articles • (as in “You two articles get in here now!”) A term of disdain used by so-called grown-ups. Because of their disdain of you they no longer see you as a human being but merely as a thing, an article.
backup dancer • This is like a backup singer, only it is dancing. At the back. Do you get it?
balaclava • This is from the Crimean War when our great-great-grannies spent all their time knitting hats to keep the English soldiers warm in the very, very cold Baltic. A balaclava covers everything apart from your eyes. It is like a big sock with a hole in it. Which just goes to show what really crap knitters our great-great-grannies were.
bangers • Firecrackers. Fireworks that just explode with a big bang. That’s it. No pretty whooshing or stars or rocketing up into the sky. Bangers just bang. Boy fireworks. Boys are truly weird.
Blimey O’Reilly • (as in “Blimey O’Reilly’s trousers”) This is an Irish expression of disbelief and shock. Maybe Blimey O’Reilly was a famous Irish bloke who had extravagantly big trousers. We may never know the truth. The fact is, whoever he is, what you need to know is that a) it’s Irish and b) it is Irish. I rest my case.
blodge • Biology. Like geoggers—geography—or Froggie—French.
Boots • A large drugstore chain selling mostly cosmetics.
David Ginola • A spectacularly good-looking French football player who plays in England. He has very long hair that he conditions and swishes round. He also carries a handbag. In any other circumstances he would definitely be a homosexualist. However, we must remember he is French.
DIY • Quite literally “Do It Yourself!” Rude when you think about it. Instead of getting someone competent to do things around the house (you know, like a trained electrician or a builder or a plumber), some vatis choose to DIY. Always with disastrous results. (For example, my bedroom ceiling has footprints in it because my vati decided he would go up on the roof and replace a few tiles. Hopeless.)
duffing up • Duffing up is the female equivalent of beating up. It is not so violent and usually involves a lot of pushing with the occasional pinch.
Durex • Oh do I really have to go into this? Honestly, everyone is OBSESSED with sex. A Durex is a…oh, you know. Yes, you do. It’s a thingy. A boy thingy. Now do you get it? Oh very well, you asked me…a Durex is a condom. See. I knew you wouldn’t like it if I told you.
fringe • Goofy short bit of hair that comes down to your eyebrows. Someone told me that American-type people call them “bangs” but this is so ridiculously strange that it’s not worth thinking about. Some people can look very stylish with a fringe (i.e., me) while others look goofy (Jas). The Beatles started it apparently. One of them had a German girlfriend, and she cut their hair with a pudding bowl and the rest is history.
ginger nob • Someone with red hair. Red hair in England is a sign of lunacy. This stems from Henry VIII, who had red hair and also cut people’s heads off. A lot. For a laugh.
goosegog • Gooseberry. I know you are looking all quizzical now. OK. If there are two people and they want to snog and you keep hanging about saying “Do you fancy some chewing gum?” or “Have you seen my interesting new socks?” you are a gooseberry. Or for short a goosegog, i.e., someone who nobody wants around.
goss • Gossip. Not to be confused with guss (gusset).
gyp • Who knows what this means? It’s just something you say, like “Gadzooks!” Essentially gyp means “a pain.” Elvis Attwood says I give him gyp. He also says his old war wound gives him gyp as well.
haggis • Something else that the Jock McThicks have made up to horrify the civilized world. It is a pudding made out of stuffed sheep’s stomach.
Irn-bru • Pronounced “iron broo.”
A disgusting drink made from sugar and old socks. Probably. People in Och Aye land think it is yummy scrumbos.
Jammy Dodger • Biscuit with jam in it. Very nutritious (ish).
Jock McThick • Is a generic term for anyone from Scot land that you can’t be bothered to find out the name of. Can also be called Jock McTavish. Ditto French people (Jacques Lefrog) or German (Hans Lederhosen).
Kiwi-a-gogo land • New Zealand. “A-gogo land” can be used to liven up the otherwise really boring names of other countries. America, for instance, is Hamburger-a-gogo land. Mexico is Mariachi-a-gogo land and France is Frogs’-legs-a-gogo land. This is from that very famous joke told every Christmas by the elderly mad (Grandad). Oh, very well, I’ll tell you it.
A man goes into a French restaurant and says to the French waiter, “Have you got frogs’ legs?”
The waiter says, “Oui, monsieur.”
And the man says, “Well, hop off and get me a sandwich then.”
This should give you some idea of what our Christmases are like.
la mouche • Or possibly le mouche. This, as everyone who is très bon at le français (i.e., moi) knows, means “the fly.”
loo • Lavatory. In America they say “rest room,” which is funny, as I never feel like having a rest when I go to the lavatory.
lurgy • Is when you feel icky-poo. Please tell me that you know what icky-poo means. Oh good Lord. It means “poorly.” Lurgy is like a bug. An illness bug. Ergo, tummy lurgy = stomach bug.
milky pops • A hot milk drink usually drunk by children to calm them down at night. You’d have to give it intravenously to Libby to calm her down. Or alternatively make the hot drink, put it in Libby’s cup and then hit her over the head with it.
