Today’s word is monorchic – it’s not true about the Albert Hall.
I have only ever heard a mixed version of that song, without the Albert Hall.
But who was Colonel Bogey? And what happened to the billy goat?
(Thanks to Trevor for the scholarly angle)
The Sun seems to have introduced a variation on the Hitler song – or got it wrong.
We children of 2nd World War – UK military/RAF – families learned that the ditty went on as follows after the first line: ‘… Himler has something similar. But Poor Old Goebbels has no balls at all.’
Yes, exactly – that was what I implied. However, are you certain this version was sung during WWII? I suspect you picked it up later. The theory I encounter is that applying the ‘one ball’ to Hitler was only done after the Soviet post mortem, when the rumour came out; and the version quoted by the Sun really is the original one. I will ask my brothers when I next phone them.
The first version of Colonel Bogey I remember hearing was a different text.
I take your post-WWII generation point. But the only version I used to hear from children of UK military veterans, in Southern England in the 1950s, was a Guardian-like version which kicked off: ‘H. has only one ball. The other is in the Old Town Hall…’ Nothing about the Royal Albert Hall.
I see [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Has_Only_Got_One_Ball]Wikipedia[/url] got there before us. I second ‘the most common variant’, but I did not pick it up in the fifties or sixties.