Gentleman's Dictionary and Usage

As performed by Hugh Laurie in 'Jeeves and Wooster' or originally by Jack Hylton and his orchestra

Now there's a good ship,
H.M.S. Cock-Robin.
On her home trip,
Up and down she's bobbin'
So the crew's pretty tough.
The weather's so rough.
They're all fed up and say
That they've had more than enough.

I've got a brother
He's an able seaman
And they call him Redhead Tom

I wire to say I'll meet you
And with your pals I'll treat you
So who do you think I've had a message from?

Forty-seven ginger-headed sailors
Coming home across the briney sea
When the anchor's weighed
And the jouney's made
Then they'll start the party
With a heave-ho, me-hearty

When there's Forty-seven ginger-headed sailors
You can bet you're going to hear them when they hail us
And as they step ashore
There'll be one mighty roar
For forty-seven ginger-headed sailors!

An old maid down in Devon
Said my idea of heaven
Is forty-seven ginger-headed sailors!

Posted by T at 03:43 PM | Permalink

OED A young person eager for radical change to the established order.

For establish order read the wearing of casual clothes

Posted by S at 08:36 PM | Permalink

It is a strange phenomenon of London life that wealthy men seem to find beautiful wives, impregnate them and then return to work leaving them to lurk in pouting herds around Primrose and Notting Hills.

Nobody is quite sure why this happens but the concentrations of quite stunning looking women around yoga classes, coffee houses and the kind of shops that sell the sort of expensive fripperies that no sane person could want has not gone unremarked among the gentlemen of the Metropolis.

So what if they're carrying somebody else's offspring and are, therefore, no longer breeding targets for the alpha male? We have evolved from the base ape. I don't have to actually own a Picasso (although obviously I do - several in fact) to enjoy going to a gallery.

Cruising the hills on a Summer afternoon and appreciating the YMs even though you can't have them is the the kind of rarified and purely aesthetic pursuit that marks a True Gentleman.

Think of it as a contemporary take on the convention of Courtly Love

Posted by T at 08:49 PM | Permalink

When poor people, or 'scratchers' (see separate entry) have trouble paying their exorbitant electricity, or 'leccy,' bills the capitalist thieves at the leccy companies give them electricity meters that have to be fed fifty pence pieces at the rate of several an hour, thus avoiding bills altogether and giving rise to the much uttered phrase 'Anyone got a 50p for the meter?'

It also makes for hilarity if the 50p runs out and you are plunged into darkness, say when carrying a scalding hot vat of oil through a room full of randomly discarded roller skates.

Posted by S at 08:50 PM | Permalink