When is Page 123 not Page 123?

Answer: when you read the unstructured thoughts of a short fat bearded bald bloke! As a few others just left comments on Gottle’s latest blog, despite his explicit instructions, I thought I would go the whole hog and write a blog as directed by that fine chap. Actually, I wish I hadn’t used the hog saying (did you know, by the way, that it originates from the fact that ‘hog’ used to be slang for a shilling and ‘going the whole hog’ meant spending the shilling all in one go?); it brings back painful memories – we could almost have revived the last real one I encountered so it could sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ with the rest of the pub. Fortunately, we ate it before it could get a foothold on the edge of the spit. Anyway, I digress. The nearest book to me when I read Gottle’s blog was called “A Thousand And One Limericks”, which is a book containing, er, a thousand and one limericks. I like limericks (did you know that?) and I treated myself to it a couple of weeks ago. I duly turned to Page 123 and then found myself in a quandary. Upon the page were three limericks (actually, they’re still there) and the aforementioned instructions clearly state that you must identify the fifth sentence on the page. Now, the question is, is each line of a limerick a sentence, or is the whole limerick one sentence? I favour the latter, unless the nature of the verse requires appropriate punctuation, in which case, it could be more than one sentence. So, armed with this theory, I counted the sentences on the page and have concluded that the first limerick is one sentence, the second consists of two, and the third also one. Can you see where this is going? No, nor can I. Well, if there isn’t a rule about a page not having five sentences, there should be. Amazingly, the fifth sentence on Page 123 of my nearest book is actually on Page 124! This could affect the time/space continuum, as you might imagine. Still, undaunted by this potential threat to life and limb, I reproduce here the fifth sentence on Page 123 (*coughfirstsentenceonpage124*): A minister up in Vermont Keeps a goldfish alive in the font; When he dips the babes in, It tickles their skin, Which is all that the innocents want Isn’t that nice?