AASLEAGH (n.)

     A liqeur made only for drinking at the end of a revoltingly long bottle
party when all the drinkable drink has been drunk.

ABERBEEG (vb.)

     Of amateur actors, to adopt a Mexican accent  when called upon  to play
any variety of foreigner  (except Pakistanis -  from whom  a Welsh accent is
considered sufficient).

ABERCRAVE (vb.)

     To strongly  desire  to swing from the pole on  the rear footplate of a
bus.

ABERYSTWYTH (n.)

     A nostalgic yearning which  is  in  itself more pleasant than the thing
being yearned for.

ABILENE (adj.)

     Descriptive of the pleasing coolness on the reverse side of the pillow.

ABINGER (n.)

     One who washes  up everything except the  frying pan, the cheese grater
and the saucepan which the chocolate sauce has been made in.

ABOYNE (vb.)

     To beat an  expert at a  game of  skill by  playing so appallingly that
none of his clever tactics or strategies are of any use to him.

ACLE (n.)

     The rouge pin which shirtmakers conceal  in the most improbable fold of
a new shirt. Its function is to stab you when you don the garment.

ADLESTROP (n.)

     That part of a suitcase which is designed to get snarled up on conveyor
belts at airports. Some of the more modern adlestrop designs have  a special
'quick release'  feature which  enables the case to flip open  at this point
and fling your underclothes into the conveyor belt's gearing mechanism.

ADRIGOLE (n.)

     The  centrepiece of a merry-go-round on  which the man with the tickets
stands unnervingly still.

AFFCOT (n.)

     The sort of fart you hope people will talk after.

AFFPUDDLE (n.)

     A puddle which is hidden under a pivoted  paving stone.  You  only know
it's there when you step on the paving stone and the  puddle  shoots up your
leg.

AGGLETHORPE (n.)

     A dispute between two pooves in a boutique.

AHENNY (adj.)

     The way people stand when examining other people's bookshelves.

AIGBURTH (n.)

     Any piece of readily identifiable anatomy found amongst cooked meat.

AINDERBY QUERNHOW (n.)

     One who continually bemoans the 'loss' of the word 'gay' to the English
language,  even  though they had never used the word in any  context  at all
until they started complaining that they couldn't use it any more.

AINDERBY STEEPLE (n.)

     One who asks you a question with the apparent motive of wanting to hear
your answer, but who cuts short your opening sentence by leaning forward and
saying 'and I'll tell you  why I ask...'  and  then talking  solidly for the
next hour.

AINSWORTH (n.)

     The  length of  time  it takes to get served in a camera  shop.  Hence,
also, how long  we will  have to wait for the abolition of income tax or the
Second Coming.

AIRD OF SLEAT (n. archaic)

     Ancient Scottish curse placed  from  afar  on the stretch  of land  now
occupided by Heathrow Airport.

AITH (n.)

     The single bristle that sticks out sideways on a cheap paintbrush.

ALBUQUERQUE (n.)

     A shapeless squiggle which is utterly unlike your normal signature, but
which  is, nevertheless, all you are able  to produce when asked formally to
identify yourself.
     Muslims,  whose  religion forbids  the  making  of  graven  images, use
albuquerques to decorate their towels, menu cards and pyjamas.

ALDCLUNE (n.)

     One who collects ten-year-old telephone directories.

ALLTAMI (n.)

     The ancient art of being able to balance the hot and cold shower taps.

AMBLESIDE (n.)

     A talk given about  the Facts of  Life  by a  father to  his son whilst
walking in the garden on a Sunday afternoon.

AMERSHAM (n.)

     The sneeze  which  tickles but never comes. (Thought to derive from the
Metropolitan  Line  tube station of the same  name  where the  rails  always
rattle but the train never arrives.)

AMLWCH (n.)

     A  British  Rail sandwich  which has  been kept soft by  being regulary
washed and resealed in clingfilm.

ARAGLIN (n. archaic)

     A  medieval practical joke played by young squires on a knight aspirant
the afternoon he is due  to start  his vigil. As the  knight arrives  at the
castle  the squires  attempt to raise the drawbridge  very suddenly  as  the
knight and his charger step on to it.

ARDCRONY (n.)

     A remote acquaintance passed  off as  'a very good friend of  mine'  by
someone tring to impress people.

ARDSCALPSIE (n.)

     Excuse made by rural Welsh hairdresser  for completely  massacring your
hair.

ARDSCULL (n.)

     Excuse  made by  rural  Welsh hairdresser for  deep wounds inflicted on
your scalp in an  attempt  to  rectify  whatever  it  was that  induced  the
ardscalpsie (q.v.).

ARDSLIGNISH (adj.)

     Adjective  which describes the  behaviour of  Sellotape  when  you  are
tired.

ARTICLAVE (n.)

     A clever architectural construction  designed to give the illusion from
the top deck of a bus that it is far too big for the road.

AYNHO (vb.)

     Of waiters, never to have a pen.

BABWORTH

     Something which justifies having a really good cry.

BALDOCK

     The sharp prong  on the top of a  tree stump where the tree has snapped
off before being completely sawn through.

BALLYCUMBER

     One of the six half-read books lying somewhere in your bed.

BANFF

     Pertaining to, or descriptive of, that kind of facial  expression which
is impossible to achieve except when having a passport photograph taken.

BANTEER

     A lusty and  reucous old ballad sung  after  a particulary  spectacular
araglin (q.v.) has been pulled off.

BARSTIBLEY

     A homorous  device such as  a  china horse or  smalled  naked porcelain
infant which jocular hosts use of piss water into your Scotch with.

BAUGHURST

     That kind of large fierce ugly woman who owns a small fierce ugly dog.

BAUMBER

     A  fitted   eleasticated  bottom  sheet  which   turns  your   mattress
bananashaped.

BEALINGS

     The  unsavoury parts of a  moat which a knight  has to pour out  of his
armour after being the victim of an  araglin  (q.v.). In medieval  Flanders,
soup made from bealins was a very sligthly sought-after delicacy.

BEAULIEU HILL

     The  optimum vantage point from which one to view  people undressing in
the bedroom across the street.

BECCLES

     The  small  bone  buttons  placed in  bacon  sandwiches  by unemploymed
guerrilla dentist.

BEDFONT

     A lurching sensation in the pit of the stomach experienced at breakfast
in a hotel,  occasioned  by the realisation  that  it is about now that  the
chamber-  maid will have discovered the embarrassing  stain  on  your botton
sheet.

BELPER

     A knob  of someone else's  chewing gum which you unexpectedly find your
hand resting on under a deks top, under the passenger seat of your car or on
somebody's thigh under their skirt.

BENBURB

     The sort of man who becomes a returning officer.

BEREPPER

     The irrevocable  and sturdy fart released in the presence  of  royalty,
which sounds quite like  a small motorbike passing by (but  not enough to be
confused with one).

BERKHAMSTED

     The massive three-course  midmorning blow-out  enjoyed by  a dieter who
has already done his or her slimming duty by having a teaspoonful of cottage
cheese for breakfast.

BERY POMEROY

     1. The shape of a gourmet's lips.
     2. The droplet of saliva which hangs from them.

BILBSTER

     A pimple so hideous and enormous that you have to cover it with
     sticking plaster and pretend you've cut yourself
     shaveing.

BISHOP'S CAUNDLE

     An opening gambit before a game of chess whereby the missing pieces are
replaced by small ornaments from the mantelpiece.

BLEAN

     Scientific measure of luminosity :
     1 glimmer = 100,000 bleans.
     Usherettes' torches are designed to produce between  2.5 and  4 bleans,
enabling them  to assist  you  in falling downstairs, treading on people  or
putting your hand into a Neapolitan tub when reaching for change.

BLITHBURY

     A look  someone gives you  by which you become aware  that they're much
too drunk to have undertood anything you've said to them  in the last twenty
minutes.

BLITTERLESS

     The little slivers of bomboo picked off a cane chair by a nervous guest
which litter the  carpet  beneath and tell the chair's  owner that the whole
piece of furniture is about to uncoil terribly and slowly until it resembles
a giant pencil sharpening.

BODMIN

     The irrational and inevitable discrepancy between the amount pooled and
the amount needed when a large group of  people try  to pay  a bill together
after a meal.

BOLSOVER

     One of those brown plastic  trays with bumps on, placed upside down  in
boxes of chocolates to make you think you're-getting two layers.

BONKLE

     Of plumbing in old  hotels, to make loud and unexplained  noises in the
nigth, particulary at about five o'clock in the morning.

BOOLTEENS

     The  small scatterings  of foreign coins  and  half-p's  which  inhabit
dressing tables. Since they are  never used  and never thrown away boolteens
account for a significant drain on the world's money supply.

BOOTHBY GRAFFOE

     1. The man in the pub who slaps people on the back as if
     they were old friends, when in fact he has no friends,
     largely on account of this habit.
     2. Any story told by Robert Morley on chat shows.

BOSCASTLE

     A  huge  pyramid  of  tin  cans  placed just inside the entrance  to  a
supermarket.

BOSEMAN

     One who  spends all day loafing about near pedestrian crossing  looking
as if he's about to cross.

BOTCHERBY

     The princible by which British roads are signposted.

BOTLEY

     The prominent stain  on a man's trouser crotch seen  on his return from
the lavatory. A botley proper  is  caused by an accident with the push taps,
and should not be confused with any stain caused by insufficient waggling of
the willy.

