Dear Reader as part of our Holiday Summer Series we bring you this one for the children. To demonstrate once and for all that Passive Complicity is socially, ethically and edcatively responsible, in a post-Gonski sort of way

Rosemary the Mud Crab.

Once upon a time there was a mud- crab
The name of the mud-crab was Rosemary. You probably don’t know much about mud crabs But I’ll tell you this much, they live in mud.

Rosemary, (the mud-crab) liked living in the mud It was isolating and It made her feel secure, Because of this, she knew everything!!

But as you and I know she didn’t really, but that’s not the point either because being up to your eyes in mud is very comforting. In a muddy sort of way.

Rosemary had a tune which she hummed It went like this:

‘So safe, secure in a muddy sort of way

Keeps me happy from day to day

Stuck in the mud is the best-est place to be

Makes me feel happy, safe, muddy and free’

Rosemary also had two friends, Pebble and Sponge.

She would spend all day talking to Pebble and Sponge.

On other days she’d just not talk to anyone.

Pebble and Sponge never said anything,

Rosemary found that comforting,

Till one day something amazing happened.

I wont tell you until you turn the page.

Rosemary’s aunt Floris Fossilthwaite arrived

Floris was a Sand crab , a Sand-crab with exotic taste,

This was a disaster for……

Rosemary, Her home was threatened And why?

Cos Floris talked of other places, she’d been. Other people and suggested of the things that she’d seen. Exotic locations that boggled the mind. Of people she met and things that you find. Floris talked of parties on the costa del Sol. She talked of the cod fish “Errol’ and Bikini Atoll. She talked of the people she lived with, and those that she knew. She talked and she talked with gusto anew, She’d tell of the scandals ,the gossip the tension, When Oscar the oarfish, and Whynett the whale-shark were mentioned. And the more that she talked, and the more she described, The more that poor Rosemary began to despise. And harbouring a grudge that gnawed like a ship at its mooring, she knew deep down that her life had been utterly boring. But she couldn’t admit it and with unduly haste, She demanded Floris leave her at once from her place. So…what did Rosemary do? She enquired to an travel agent on gummy shark reef, of exotic locations that existed beneath. And with eye-wide astoundment and

trembling claws she thought of the things she’d never done before. She almost got packed, and that made her worry. She made her plans quickly, and the agent said ‘hurry’. ‘This price is a bargain, it’s the best of the season. No need to hesitate to falter or reason’.

Till she almost departed and with considerable relief

She got wind of a fracas past Tingaloo Reef. A holiday package, and quite similar plans, Went down in the arctic ‘lost with all hands’. And then as she gleaned and with worrying face, She’d discovered calamitous disasters all over the place. A whole school of fish were consumed by a whale, The more she discovered it made her grow pale. The world was a terrible, forbidding, dangerous disaster, with no turning back and no thought of hereafter. She cashed in her tickets and breathlessly got home. Safe in the security of being all alone. And happy in the knowledge that beyond the mud bank. The world was too frightful and it sizzled and stank. So that weekend she resolved on a much safer tour. Of the edge of the mudbank, where with measured ardour. She had her own little holiday underneath the old mooring. And was happy and smug and content in being boring.