Hurt feelings and potato peelings

I’ve just come across a little ditty from the Second World War, aimed at getting people to refrain from peeling their potatoes by invoking the name of Lord Woolton, the very popular Minister of Food:


Those that have the will to win
Cook potatoes in their skin
Knowing that the sight of peelings
deeply hurts Lord Woolton's feelings.

Given our cynical attitudes to contemporary politicians, it’s hard to imagine this kind of appeal to our better natures working today. But how about this one:

If you think New Labour’s bad
Gordon will be really sad.

Or perhaps this one from a few years ago:

If you don’t support the war
Tony’s feelings will be sore.

Although come to think of it, that isn’t a million miles away from how things were presented to us.

Mundane quote for the day: ‘The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes’ – Marcel Proust