BOTOLPHS

     Huge benign  tumours which archdeacons and old chemisty teachers affect
to wear on the sides of their noses.

BOTUSFLEMING

     A  small,  long-handled  steel trowel  used by surgeons  to remove  the
contents of a patient's nostrils prior to a sinus operation.

BRADFORD

     A school teacher's old hairy jacket,  now severely discoloured by chalk
dust, ink, egg and the precipitations of uneditying chemical reactions.

BRADWORTHY

     One who is skilled in the art of naming loaves.

BRECON

     That part of the toenail which is designed to snag on nylon sheets.

BRISBANE

     A perfectly resonable explanation (Such as the one  offered by a person
with a gurgling cough which has  nothing to do with the fact that they smoke
fifty cigarettes a day.)

BROATS

     A pair of trousers with a career behind  them. Broats are most commonly
seen on  elderly retired  army officers. Orginally  the brats  were  part of
their best suit back in the thirties; then in the fifties they were demonted
and  used for gardening. Recently pensions not  being  what  they  were, the
broats have been called out of retirement and reinstated as part of the best
suit again.

BROMPTON

     A bromton  is that  which is  said to have been committed  when you are
convinced you are about to blow off with a resounding trumpeting noise in  a
public place and all that acually slips out is a tiny 'pfpt'.

BROMSGROVE

     Any urban environment containing a small amount  of  dogturd and  about
forty-five  tons  of  bent  steel  pylon  or a  lump of  concrete with holes
claiming to be scuplture.
     'Oh, come my dear, and come with
     me.
     And wander 'neath the bromsgrove
     tree' - Betjeman.

BROUGH SOWERBY

     One who has  been  working at that  same  desk  in  the same office for
fifteen years and has  very much his own  ideas about  why he is continually
passed over for promotion.

BRUMBY

     The fake antique plastic seal on a pretentious whisky bottle.

BRYMBO

     The single unappetising bun left in a baker's shop after four p.m.

BUDBY

     A nipple clearly defined thorugh flimsy or wet matereal.

BUDE
     A polite joke reserved for use in the presence of vicars.

BULDOOO

     a  virulent  red-coloured  pus  which genereally  accompanies  clonmult
(q.v.) and sandberge (q.v.)

BURBAGE

     The  sound made by  a liftful  of people all tring to  breathe politely
through their noses.

BURES

     The  scabs on knees and  elbows formed by a compulsion to  make love on
cheap Habitat floor-matting.

BURLESTON

     That peculary tuneless humming and whistling adopted by  people who are
extremely angry.

BURLINGJOBB

     A seventeenth-century  crime by  which excrement  is  thrown  into  the
street from a ground-floor window.

BURNT YATES

     Condition to which yates (q.v.) will suddenly pass without any apparent
interviewing period, after the spirit of the throckmorton (q.v.) has finally
been summoned by incressant throcking (q.v.)

BURSLEDON

     The  bluebottle  one is too tired  to  get up and start, but  not tired
enough to sleep thorugh.

BURTON COGGLES

     A  bunch of  keys  found  in a  drawer  whose  purpose  has  long  been
forgotten,  and  which can therefore now  be  used  only  for dropping  down
people's backs as a cure for nose-bleeds.

BURWASH

     The  pleasureable  cool  sloosh of puddle water  over the toes of  your
gumboots.

CAARNDUNCAN (n.)

     The high-pitched and insistent cry of the young female human urging one
of its peer  group to do something dangerous on a  cliff-edge  or  piece  of
toxic waste ground.

CAIRNPAT (n.)

     A large  piece  of dried dung found  in  mountainous terrain above  the
cowline  which  leads the experienced tracker to believe  that  hikers  have
recently passed.

CAMER (n.)

     A mis-tossed caber.

CANNOCK CHASE (n.)

     In any box of  After Eight  Mints, there  is always  a large  number of
empty envelopes  and no more  that four  or  five actual  mints. The cannock
chase is the process by  which,  no matter which part of the box often,  you
will always extract most of  the empty sachets before pinning down an actual
minot, or 'cannock'.
     The  cannock chase also  occurs  with people who put their dead matches
back in the  matchbox,  and  then embarrass themselves at parties trying  to
light cigarettes with tree quarters of an inch of charcoal.
     The  term  is   also  used  to  describe  futile  attempts  to   pursue
unscrupulous advertising agencies who  nick your  ideas to  sell  chocolates
with.

CHENIES (pl.n.)

     The  last  few  sprigs or  tassles of  last Christmas's  decoration you
notice on the ceiling while lying on the sofa on an August afternoon.

CHICAGO (n.)

     The foul-smelling wind which precedes an underground railway train.

CHIPPING ONGAR (n.)

     The discust and embarrassment (or 'ongar')  felt  by an observer in the
presence of a person festooned with kirbies (q.v.) when they don't know them
well  enough to tell  them to wipe  them  off,  invariably this  'ongar'  is
accompanied by an involuntary staccato twitching of the leg (or 'chipping')

CLABBY (adj.)

     A 'clabby' conversation is one  stuck up by a commissionare or cleaning
lady in order to avoid any futher actual work. The opening gambit is usually
designed  to  provoke  the  maximum  confusion, and  therefore  the  longest
possible clabby  conversation. It is vitaly  important to learn the correct,
or 'clixby' (q.v.), responses to  a clabby gambit, and not to get trapped by
a 'ditherington' (q.v.).  For instance, if  confronted with a  clabby gambit
such  as  'Oh,  mr  Smith,  I  didn't know  you'd had  your  leg  off',  the
ditherington response is 'I haven't....' whereas the clixby is 'good.'

CLACKAVOID (n.)

     Technical BBC term for a page of dialogue from Blake's Seven.

CLACKMANNAN (n.)

     The  sound made by knocking over an elephant's-foot umbrella stand full
of walking sticks.
     Hence name for a particular kind of disco drum riff.

CLATHY (adj.)

     Nervously indecisive about how safely to dispost of a dud lightbulb.

CLENCHWARTON (n. archaic)

     One  who  assists  an  exorcist  by  squeezing  whichever part  of  the
possessed the exorcist deems useful.

CLIXBY (adj.)

     Politely rude. Bliskly vague. Firmly uninformative.

CLONMULT (n.)

     A  yellow  ooze usually  found near  secretionns of buldoo  (q.v.)  and
sadberge (q.v.)

CLOVIS (q.v.)

     One who actually  looks forward to putting up the Christmas decorations
in the office.

CLUN (n.)

     A leg which has gone to sleep and has to be hauled around after you.

CLUNES (pl.n.)

     People who just won't go.

CONDOVER (n.)

     One  who  is employed  to  stand about all  day  browsing  through  the
magazine racks in the newsagent.

CONG (n.)

     Stange-shaped metal utensil found at the back of the saucepan cupboard.
Many  authorities  believe  that  congs  provide  conclusive  proof  of  the
existence  of  a now extinct form of yellow  vegetable  which the Victorians
used to boil mercilessly.

CORFE (n.)

     An object which is almost  totally  indistinguishable from a newspaper,
the one crucial  difference being  tat it  belongs to somebody else  and  is
unaccountably  much  more  interesting that your own -  which  may otherwice
appear to be in all respects identical.
     Though it  is a  rule  of life that a train  or other public place  may
contain any number of corfes but only one newspaper, it is quite possible to
transform your own perfectly ordinary newspaper into a  corfe by the  simple
expedient of letting somebody else read it.

CORFU (n.)

     The dullest person you met  during the course of your holiday. Also the
only  one who failed to understand  that the exchanging of addresses  at the
end  of  a  holiday  is  merely  a social  ritual  and is  absolutly  not an
invitation to phone  you up  and  turn up unannounced on your doorstep three
months later.

CORRIEARKLET (n.)

     The moment at which two people approaching from opposite ends of a long
passageway, recognice each other and immediately pretend they haven't.  This
is to avoid the ghastly embarrassment of having to continue recognising each
other the whole length of the corridor.

CORRIECRAVIE (n.)

     To  avert the horrors of corrievorrie (q.v.)  corriecravie  is  usually
employed.  This is  the cowardly  but  highly skilled process by  which both
protagonists continue to  approach while keeping up the  pretence that  they
haven't noticed each  other - by staring furiously at  their feet, grimacing
into  a notebook, or studying the  walls  closely  as if  in a mood of  deep
irritation.

CORRIEDOO (n.)

     The crucial moment of false  recognition in a long passageway encouter.
Though  both people  are perfectly well aware that the other is approaching,
they must eventually pretend  sudden  recognition. They now look up  with  a
glassy smile, as if having spotted  each other for the  firt  time, (and are
particulary  delighted to have done so) shouting  out 'Haaaaaallllloooo!' as
if to say 'Good grief!! You!! Here!! Of all people! Will I never.  Coo. Stap
me vitals, etc.'

CORRIEMOILLIE (n.)

     The dreadful sinking sensation in a long passageway encounter when both
protagonists immediately realise they  have plumped for the corriedoo (q.v.)
mutch too  early  as  they  are  still a good thirty yards apart.  They were
embarrased by the pretence of corriecravie (q.v.) and decided to make use of
the corriedoo because  they felt silly.  This was a mistake as  corrievorrie
(q.v.) will make them seem far sillier.

CORRIEVORRIE (n.)

     Corridor  etiquette  demans  that  one  a  corriedoo  (q.v.)  has  been
declared,  corrievorrie  must  be  employed.   Both  protagonists  must  now
embellish  their  approach  with  an  embarrassing  combination  of  waving,
grinning, making  idiot faces, doing  pirate  impressions,  and waggling the
head from side to side while  holding the other person's  eyes  as the smile
drips off their face, until with great relief, they pass each other.

