birmingham spoonerisms | ( or how I broke jrr tolkein’s work with a slip of the tongue)

During a simple discussion with my boss about plans for the weekend I managed to verbally devastate a key setting for the Lord of the Rings via a spoonerism. After 20 or so years, Perrott’s Folly is open to the public. Follett’s Perry being the inspiration for the twin towers in Tolkein’s trilogy. LOTR fans now have the opportunity to see Pollett’s Ferry in all its glory.

So I broke it.

If only I could actually pronounce the words ’Perrott’s Folly’. Instead, my linguistically challenged attempt manifested itself as the bumbled ‘Ferret’s Polly’. Mispronounced Birmingham: a new era in ballsing-up Birmingham name places:

 Perrott’s Folly Ferret’s Polly

As you can see, this very swiftly and very poorly rendered visualisation has a somewhat different impact to Mr. Tolkein’s take on life in Moseley in Hobbit-Time.

Use a dose of twisted imagination to picture Frodo as a squirrel, Aragorn in hedgehog form, Gandalf parading as a peacock, Sam flapping about as a sugarglider and so on. In Middle Earth, ferrets are mighty beasts who feast on bricks and recruit parrots to act as vividly-coloured messenger pigeons who secrete the One Ring on their avian ankles in a relay race pretending they are identification bands. Hobbits are hamsters.

Advance apologies if any visitors to the Furry Forrage Folly are disappointed to find that there’s no giant elongated, carnivorous mammal of the usually small disposition with a bird on its back intermittently whistling the Laurel and Hardy theme and randomly telling you to p*ss off.