the lot.
Each little snake that poisons
Each little wasp that stings
He made their brutish venom
He made their horrid Wings.
All things sick and cancerous
All evil great and small
All things foul and dangerous
The Lord God made them all.
Each nasty little hornet
Each beastly little squid
Who made the spiky urchin?
Who made the sharks? He did!
All Thing scabbed and ulcerous
All pox both great and small
Putrid, foul and gangrenous
The Lord God made them all.