CORRIEMUCHLOCH (n.)

     Word describing the kind of  person who  can make a complete mess  of a
simple job like walking down a corridor.

CORSTORPHINE (n.)

     A very short peremptory service held in monasteries prior to teatime to
offer thanks for the benediction of digestive biscuits.

COTTERSTOCK (n.)

     A piece of wood used to stir paint and thereafter stored uselessly in a
shed in perpetuity.

CRAIL (n. mineral)

     Crail  is a  common  kind  of rock or gravel found  widely  across  the
British Isles.
     Each  individual  stone  (due  to an  as yet undiscovered gravtitaional
property) is charged with 'negative buoyancy'.
     This means that no matter how much  crail  you remove  from the garden,
more of it will rise to the surface.
     Crail is much employed  by  the Royal Navy for making the  paperweights
and ashtrays used inside submarines.

CRANLEIGH (n.)

     A mood of irrational irritation with everyone and everything.

CROMARTY (n.)

     The  brittle  sludge which  clings  to the  top of ketchup bottles  and
plastic tomatoes in nasty cafes.

CURRY MALLET (n.)

     A large wooden  or rubber cub which  poachers  use to despatch cats  or
other game which they  can only sell  to Indian  resturants. For particulary
small  cats  the  price  obtainable  is  not  worth  the  cost of  expending
ammunition.

DALRYMPLE (n.)

     Dalarymples are  the things  you pay extra for  on pieces  of hand-made
crarftwork  - the  rough  edges,  the paint  smudges  and the holes  in  the
glazing.

DAMNAGLAUR (n.)

     A certain  facial expression which actors are  required  to demonstrate
their mastery of before they are allowed to play Macbeth.

DARENTH (n.)

     Measure = 0.0000176 mg.
     Defined as that amount of margarine  capable  of covering  one  hounred
slices  of  bread to  the depth of  one molecule. This is  the legal maximum
allowed in sandwich bars in Greater London.

DEAL (n.)

     The gummy substance found between damp toes.

DEEPING ST NICHOLAS (n.)

     What  street-wise  kids  do at  Christmas.  They hide on  the  rooftops
waiting for Santa  Claus  so that if  he arrives and goes down the  chimney,
they can rip stuff off from his sleigh.

DES MOINES (pl.n.)

     The two little lines which come down from your nose.

DETCHANT (n.)

     That part of a hymn (usually a few  notes at the end of  a verse) where
the  tune goes  so high or low  that you suddenly have to  change octaves to
accommodate it.

DETCHANT (n.)

     (Of the hands or feet.) Preunelike after an overlong bath.

DIDCOT (n.)

     The tiny oddly-shaped bit of card which a ticket inspector  cuts out of
a ticket with  his clipper for no apparent reason. It is a little-known fact
that the confetti at Princess Margaret's wedding was made up of thousands of
didcots collected by inspectors on the Royal Train.
     DIDLING (participal vb.)

     The process of  tring to work out  who did it when reading a whodunnit,
and trying to keep your options open so that when you find out you can allow
yourself to think that you knew perfectly well who it was all along.

DILLYTOP (n.)

     The kind of bath plug  which for some unaccountable reason is  actually
designed to sit on top of the hole rather than fit into it.

DIBBLE (vb.)

     To try to remove  a sticky something from one hand with the other, thus
causeing it to  get stuck to the other hand and eventually  to anything else
you try to remove it with.

DITHERINGTON (n)

     Sudden access to panic experienced by one who realises that he is being
drawn inexorably into a clabby (q.v.) conversion, i.e. one he has no hope of
enjoying, benefiting from or understanding.

DITTISHAM (n.)

     Any  music you  hear on the  radio to which  you have  to  listen  very
carefully to determine whether it is an  advertising  jingle  or a bona fide
record.

DOBWALLS (pl.n.)

     The  now hard-boiled bits  of  nastiness  which have  to be  prised off
crockery by hand after it has been through a dishwasher.

DOBWALLS (pl.n.)

     The  now  hard-boiled bits  of  nastiness which  have to  be prised off
crockery by hand after it has been through a dishwasher.

DOCKERY (n.)

     Facetious  behaviour adopted by an accused man  in the  mistaken belief
that this will endear him to the judge.

DOGDYKE (vb.)

     Of dog-owners, to adopt the absurd pretence that the animal shitting in
the gutter is nothing to do with them.

DOLEGELLAU (n.)

     The clump, or cluster,  of bored, quietly  enraged, mildly  embarrassed
men waiting for their wives to come out of a changing room in a dress shop.

DORCHESTER (n.)

     A throaty cough by someone else so timed as to obscure the crucial part
of the rather amusing remark you've just made.

DORRIDGE (n.)

     Technical term  for one of the lame excuses written in very small print
on the side  of packets of  food or washing powder  to  explain  why there's
hardly  anything  inside. Examples  include  'Contents may have  settled  in
transit' and 'To keep each biscuit fresh they have been individually wrapped
in  silver paper and  cellophane and separated with  courrugated  lining,  a
carboard flap, and heavy industrial tyres'.

DRAFFAN (n.)

     An infuriating person who always manages to look much more dashing that
anyone else by turning up unshaven and hungover at a formal party.

DREBLEY (n.)

     Name for a shop which is supposed to be witty but is in fact wearisome,
e.g. 'The Frock Exchange', 'Hair Apparent', etc.

DROITWICH (n.)

     A street  dance. The two partners approach from opposite directions and
try politely  to get out of each other's way. They step to the left, step to
the  right, apologise,  step to the left again,  apologise  again, bump into
each other and repeat as often as unnecessary.

DUBUQUE (n.)

     A  look given by a  superior person to someone who has  arrived wearing
the wrong sort of shoes.

DUDOO (n.)

     The most deformed potato in any given collection of potatoes.

DUGGLEBY (n.)

     The  person in front  of  you  in  the  supermarket queue who  has just
unloaded a bulging trolley on to the conveyor belt and is now in the process
of  trying  to work out  which  pocket they  left their cheque book in,  and
indeed which pair of trousers.

DULEEK (n.)

     Sudden realisation, as you lie in bed waiting for the alarm to go  off,
that it should have gone off an hour ago.

DULUTH (adj.)

     The smell of a taxi out of which people have just got.

DUNBAR (n.)
     A highly specialised fiscal term used solely by trunstile operatives at
Regnet's Part  zoo.  It refers  to the  variable amount  of increase in  the
variable  gate takings on a Sunday afternoon, caused by persons going to the
zoo because they are in love and  believe that the feeling of romace will be
somehow enhanced by  the smell of panther sweat and rank incontinence in the
reptile house.

DUNBOYNE (n.)

     The  moment  of  realisation  that the  train  you have  just patiently
watched pulling out of the station was the one you were meant to be on.

DUNCRAGGON (n.)

     The name of Charles Bronson's retirement cottage.

DUNGENESS (n.)

     The   uneasy  feeling  that  the  plastic  handles  of  the  overloaded
supermarket carrier bag you are carrying are getting steadily longer.

DUNTISH (adj.)

     Mentally incapacitated by severe hangover.

EAST WITTERING (n.)

     The same as west wittering  (q.v.) only it's  you they've trying to get
away from.

EDGBASTON (n.)

     The spare seat-cushion carried by a London bus, which is placed against
the rear bumper  when  the driver wishes to indicate that the bus has broken
down. No one knows  how  this charming old  custon orginated or  how long it
will continue.

ELY (n.)

     The first, tiniest inkling you get that something, somewhere, has  gone
teribly wrong.

EMSWORTH (n.)

     Measure  of time and  noiselessness defined  as the moment  between the
doors of a lift closing and it beginning to move.

EPPING (participial vb.)

     The  futile movements of  forefingers and eyebrows used when failing to
attract the attention of waiters and barmen.

EPSOM (n.)

     An entry in a diary (such as a date or a set of initials) or a name and
address in your address book, which  you haven't the faintest idea what it's
doing there.

EPWORTH (n.)

     The  preciese  value of  the  usefulness  of  epping  (q.v.)  it  is  a
little-known  fact than an earlier draft of the final  line of the film Gone
with the  Wind had  Clark Gable saying  'Frankly  my dear, i  don't  give an
epworth', the line being eventually changed on the grounds that it might not
be understood in Cleveland.

ERIBOLL (n.)

     A brown bubble of cheese containing gaseous matter which grows on welsh
rarebit.  It was  Sir  Alexander Flemming's  study  of  eribolls  which led,
indirectly, to his  discovery of the  fact that he didn't like welsh rarebit
very much.

ESHER (n.)

     One of those push tapes installed in public washrooms enabling the user
to wash  their  trousers without actually getting  into the basin.  The most
powerful esher  of recent  years  was 'damped down'  by Red  Adair  after an
incredible sixty-eight days' fight in Manchester's Piccadilly Station.

EVERSCREECH (n.)

     The look  given by  a  group of  polite, angry people to  a rude,  calm
queuebarger.

EWELME (n.)

     The smile bestowed on you by an air hostess.

EXETER (n.)

     All  light  household  and electrical goods contain a number  of  vital
components plus at least one exeter.
     If you've just  mended a fuse, changed a bulb or  fixed  a blender, the
exeter is the small, flat or round plastic or bakelite piece left over which
means you have to undo everything and start all over again.