Miss Selfridge • A store where teenage girls go and buy clothes.
naff • Unbearably and embarrassingly out of fashion and nerdy. Naff things are: Parents dancing to “modern” music, blue eyeshadow, blokes who wear socks with sandals, pigtails. You know what I mean.
nervy spaz • Nervous spasm. Nearly the same as a nervy b. (nervous breakdown) or an F.T. (funny turn), only more spectacular on the physical side.
nippy noodles • Instead of saying “Good heavens, it’s quite cold this morning,” you say “Cor—nippy noodles!!” English is an exciting and growing language. It is. Believe me. Just leave it at that. Accept it.
nuddy-pants • Quite literally nude-colored pants, and you know what nude-colored pants are? They are no pants. So if you are in your nuddy-pants you are in your no pants, i.e., you are naked.
Number 10 • Number 10 Downing Street in London, where the Prime Minister lolls around.
nunga-nungas • Basoomas. Girl’s breasty business. Ellen’s brother calls them nunga-nungas because he says that if you get hold of a girl’s breast and pull it out and then let it go—it goes nunga-nunga-nunga. As I have said many, many times with great wisdomosity, there is something really wrong with boys.
Och Aye land • Scotland. Land of the Braves. Or is that Indiana? I don’t know, and I know I should because we are, after all, all human beings under our skins. But I still don’t care.
Pantalitzer • A terrifying Czech-made doll that sadistic parents (my vati) buy for their children, presumably to teach them early on about the horror of life. Essentially the Pantalitzer doll has a weird plastic face with a horrible fixed smile. The rest of Pantalitzer is a sort of cloth bag with hard plastic hands on each side like steel forks.
I don’t know if I have mentioned this before, but I am not reassured that Eastern Europeans really know how to have a laugh.
pantibus • Latin for pants. Possibly. Who cares? It is a dead language. Who is going to complain if it isn’t Latin for pants—Romulus and Remus?
pensioner • In England we give very old people some money so that they can buy thick spectacles and snug incontinent pants and biscuits. This is called their pension money.
piggies • Pigtails. Or “bunches,” I think you call them. Like two little side ponytails in your hair. Only we think they look like pigtails. English people are obsessed with pigs; that is our strange beauty.
pingy pongoes • A very bad smell. Usually to do with farting.
porkies • Amusing (ish) Cockney rhyming slang. Pork pies = lies. Which is of course shortened to porkies. Oh, that isn’t shorter, is it? Well, you can’t have everything.
prat • A prat is a gormless oik. You make a prat of yourself by mistakenly putting both legs down one knicker leg or by playing air guitar at pop concerts.
pushbike • A pedal cycle, bicycle. Nothing will make me go on a bicycle again since my skirt got caught in the spokes of the back wheel and my panties were exposed.
rate • To fancy someone. Like I fancy (or rate) the Sex God. And I certainly do fancy the SG as anyone with the brains of an earwig (i.e., not Jas) would know by now. Phew—even writing about him in the glossary has made me go all jelloid. And stupidoid.
R.E. • Religious education.
Sellotape • Sellotape is a clear sticky tape. Usually used for sticking bits of paper to other bits of paper but can be used for sticking hair down to make it flat. (Once I used it for sticking Jas’s mouth shut when she had hiccups. I thought it might cure them. It didn’t, but it was quite funny, anyway.)
snogging • Kissing.
soldiers • Toast cut into narrow strips and then dipped into your boiled egg. It’s an Olde-English-nursery-rhyme thing. Before you ask, no, toast dipped in egg does not look like a soldier. Obviously. Soldiers are not generally an inch high and covered in butter. As I have told you, we English are a mystery even to ourselves.
sporrans • Ah, I’m glad you asked me about this because it lets me illustrate my huge knowledgosity about Och Aye land. Sporrans are bits of old sheep that Scotsmen wear over their kilts, at the front, like little furry aprons. Please don’t ask me why. I feel a nervy spaz coming on.
swot • A person who has no life and as a substitute has to read books and learn things for school. Also anyone who does their homework on time.
tart • A girl who is a bit on the common side. This is a tricky one, actually, because if I wear a very short skirt I am cool and sexy. However, if Jackie Bummer wears a short skirt it is a) a crime against humanity and b) tarty.
tosser • A special kind of prat. The other way of putting this is “wanker” or “monkey spanker.”
weedy • Like a weed. You know like weeds in a garden. Those useless spindly annoying things that get in the way of flowers. A weedy person is like that, useless, spindly and annoying (although obviously not green).
whelk boy • A whelk is a horrible shellfish thing that only the truly mad eat. Slimy and mucuslike. Whelk boy is a boy who kisses like a whelk, i.e., a slimy mucus kisser. Erlack a pongoes.