Uncle Gobb and the Plot Plot Page 7
2.A plate of spaghetti is not a plate made of spaghetti. The spaghetti is on the plate. If a plate was made of spaghetti it would be all floppy and soggy and you couldn’t wash it up later because all the spaghetti would flop around in the sink and in the end break up into little bits of spaghetti.
3.The North Pole is not a pole.
4.The South Pole is not a pole either.
5.If the South Pole was a pole, it would be really unfair for the North Pole to be NOT a pole while the South Pole was going about saying, ‘I’m a pole.’
6.There is no such thing as bedtime. If you’re a bed, it’s always bedtime. Bedtime is the time you’re a bed, which is all the time. If you throw away an old bed then it’s not bedtime anymore.
7.When you say two times two, you get four. That’s a big change. But one times one is one. Nothing’s changed. So there really isn’t much point in having one times one. It’s like saying, ‘Hey, do you know that the same is the same?’ Or, ‘Hey, you see this table? It’s a table.’ We know it’s a table! You said it was a table so it’s a table! One times one is one. OK, we know that.
8.Charles Dickens wrote a book called A Christmas Carol but it’s not about someone called Carol. It’s about someone called Scrooge. It might have been better if he had called it A Christmas Scrooge then no one would make the mistake of thinking it was about someone called Carol.
9.‘Tough’ rhymes with ‘stuff’. ‘Cough’ rhymes with ‘toff’. ‘Bough’ rhymes with ‘cow’. ‘Through’ rhymes with ‘too’. ‘Though’ rhymes with ‘toe’. That means ‘tough’, ‘cough’, ‘bough’, ‘through’ and ‘though’ don’t rhyme with each other. If you think ‘cough’ rhymes with ‘bough’ you might end up saying things like, ‘I’ve got a really bad cow,’ when you meant to say, ‘I’ve got a really bad cough.’ And that wouldn’t be true, unless as well as having a bad cough, you had a bad cow.
10.Not everything is a lizard. (Lizard wrote this one.)
PROFILES
Michael Rosen
Michael was born and brought up in a flat but this didn’t make him flat. He is not flat. He now lives in a house that isn’t a flat, and the house isn’t flat either. In fact, so far nothing in this profile of Michael Rosen is flat. Now here comes a flat bit. When Michael sings, he often sings flat. That means singing a tiny bit too low. Like when you want to go for a walk under the sofa but it’s too low. Michael has never walked under a sofa.
Neal Layton
Neal started drawing, painting and writing a long time ago. Not as long ago as the Romans. Or the Saxons. Or the Normans. The Romans, Saxons and Normans wore helmets. Neal does not wear a helmet, not even when he’s drawing, painting and writing. You could say that Neal is an artist. You could also say that because he draws he’s a drawer. The trouble with saying that, though, is that you might think he’s someone who lives in a chest of drawers. Neal does have a chest but that doesn’t mean that he’s a chest of drawers.
Make sure you haven’t missed:
Young person! Yes, you! Put this book down IMMEDIATELY and do some homework! You must NOT read about my nephew Malcolm and the city of Ponky and Genies and weasels and my DREAD SHED.
There is nothing SENSIBLE in this book!
A completely bonkers book that is not linked to at all.
Child! If you read this book then I will test you afterwards. You must answer all these questions:
1. How do I plan to get rid of my nephew Malcolm once and for all?
2. Who is Brenda the Mender?
3. Why doesn’t my Genie help me?
If you get them wrong, you must do MORE HOMEWORK.
Uncle Gobb, founder of
BLOOMSBURY CHILDREN’S BOOKS
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This electronic edition published in 2018 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Text copyright © Michael Rosen, 2018
Illustrations copyright © Neal Layton, 2018
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