FAIRYMOUNT (vb.n.)

     Polite word for buggery.

FARDUCKMANTON (n. archaic)

     An   ancient  edict,  mysteriously  omitted  from  the  Domesday  Book,
requiring  that the feeding of  fowl on village  ponds should be carried out
equitably.

FARNHAM (n.)

     The  feeling  you get  about  four o'clock  in  the afternoon  when you
haven't got enough done.

FARRANCASSIDY (n.)

     A long and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to undo someone's bra.

FEAKLE (vb.)
     To make facial expressions similar to those  that old gentlemen make to
young girls in the playground.

FINUGE (vb.)

     In any  divisjon of foodstuffs  equally between several people, to give
yourself the extra slice left over.

FIUNARY (n.)

     The safe place you put something and then forget where it was.

FLIMBY (n.)

     One  of those irritating handle-less slippery translucent plastic  bags
you  get in supermarkets which, no matter how you hold them, always contrive
to let something fall out.

FLODIGARRY (n. Scots)

     An ankle-length gaberdine or oilskin tarpaulin worn by deep-sea herring
fishermen in Arbroath and publicans in Glasgow.

FOINDLE (vb.)

     To queue-jump  very discretly by working one's  way up the line without
being spotted doing so.

FORSINAIN (n. archaic)

     The right  of  the  lord  of  the  manor to  molest  dwarves  on  their
birthdays.

FOVANT (n.)

     A taxi driver's gesture, a raised hand pointed out  of the window which
purports to mean 'thank you' and actually means 'fuck off out of the way'.

FRADDAM (n.)

     The small awkward-shaped piece of cheese which remains after grating  a
large regular-shaped piece of cheese and enables you to cut your fingers.

FRAMLINGHAM (n.)

     A kind of burglar alarm  usage. It is cunningly designed so that it can
ring at full volume in the street without apparently disturbing anyone.
     Other  types  of  framlingams  are burglar alarms  fitted  to  business
premises in  residential areas, which  go off as a matter of regular routine
at 5.31 p.m. on a Friday evening and do not get turned off til 9.20  a.m. on
Monday morning.

FRANT (n.)

     Measure. The  legal minimum distance between two trains on the District
and Circle line of  the London Underground.  A frant, which must be not less
than 122 chains (or 8 leagues)  long, is not connected  in any way  with the
adjective 'frantic'  which comes to  us  by a completely different route (as
indeed do the trains).

FRATING GREEN (adj.)

     The shade of green which  is supposed to make you feel  comfortable  in
hospitals, industrious in schools and uneasy in police stations.

FRIMLEY (n.)

     Exaggerated  carefree saunter adopted by Norman  Wisdom as an immediate
prelude to dropping down an open manhole.

FRING (n.)

     The noise made by light bulb which has just shone its last.

FROLESWORTH (n.)

     Measure. The minimum  time  it is necessary  to spend  frowning in deep
concentration at each picture in an art gallery in order that  everyone else
doesn't think you've a complete moron.

FROSSES (pl.n.)

     The  lecherous looks  exchanged  between  sixteen-year-olds at a  party
given by someone's parents.

FULKING (participial vb.)

     Pretendig not to be in when the carol-singers come round.

GALASHIELS (pl.n.)

     A form  of particulary  long  sparse  sideburns which  are part of  the
mandatory uniform of British Rail guards.

GALLIPOLI (adj.)

     Of  the behaviour  of  a bottom lip trying to  spit mouthwash  after an
injection at the dentist. Hence, loose, floppy, useless.
     'She went suddenly Gallipoli in his arms' - Noel Coward.

GANGES (n. rare : colonial Indian)

     Leg-rash  contracted from playing too much polo. (It  is a little-known
fact that Prince Charles is troubled by ganges down the inside of his arms.)

GASTARD (n.)

     Useful specially new-coined word for an illegitimate child (in order to
distinguish it from soneone who merely carves you up on the motorway, etc.)

GILDERSOME (adj.)
     Descriptive of a joke someone tells you  which starts  well, but  which
becomes so embellished in the telling  that  you start to  weary of it after
scarely half an hour.

GIPPING (participial vb.)

     The fish-like  opening and closing of the jaws  seen amongst people who
have recently been to the dentist and are  puzzled as to whether their teeth
have been put back the right way up.

GLASGOW (n.)

     The feeling of infinite sadness engendered when walking through a place
filled with happy people fifteen years younger than yourself.

GLASSEL (n.)

     A seaside pebble which was shiny and interesting when wet, and which is
now a lump  of  rock,  which  children  nevertheless insist on filing  their
suitcases with after the holiday.

GLAZELEY (adj.)

     The state of a  barrister's flat greasy hair  after  wearing a  wig all
day.

GLEMENUILT (n.)

     The  kind of guilt which you'd  completely  forgotten about which comes
roaring back on discovering an old letter in a cupboard.

GLENTAGGART (n.)

     A particular kind of tartan hold-all,  made exclusive under licence for
British Airways.
     When waiting to collect your  luggage  from an airport conveyour  belt,
you  will notice that on the next consingle,  solitary bag  going round  and
round uncollected. This is a glentaggart, which has been placed there by the
baggage-handling staff to take  your mind off the fact that your own luggage
will shortly be landing in Murmansk.

GLENTIES (pl.n.)

     Series  of small steps by which someone who has made a serious tactical
error  in  a conversion or  argument  moves from  complete  disagreement  to
wholehearted agreement.

GLENWHILLY (n. Scots)

     A small tartan pouch worn beneath the kilt during the thistle-harvest.

GLINSK (n.)

     A hat which politicans but to go to Russia in.

GLORORUM (n.)

     One who takes pleasure in informing others about their bowel movements.

GLOSSOP (n.)

     A rouge blob of food.
     Glossops,  which  are  generally  streaming  hot  and  highly  adhesive
invariably fall off  your spoon and on to the surface of your host's  highly
polished  antique-rosewood dining table. If this has not,  or may not  have,
been noticed by the company present, swanage (q.v.) may be employed.

GLUTT LODGE (n.)

     The place where food can be stored after having a tooth extracted. Some
Arabs can go without sustenance for up to six  weeks on a full glutt  lodge,
hence the expression 'the shit of the dessert'.

GLOADBY MARWOOD (n.)

     Someone who stops Jon Cleese  on the street and demands that he does  a
funny walk.

GODALMING (n.)

     Wonderful  rush of relief on  discovering  that the ely (q.v.) and  the
wembley (q.v.) were in fact false alarms.

GOLANT (adj.)

     Blank, sly and faintly embarrasssed. Pertaining  to the expression seen
on the face of someone who has clearly forgotten your name.

GOOLE (n.)

     The puddle on the bar into which the barman puts your change.

GOOSECRUIVES (pl. n. archaic)

     A parit of wooden trousers worn by poultry-keepers in the Middle Ages.

GOOSNARGH (n.)

     Something left over from preparing or eating a meal, which you store in
the fridge despite the fact that you know full well you  will never ever use
it.

GREAT TOSSON (n.)

     A fat book containing four words and six cartoons which cost ?6.95.

GREAT WAKERING (participal vb.)

     Panic  which sets in  when  you  badly need to go  to the lavatory  and
cannot make up your mind about what book or magazine to take with you.

GREELEY (n.)

     Someone  who  continually  annoys  you  by continually  apologising for
annoying you.

GRETNA GREEN (adj.)

     A shade  of green  which cartoon characters  dangle over the edge of  a
cliff.

GRIMMET (n.)

     A  small bush  from which cartoon characters  dangle over the edge of a
cliff.

GRIMSBY (n.)

     A lump of something gristly  and foultasting concealed in a mouthful of
stew or pie.
     Grimsbies are sometimes merely the result of careless cookery, but more
often they are  placed there deliberately  by Freemasons.  Grimbies  can  be
purchased  in bulk  from any  respectable Masonic butcher on giving him  the
secret Masonic handbag. One is then placed correct masonic method of dealing
with it.  If the  guest is not a Mason, the host may find it entertaining to
watch how he handles the obnoxious object. It may be
     (a) manfully swallowed, invariably bringing tears to the eyes.
     (b) chewed with resolution for up to twenty  minutes before  eventually
resorting to method (a)
     (c) choked on fatally.
     The  Masonic   handshake   is  easily  recognised   by  another   Mason
incidentally, for by it a used grimsby is passed from hand to hand.
     The secret Masonic method for dealing  with a grimsby is  as follows  :
remove it carefully with  the  silver  tongs provided, using the left  hand.
Cross  the room to your host, hopping on one leg, and ram the grimsby firmly
up his nose, shouting, 'Take that, you smug Masonic bastard.'

GRINSTEAD (n.)

     The state of a lady's clothing after  she  has  been to powder her nose
and has hitched up her  tights over her skirt at the back, thus exposing her
bottom, and has walked out without noticing it.

GUERNSEY (adj.)

     Queasy but  umbowed. The kind of  feeling one gets  when  discovering a
plastic compartment in a fridge in which thing are growing.

GWEEK (n.)

     A coat hanger recycled as a car aerial.

HADZOR (n.)

     A sharp instument placed in the washing-up  bowl which makes  it easier
to cut yourself.

HAGNABY (n.)

     Someone who looked  a lot more attractive in the disco  than they do in
your bed the next morning.

HALCRO (n.)

     An  adhesive  fibrous  cloth  used  to  hold babies'  clothes together.
Thousands  of tiny  pieces of jam 'hook' on to  thousands of tiny-pieces  of
dribble, enabling the cloth to become 'sticky'.

HALIFAX (n.)

     The  green  synthetic  astroturf on which  greengrocers  display  their
vegetables.

HAMBLEDON (n.)

     The sound of a single-engined aircraft flying by, heard whilst lying in
a summer field in England, which somehow concentrates the silence  and sense
of  space  and timelessness  and  leaves  one  with a  profound  feeling  of
something or other.

HAPPLE (vb.)

     To annoy people by finishing  their sentences for them and then telling
them what they really meant to say.

HARBLEDOWN (vb.)

     To manoeuvre a double mattress down a winding staircase.

HARBOTTLE (n.)

     A particular kind of fly which lives inside double glazing.

HARPENDEN (n.)

     The coda to a phone conversion, consisting of about eight exchanges, by
which people try gracefully to get off the line.

HASELBURY PLUCKNETT (n.)

     A mechanical  device for cleaning combs invented  during the industrial
revoulution at the same time as Arkwright's Spinning Jenny, but which didn't
catch on in the same way.

HASSOP (n.)

     The pocket down the back of  an armchair used for storing  two-shilling
bits and pieces of Lego.

HASTINGS (pl.n.)

     Things sain on the  spur of the  moment to explain to someone who comes
into a room unexpectedly precisely what it is you are doing.

HATHERSAGE (n.)

     The  tiny snippets of  beard which coat the inside of a washbasin after
shaving in it.

HAUGHAM (n.)

     One who loudly informs  other diners in a resturant what kind of man he
is by calling for the chef by his christian name from the lobby.

HAXBY (n.)

     Any  garden implement found in a potating  shed whose exact purpose  is
unclear.

HEATON PUNCHARDON (n.)
     A  violent argument which breaks out in the car on the way home from  a
party  between a couple who have had  to be polite to each  other in company
all evening.

HENSTRIDGE (n.)

     The  dried  yellow  substance  found  between  the prongs  of forks  in
resturants.

HERSTMONCEUX (n.)

     The correct name for the  gold medallion worn by someone  who is in the
habit of wearing their shirt open to the waist.

HEVER (n.)

     The panic caused by half-hearing Tannoy in an airport.

HIBBING (n.)

     The marks left on the outside breast pocket of a  storekeeper's overall
where he has put away his pen and missed.

HICKLING (participial vb.)

     The practice of infuriating teatregoers by not only arriving late  to a
centre-row seat,  but also loudly apologising to and patting  each member of
the audience in turn.

HIDCOTE BARTRAM (n.)

     To be caught in a hidcote  bartram is to say a series of protracted and
final goodbytes to  a  group of people, leave the  house  and  then  realise
you've left your hat behind.

HIGH LIMERIGG (n.)

     The  topmost tread of a staircase which  disappers when you've climbing
the stairs in the darkness.

HIGH OFFLEY (n.)

     Gossnargh (q.v.) three weeks later.

HOBBS CROSS (n.)

     The awkward leaping manoeuvre a girl has to go throught in bed in order
to make him sleep on the wet patch.

HODDLESDEN (n.)

     An 'injured' footballer's limb back into the game which draws  applause
but doesn't fool anybody.

HODNET (n.)

     The  woodn safety platform supported by scaffolding  round  a  building
under construction from which the builders (at  almost no personal risk) can
drop pieces of cement on passers-by.

HOFF (vb.)

     To deny indignantly something which is palpably true.

HOGGESTON (n.)

     The  action  of overshaking a pair  of dice  in  a cup in the  mistaken
belief that this will affect  the  eventual outcome  in your favour and  not
irritate everyone else.

HORTON-CUM-STUDLEY (n.)

     The  combination  of  little helpful grunts,  nodding movements  of the
head, considerate smiles, upward frowns  and serious pauses that a  group of
people join in making in trying to elicit the next pronouncement of somebody
with a dreadful stutter.

HOVE (adj.)

     Descriptive of  the expression seen onthe  face of  one  person  in the
presence of another who  clearly isn't going to stop talking for a very long
time.

HOYLAKE (n.)

     The  pool of edible  gravy which surrounds  an  inedible and discusting
lump  of meat  - eaten to  give the impression that  the person is 'just not
very hungry, but mmm this is delicious'.
     Cf. Peaslake - a similar experience had by vegetarians.

HUBY (n.)

     A half-erection large enough to be a publicly embarrassing bulge in the
trousers, not large enough to be of any use to anybody.

HUCKNALL (vb.)

     To crouch  upwards:  as  in the movement  of a seated person's feet and
legs made in order to allow a cleaner's hoover to pass beneath them.

HULL (adj.)

     Descriptive of the smell of a weekend cottage.

HUMBER (vb.)

     To move like the  cheeks of a very fat  person as their car goes over a
cattle grid.

HUMBY (n.)

     An erection which won't go down when a gentleman has to go for a pee in
the middle of making love to someone.

HUNA (n.)

     The result of coming to the worng decision.

HUNSINGORE (n.)

     Medieval ceremonial brass horn with  which the successful execution  of
an araglin (q.v.) is trumpeted from the castle battlements.

HUTLERBURN (n.archaic)

     A brun sustained as a result of the behaviour of a clumsy hutler.  (The
precise duties of hutlers are noe lost in the mists of history.)

HUTTOFT (n.)

     The fibrous algae which grows in the dark, moist environment of trouser
turn-ups.

IBSTOCK (n.)

     Anything   used  to   make  a  noise  on  a  corrugated  iron  wall  or
clinker-built fence by dragging it along the  surface while walking past it.
'Mr Bennett  thoughtfully  selected  a stout ibstock  and left the house.' -
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, II.

IPING (participial vb.)

     The  increasingly anxious shifting  from leg to leg you go through when
you  are  desperate to go to the lavatory and the person you are  talking to
keeps on remembering a few final things he want to mention.

IPSWICH (n.)

     The sound at  the other end  of  the telephone which tells you that the
automatic exchange  is  working  very hard but  is intending not actually to
connect you this time, merely to let you know how difficult it is.

JARROW (adj.)

     An agrucultural  device which, when towed behind a tractor, enables the
farmer to spread his dung evenly across the width of the road.

JAWCRAIG (n. medical)

     A  massive facial spasm which  is  brought  on  by being  told a really
astounding piece of news.
     A  mysterious  attack of  jawcraig affected  40,000 sheep in Whales  in
1952.

JURBY (n.)

     A  loose  wollen  garment reaching  to the knees and with three or more
armholes, knitted by the wearer's well- meaning but incompetent aunt.

KALAMI (n.)

     The ancient Eastern art of being able to fold road-maps properly.

KANTURK (n.)

     An  extremly  intricate knot orginally used for belaying the topgallant
foresheets  of  a gaff-rigged China clipper, and now more commonly  observed
when trying to gen an old kite out of the cupboard under the stairs.

KEELE (adj.)

     The horrible smell caused by washing ashtrays.

KELLING (participial vb.)

     A person  searching for  something, who has reached the futile stage of
re-looking  i all the  places  they have looked once already, is said  to be
kelling.

KENT (adj.)

     Politely determined not to help despite a violent urge to the contrary.
     Kent  expressions  are seen on  the  faces  of people who  are good  at
something watching someone else who can't do it at all.

KENTUCKEY (adv.)

     Fitting exactly and satisfyingly.
     The cardboard box that slides neatly  into an exact space in a  garage,
or the  last book which exactly fills a bookshelf, is said to fit 'real nice
and kentuckey'.

KERRY (n.)

     The small twist of skin which separated each sausage on a string.

KETTERING (n.)
     The  marks  left  on  your  bottom  or  thighs  after  sunbathing on  a
wickerwork chair.

KETTLENESS (adj.)

     The quality of not being able to pee while being watched.

KIBBLESWORTH (n.)

     The footling amount of money by which the price of a given article in a
shop is less than a sensible number, in a vain hope that  at least one idiot
will  think it cheap. For  instance, the  kibblesworth on  a  pair of  shoes
priced at ?19.99 is 1p.

KIMMERIDGE (n.)

     The  light breeze which blows through  your armpit  hair  when you  are
stretched out sunbathing.

KINGSTON BAGPUISE (n.)

     A forty-year-old sixteen-stone man trying to commit suicide by jogging.

KIRBY (n.)

     Small but  repulsive piece of food prominently attached  to a  person's
face or clothing.
     See also CHIPPING ONGAR.

KIRBY MISPERTON (n.)

     One who kindly  attempts to wipe an apparent kirby (q.v.) off another's
face with a napkin,  and then discovers it to be  a wart or other  permanent
fixture, is said to have committed a 'kirby misperton'.

KITMURVY (n.)

     Man  who  owns all  the  latest sporting  gadgetry  and clothing  (gold
trolley, tee cosies,  ventilated shoes,  Gary Player-  autographed tracksuit
top,  American  navy cap, mirror sunglasses) but is still only on his second
gold lesson.

KNOPTOFT (n.)

     The mysterious fluff placed in your pockets by dry-cleaning firms.

KURDISTAN (n.)

     Hard  stare given by a husband  to his wife  when  he  notices  a sharp
increase in  the number  of times he  answers  the phone to be told, 'Sorry,
wrong number.'

LAMLASH (n.)

     The  folder   on  hotel  dressing-tables  full   of  astoundingly  dull
information.

LARGOWARD (n.)

     Motorists' name for  the kind  of pedestrian who stands  beside a  main
road and waves onthe traffic, as if it's their right of way.

LE TOUQUET (n.)

     A mere nothing, an unconsidered trifle, a negligible amount. Un touquet
is  often defined as  the  difference  between the  cost of a bottle of  gin
bought in an off-licence and one bought in a duty-free shop.

LIFF (n.)

     A  book, the contents of which are  totally belied  by its  cover.  For
instance, any book the dust jacket of which bears the words. 'This book will
change your life'.

LIMERIGG (vb.)

     To jar  one's leg as the result of the  disapperarance of a stair which
isn't there in the darkness.

LINDISFARNE (adj.)

     Descriptive of the pleasant smell of an empty biscuit tin.

LISTOWEL (n.)

     The small mat onthe bar designed to be more absorbent than the bar, but
not as absorbent as your elbows.

LITTLE URSWICK (n.)

     The member of any class who most inclines  a teacher towards  the  view
that capital punishment should be introduced in schools.

LLANELLI (adj.)

     Descriptive of  the waggling movement of a person's hands  when shaking
water from them or warming up for a piece of workshop theatre.

LOCHRANZA (n.)

     The long unaccomplished wail  in the middle  of  a  Scottish  folk song
where the pipes nip around the corner for a couple of drinks.

LONGNIDDRY (n.)

     A droplet which persists in running out of your nose.

LOSSIEMOUTH (n.)

     One  of those  middle-aged  ladies  with just  a  hint  of a  luxuriant
handlebar moustache.

LOUTH (n.)

     The sort of  man  who  wears  loud check  jackets, has  a  personalised
tankard behind the bar and always gets served before you do.

LOW ARDWELL (n.)

     Seductive remark made hopefully in the back of a taxi.

LOW EGGBOROUGH (n.)

     A quiet little unregarded  man in glasses who is building a new kind of
atomic bomb in his garden shed.

LOWER PEOVER (n.)

     Common solution to the problems of a humby (q.v.)

LOWESTOFT (n.)

     (a) The balls of wool which collect on nice new sweaters.
     (b) The correct name for 'navel fluff'.

LOWTHER (vb.)

     (Of a large group of people who have been to the  cinema together.)  To
stand aimlessly about on the pavement and argue about whetever to go and eat
either a Chinese meal nearby or an Indian meal at a resturant which somebody
says is very good but  isn't certain where it is, or  have a drink and think
about it, or just go home, or have a Chinese meal nearby - until by the time
agreement is reached everything is shut.

LUBCROY (n.)

     The telltale little lump in the top of your swimming trunks which tells
you you are going to have to spend half an hour with a  safety pin trying to
pull the drawstring out again.

LUDLOW (n.)

     A wad of newspaper,  folded tablenapkin or lump of carboard put under a
wobbly table or chair to make it standup straight.
     It is perhaps not widely  known that air-ace Sir Douglas  Bader used to
get about  on an enormous pair of  ludlows before he had his artificial legs
fitted.

LUFFENHAM (n.)

     Feeling  you get when  the pubs  aren't going to  be  open for  another
fortyfive minutes and the luffness in begining to wear a bit thin.

LUFFNESS (n.)

     Hearty feelingthat comes  from walking on  the moors with  gumboots and
cold ears.

LULWORTH (n.)

     Measure of conversation.
     A lulworth defines the amount of the length, loudness and embarrassment
of a  statement you make when everyone else in  the room  unaccountly  stops
talking at the same time.

LUPPITT (n.)

     The piece of leather which hangs off the bottom of your shoe before you
can be bothered to get it mended.

LUSBY (n.)

     The  fold of flesh pushing forward over the  top of a bra  which is too
small for the lady inside it.

LUTON (n.)

     The horseshoe-shaped rug which goes around a lavatory seat.

LYBSTER (n., vb.)

     The  artificail chuckle in  the voice-over at  the  end of a supposedly
funny television commercial.

LYDIARD TREGOZE (n.)

     The opposite of a mavis enderby (q.v.) An unrequited early love of your
life  who  still causes terrible  pangs though  she  inexplicably married  a
telephone engineer.

MAARUIG (n.)

     The inexpressible horror experienced  on walking up in the  morning and
remembering that you are Andy Stewart.

MAENTWROG (n. Welsh)

     The  height  by which the top of a wave  exceeds the heigh to which you
have rolled up your trousers.

MALIBU (n.)

     The height by which the top of a wave exceeds  the  height to which you
have rolled up your trousers.

MANKINHOLES (pl.n.)

     The  small holes in  a loaf of bread  which give rise to  the momentary
suspicion that something may have made its home within.

MAPLEDURHAM (n.)

     A hideous piece of  chipboard  veneer  furniture  bought in  a suburban
highstreet furniture store and designed to  hold exactly a year's supply  of
Sunday colour supplements.

MARGATE (n.)

     A margate is a particular kind of commissionaire who sees you every day
and is on  cheerful  Christian-name terms with you, then  one day refuses to
let you in because you've forgotten your identify card.

MARKET DEEPING (participial vb.)

     Stealing one piece of fruit from a street fruit-and- vegetable stall.

MARLOW (n.)

     The bottom drawer in the kitchen your mother keeps her paper bags in.

MARYTAVY (n.)

     A person to whom, under  dire injuctions of silence, you tell a  secret
which you wish to be fare more widely known.

MASSACHUSETTS (pl.n.)

     Those items and particles which people  who, after blowing their noses,
are searching for when they look into their hankies.

MATCHING GREEN (adj.)

     (Of  nackties.) Any  colour  which Nigel Rees rejects as unsuitable for
his trousers or jacket.

MAVIS ENDERBY (n.)

     The  almost-completely-forgotten girlfriend from  your distant past for
whom your wife has a completely irrational jealousy and hatred.

MEATH (adj.)

     Warm and very slightly clammy.
     Descriptive of  the texture of  your hands  after the  automatic drying
machine has turned itself off, just  damp enough  to make it embarrassing if
you have to shake hands with someone immediately afterwards.

MEATHOP (n.)

     One who sets off  for  the  scene  of  an  aircraft crash with a picnic
hamper.

MEETH (n.)

     Something which  American  doctors  will  shortly  tell us  we  are all
suffering from.

MELCOMBE REGIS (n.)

     The name  of the style of decoration  used in cocktail lounges in  mock
Tudor hotels in Surrey.

MELLON UDRIGLE (n.)

     The ghastly sound made by traditional folksingers.

MELTON CONSTABLE (n.)

     A  patent  anti-wrinkle  cream  which policemen wear to keep themselves
looking young.

MEMPHIS (n.)

     The little  bits of  yellow fluff which get trapped in the hinge of the
windscreen wipers after polishing the car with a new duster.

MILWAUKEE (n.)

     The melodious whistling, chanting and humming tone of the milwaukee can
be heard whenever a public lavatory is entered. It  is the way the occupants
of the cubicles have  of telling you  there's no lock on  their door and you
can't come in.

MINCHINHAMPTON (n.)

     The expression on  a man's face when he has just zipped up his trousers
without due care and attention.

MOFFAT (n.tailoring term)

     That  part of your coat which is  designed to be  sat on by the  person
next of you on the bus.

MOLESBY (n.)

     The kind of family that  drives to the seaside and then sits in the car
with all the windows closed, reading the Sunday Express and  wearing sidcups
(q.v.)

MONKS TOFT (n.)

     The bundle of hair which is left after  a monk has been tonsured, which
he keeps tired up with a rubber band and uses for chasing ants away.

MOTSPUR (n.)

     The fourth wheel of  a supermarket trolley which looks identical to the
other tree but renders the trolley completely uncontrollable.

MO I RANA
     Imagine beeing on a  vacation, and it's raining all the  time,  you are
driving and the kids are making you a nervous wreck. Well you are defenitive
in Mo i Rana.

MUGEARY (n.medical)

     The substance  from which the  unpleasant little yellow globules in the
corners of a sleepy person's eyes are made.

MUNDERFIELD (n.)
     A meadow  selected, whilst  driving  past, as  being ideal for a picnic
which,  from  a sitting position, turns out to be full of  stubble, dust and
cowpats, and almost impossible to enjoy yourself in.

NAAS (n.)

     The windmaking region  of Albania where  most of  the wine that  people
take to bottle-parties comes from.

NACTION (n.)

     The 'n' with which cheap advertising copywriters replace the word 'and'
(as in 'fish 'n'  chips',  'mix 'n' match', 'assault 'n'  battery'), in  the
mistaken belief that this is in some way chummy or endearing.

NAD (n.)

     Measure  defined  as  the  distance  between   a  driver's  oustretched
fingertips and the ticket machine in an automatic car-park.
     1 nad = 18.4 cm.

NANHORON (n.medical)

     A tiny valve concealed in the inner ear which enables a deaf granmother
to  converse  quite  normally when she  feels  like it,  but  which excludes
completely  anything that  sounds  like a request  to help with  laying  the
table.

NANTWICH (n.)

     A late-night snack, invented by the Earl of Nantwich, which consists of
the dampest thing in the fridge, pressed between two of the driest things in
the fridge.  The Earl, who lived in a flat in Clapham, inventedthe  nantwich
to avoid having to go shopping.

NAPLES (pl.n.)

     The tiny depression in a piece of Ryvita.

NASEBY (n.)

     The  stout metal instument  used for  clipping labels on to exhibits at
flower shows.

NAUGATUCK (n.)

     A  plastic  sachet  containing   shampoo,  polyfilla,  etc.,  which  is
impossible to open except by off the corners.

NAZEING (participial vb.)

     The rather unconvincing noices of pretended interest which an adult has
to make when brought a small dull object for admiration by a child.

NEEN SOLLARS (pl.n.)

     Any ensemble of especially unflattering and perticular garments worn by
a woman which tell you that she is right at the forefront of fashion.

NEMPNETT THRUBWELL (n.)

     The feeling experienced when driving off  for the frist time on a brand
new motorbike.

NETHER POPPLETON (n. obs.)

     A pair of P.J.Proby's trousers.

NOTTAGE (n.)

     Nottage  is the  collective  name for things which you  find  a use for
immediately after you've thrown them away.
     For instance, your  greenhouse has been  cluttered up  for years with a
huge piece  of cardboard and great  fronds of gardening string. You  at last
decide  to  clear  all this  stuff out, and  you burn it. Within twenty-four
hours  you  will urgently need to wrap a large parcel, and suddenly remember
that luckily in your greenhouse there is some carb...

NUBBOCK (n.)

     The kind of person who has to leave before a party  can relax and enjoy
itself.

NOTBOURNE (n.)

     In  a  choice between two or more  possible  puddings,  the  one nobody
plumps for.

NYBSTER (n.)

     Sort of person who takes the lift to travel one floor.

OCKLE (n.)

     An electrical switch which appears to be off in both positions.

OSBASTON (n.)

     A point made  for  the  sevent time to  somebody who insisits that they
know exactly what you mean but clearly hasn't got the faintest idea.

OSHKOSH (n., vb.)

     The noise made by  someone who has just been  grossly flattered  and is
trying to make light of it.

OSSETT (n.)

     A frilly spare-toilet-roll-cosy.

OSWALDTWISTLE (n. Old Norse)

     Small brass wind  instrument  used  for summoning Vikings to lunch when
they're off on their longships, playing.

OBWESTRY (abs.n.)

     Bloody-minded  determination  on  part of a  storyteller  to continue a
story which both the  teller and the  listeners  know has become desperately
tedious.

OUGHTERBY (n.)

     Someone you don't want to invite to a party but whom you know  you have
to as a matter of duty.

OUNDLE (vb.)

     To walk  along leaning sideways, with one arm hanging limp and dragging
one leg behind the other.
     Most commonly used by actors in amateur  production of Richard  III, or
by people carrying a heavy suitcase in one hand.

OZARK (n.)

     One who offers to help just after all the work has been done.

PABBY (n.,vb.)

     (Fencing term.) The play, or manoeuvre, where one swordsman leaps on to
the table and pulls the battleaxe off the wall.

PANT-Y-WACCO (adj.)

     The final state of mind of retired colonel before they come to take him
away.

POPCASTLE (n.)

     Something drawn or modelled by a small  child which you are supposed to
know wait it is.

PAPPLE (vb.)

     To do what babies do to soup with their spoons.

PAPWORTH EVERARD (n.)

     Technical term for the third take of an  orgasm scene during the making
of a pornographic film.

PEEBLES (pl.n.)

     Small, carefully rolled pellets of skegness (q.v.)

PELUTHO (n.)
     A  South American ball game. The balls are whacked against a brick wall
with a stout wooden bat until the prisoner confesses.

PEN-TRE-TAFARN-Y-FEDW (n.)

     Welsh   word   which   literally   translates    as   'leaking-biro-by-
the-glass-hole-of-the-clerk-of-the-bank-has-been-taken-to-
another-place-leaving-only-the-special-inkwell-and-three-
inches-of-tin-chain'.

PEORIA (n.)

     The fear of peeling too few potatoes.

PERCYHORNER (n.)

     (English public-school  slang). A prefect whose  duty it  is to suprise
new boys at the urinal humiliate them in a manner of his choosing.

PERRANZABULOE (n.)

     One of those spray things used to wet ironing with.

PEVENSEY (n.archaic)

     The right to collect shingle from the king's foreshore.

PIDDLETRENTHIDE (n.)

     A trouser stain caused by a wimbledon (q.v.). Not to be confused with a
botley (q.v.)

PIMLICO (n.)

     Small odd-shaped  piece  of plastic or curious metal component found in
the  bottom of  kitchen rummagedrawer  when spring-cleaning or  looking  for
Sellotape.

PIMPERNE (n.)

     One of those rubber nodules found on the  underneath side of a lavatory
seat.

PITLOCHRY (n.)

     The background  gurgling noise heard  in  Wimby Bars  caused  by people
trying  to get the last bubbles out  of  their milkshakes by slurping loudly
through their straws.

PITSLIGO (n.)

     Part of traditional mating rite.
     During the first  hot  day  of spring, all the  men  in  the tube start
giving up their seats to ladies and staphanging. The purpose of  pitsligo is
for  them  to  demonstrate their manhood by displaying the wet patches under
their arms.

PLEELEY (adj.)

     Descriptive of a drunk person's attempt to be endearing.

PLYMOUTH (vb.)

     To relate an  amusing  story to someone without remembering that it was
they who told it to you in the first place.

PLYMPTON (n.)

     The (pointless) knob on top of a war memorial.

PODE HOLE (n.)

     A hole drilled  in chipboard lavatory walls by  homosexuals for any one
of a number of purposes.

POGES (pl.n.)

     The lumps of dry powder that remain after cooking a packet soup.

POLBATHIC (adj.)

     Gifted with ability to manipulate taps using only the feet.

POLLOCH (n.)

     One of those tiny ribbed-plastic and aluminium foil tubs of milk served
on trains  enabling  you to carry one  safely back to  you compartment where
your legs in comfort trying to get the bloody things open.

POLPERRO (n.)

     A polperro  is  the ball, or muff, of soggy hair found clinging to bath
overflow-holes.

POONA (n.)

     Satisfied grunting noise made when sitting back after a good meal.

POTT SHRIGLEY (n.)

     Dried remains of  a week-old casserole, eaten  when extremely  drunk at
two a.m.

PUDSEY (n.)

     The  curious-shaped flat  wads  of dough left on a kitchen  table after
someone has been cutting scones out of it.

QUABBS (pl.n.)

     The substances which emerge when you squeeze a blackhead.

QUALL (vb.)

     To speak with the voice of one who requires another to do something for
them.

QUEDGELEY (n.)

     A rabidly left-wing politican  who can afford to be that way because he
married a millionairess.

QUEENZIEBURN (n.)

     Something  that happens when people make  it  up after  an  agglethorpe
(q.v.)

QUENBY (n.)

     A stubborn spot  on  a window which you spend twenty minutes  trying to
clean off before discovering it's on the other side of the glass.

QUERRIN (n.)

     A person  that no  one has ever heard of  who unaccountably  manages to
make a living writing prefaces.

QUOYNESS (n.)

     The hatefullness of words like 'relionus' and 'easiephit'.

RAMSGATE (n.)

     All  institutional  buildings must,  by  law,  contain at  least twenty
remsgates.  These  are  doors  which open the opposite  way  to the  one you
expect.

RANFURLY (adj.)

     Fashion  of  trying  ties so that  the long thin end underneath dangles
below the short fat upper end.

RECULVER (n.)

     The sort of remark only ever made during Any Questions.

RIPON (vb.)

     (Of literary critics.)  To include  all the best jokes from the book in
the review to make it look as if the critic thought of them.

ROCHESTER (n.)

     One who is able  to  gain occupation of the  armrest on both  sides  of
their cinema or aircraft seat.

ROYSTON (n.)

     The man behind you in church who sings  with terrific gusto almost tree
quarters of a tone off the note.

RUNCORN (n.)

     A peeble (q.v.) which is larger that a belper (q.v.)

SADBERGE (n.)

     A violent green shrub which is ground up, mixed with twigs and gelatine
and served with clonmult (q.v.) and buldoo (q.v.) in a container referred to
for no known reason as a 'relish tray'.

SAFFRON WALDEN (n.)

     To spray  the person you are talking to with half-chewed breadcrumbs or
small pieces of whitebait.

SAVERNAKE (vb.)

     To sew municipal  crests  on  to a windcheater in  the belief that this
will make the wearer appear cosmopolitan.

SCAMBLEBY (n.)

     A small dog which resembles a throwrug and appears to be dead.

SCETHROG (n.)

     One  of  those  peculiar  beards-without-moustaches  worn by  religious
Belgians and American scientists which help them look like trolls.

SCONSER (n.)

     A  person who looks around then when  talking to you, to see if there's
anyone more interesting about.

SCOPWICK (n.)

     The flap  of skin which  is torn  off you  lip when trying to  smake an
untipped cigarette.

SCORRIER (n.)

     A small hunting dog trained to snuffle amongst your private parts.

SCOSTHROP (vb.)

     To  make  vague  opening  or  cutting  movements  with  the hands  when
wandering about  looking  for  a tin opener, scissors, etc. in the hope that
this will help in some way.

SCRABBY (n.)
     A  curious-shaped duster  given to you by  your mother which on  closer
inspection turns out to be half an underpant.

SCRABSTER (n.)

     One of those dogs which has it off on your leg during tea.

SCRAMOGE (vb.)

     To cut oneself whilst licking envelopes.

SCRANTON (n.)

     A  person  who,  after the  declaration  of the  bodmin (q.v.),  always
says,'... But I only had the tomato soup.'

SCRAPTOFT (n.)

     The absurd flap of hair a vain and balding man grows long above one ear
to comb it to the other ear.

SCREEB (n.)

     To make the noise of a nylon anorak rubbing against a  pair of corduroy
trousers.

SCREGGAN (n.banking)

     The crossed-out bit caused by  people putting the  wrong year on  their
cheques all through January.

SCREMBY (n.)

     The dehydrated  felt-tip pen attached by a string to the 'Don't Forget'
board  in the kitchen  which has never worked in  living memory but which no
one can be bothered to throw away.

SCROGGS (n.)

     The stout pubic hairs which protrude from your helping of moussaka in a
cheap Greek resturant.

SCRONKEY (n.)

     Something that hits the window as a result of a violent sneeze.

SCULLET (n.)

     The last teaspoon in the washing up.

SEATTLE (vb.)

     To make a noise like a train going along.

SHALUNT (n.)

     One who wears Trinidad  and Tobago  T-shirts  on  the beach  in Bali to
prove thay didn't just win the holiday in a competition or anything.

SHANKLIN (n.)

     The hoop of skin around a single slice of salami.

SHENANDOAH (n.)

     The infinite smugness of one who knows they are entitled to a place  in
a nuclear bunker.

SHEPPY (n.)

     Measure of distance (equal to approximately seven eighths  of  a mile),
defined as the closest distance at which sheep remain picturesque.

SHIFNAL (n.,vb.)

     An  awkward  shuffling walk  caused  by  two or more people in a  hurry
accidentally  getting  into  the  same segment of  revolving door. A similar
effect is achieved by people entering three-legged races unwisely  joined at
the neck instead of the ankles.

SHIRMERS (pl.n.)

     Tall young men  who  stand around  smiling at weddings as if to suggest
that they know they bride reather well.

SHOEBURYNESS (abs.n.)
     The vague uncomfortable feeling you get when sitting on a seat which is
still warm from somebody else's bottom.

SHRIVENHAM (n.)

     One of Germaine Greer's used-up lovers.

SIDCUP (n.)

     One  of  those  hats  made  from  tying  knots  in  the  corners  of  a
handkerchief.

SILESIA (n.medical)

     The inability to  remember, at the critical moment, which is the better
side of a boat to be seasick off.

SILLOTH (n.)

     Something that was sticky, and is now furry, found on  the carpet under
the sofa the morning after a party.

SIMPRIM (n.)

     The little movement of  false modesty by  which a girl with a cavernous
visible cleavage pulls her skirt down over her knees.

SITTINGBOURNE (n.)

     One  of  those conversions where both people are waiting  for the other
one to shut up so they can get on with their bit.

SKEGNESS (n.)

     Nose excreata of a malleable consistency.

SKELLOW (adj.)

     Descriptive of the  satisfaction experienced when  looking at a  really
good dry-stone wall.

SKENFRITH (n.)

     The flakes of athelete's foot found inside socks.

SKETTY (n.)

     Apparently self-propelled little dance a beer glass performs in its own
puddle.

SKIBBEREEN (n.)

     The noise made by a sunburned thight leaving plastic chair.

SLIGO (n.)

     An  unnamed and exotic sexual act which  people  like  to  believe that
famous films stars get up to in private. 'To commit slingo.'

SLOGARIE (n.)

     Hillwalking dialect for  the  seven miles  of concealed rough  moorland
which  lie between what you though was the top of the hill and what actually
is.

SLUBBERY (n.)

     The gooey  drips  of  wax that dribble down  the  sides of a  candle so
beloved by Italian resturants with Chianti bottles instead of wallpaper.

SLUGGAN (n.)

     A lurid facial bruise  which everyone politely omits to mention because
it's  obvious  that you had  a punch-up with  your spourse  last night - but
which into a door. Is  is useless to volunteer  the true explanation because
nobody will believe it.

SLUMBAY (n.)

     The cigarette end  someone discovers in the mouthful of lager they have
just swigged from a can at the end of party.

SMARDEN (vb.)

     To  keep your mouth  shut  by  smiling determinedly through you  teeth.
Smardening  is largely  used by  people  trying  to give the impression that
they're enjoying a story they've heard at least six times before.

SMEARISARY (n.)

     The correct name for a junior apprentice greengrocer whose main duty is
to arrange the fruit so that the bad side is underneath.
     From the name of a character not in Dickens.

SNEEM (n.,vb.)

     Particular kind of frozen smile bestowed on a small  child by a  parent
in mixed company when question, 'Mummy,  what's this ?'  appears to  require
the answer,' Er...it's a rubber johnny,darling'.

SNITTER (n.)

     One of the rather unfunny newspaper clippings pinned to an office wall,
the humour  of which is supposed to  derive from  the fact that the headline
contains a name similar to that of one of the occupants to the office.

SNITTERBY (n.)

     Someone who pins snitters (q.v.) on to snitterfields (q.v.) and is also
suspected of being responsible for the extinction of virginstows (q.v.)

SNITTERFIELD (n.)

     Office  noticeboard on  which snitters  (q.v.),cards  saying 'You don't
have to  be  mad  to work  here, but if  you are it helps !!!' and  slightly
smutty postcards from ibiza get pinned up by snitterbies (q.v.)

SOLENT (adj.)

     Descriptive of the state of serene selfknowledge reached through drink.

SOTTERLEY (n,)

     Uncovered bit between two shops  with awnings, which you have to  cross
when it's raining.

SPITTAL OF GLENSHEE (n.)

     That which has to be cleaned off castle floors  in the morning after  a
bagpipe contest or vampire attack.

SPOFFORTH (vb.)

     To tidy up a room before the cleaning lady arrives.

SPROSTON GREEN (n.)

     The violent colour of one of Nigel Rees's  jackets, worn when he thinks
he's being elegant.

STEBBING (n.)

     The erection you cannot conceal because you're not wearing a jacket.

STOKE POGES (n.)

     The tapping  moments of an  index finger on  glass  made  by  a  person
futilely attempting  to  communicate  with either a tropical fish or  a post
office clerk.

STURRY (n.,vb.)

     A token run. Pedestrians who have chosen to cross a road immediately in
front of an approaching vehicle  generally give a little wave and break into
a sturry. This gives the impression of hurrying without having any practical
effect on their speed whatsoever.

SUTTON and CHEAM (nouns)

     Sutton and cheam are the kinds of dirt into which all dirt  is divided.
'Sutton' is  the dark sort that  always  gets  on to  light-coloured things,
'cheam' the light-coloured  sort that clings  to dark items.  Anyone who has
ever found Marmite stains on a dress-shirt or seagull goo on a dinner jacker
(a)  knows all about sutton and cheam, and (b) is going to tome very curious
dinner parties.

SWANAGE (pl.n.)

     Swanage is the series of diversionary tactics used when trying to cover
up  the existence  of a  glossop  (q.v.)  and  may  include  (a)  uttering a
highpitched laugh and pointing out of the window (NB. this doesn't work more
that twice);  (b) sneezing as  loudly as possible and wiping the glossop off
the table in the same movement as whipping out your handkerchief; (c) saying
'Christ! I seen to have dropped some shit on your table' (very  unwise); (d)
saying  'Christ, who did that?' (better) (e)  pressing  your  elbow  on  the
glossop itself and working your  arms  slowly to the edge of the table;  (f)
leaving the  glossop where it  is but moving a  plate over it and putting up
with  sitting  at an uncomfortable angle the rest of  the  meal; or, if  the
glossop is in too exposed a position, (g) leaving it there unremarked except
for the occasional humourous glance.

SWANIBOST (adj.)

     Complete shagged  out after  a hard  day having income tax explained to
you.

SYMOND'S YAT (n.)

     The little spoonful inside the lid of a recently opened boiled egg.

TABLEY SUPERIOR (n.)

     The  look  directed at you  in a teatre bar in the  interval  by people
who've already got their drinks.

TAMPA (n.)

     The sound of a rubber eraser  coming to rest after  dropping off a desk
in a very quiet room.

TAROOM (vb.)

     To make  loud noises  during  the night to let the buglars know you are
in.

TEGUCIGALPA (n.)

     An embarrassing mistake arising out of confusing the shape of something
rather rude  with something perfectly ordinary  when groping for it  in  the
darkness.
     A common example of a  tegucigalpa is when a woman  pulls a  packet  of
Tampax out of her bag and offers them around under the impression that it is
a carton of cigarettes.

THEAKSTONE (n.)

     Ancient  mad  tramp  who  jabbers  to  himself  and  swears loudly  and
obscenely on station platforms and traffic islands.

THROCKING (participial vb.)

     The  action of countinually pushing down the lever on a pop-up  toaster
in the hope that  you will thereby get it  to understand that you want it to
toast something.
     Also  : a style of drum-playing  favoured by Nigel  Olsson of the Elton
John  Band,  reminiscent  of the sound  of  someone slapping  a  frankfurter
against a  bucket.  An excellent example of this is to  be heard on 'Someone
Save My  Life Tonight'  from the  album Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt
Cowboy.

THROUCKMORTON (n.)

     The  soul of a departed madman : one of those now  known to inhabit the
timing mechanish of pop-up toasters.

THRUMSTRER (n.)

     The  irritating man  next to you in a  concert  who thinks he's (a) the
conductor, (b) the brass section.

THRUPP (vb.)

     To  hold a  ruler on  one  end  on  a desk and  make  the other end  go
bbddbbddbbrrbrrrrddrr.

THURNBY (n.)

     A rucked-up edge of carpet or linoleum which everyone says someone will
trip over and break a leg unless it gets fixed. After  a year or two someone
trips over it and breaks a leg.

TIBSHELF (n.)

     Criss-cross  wooden construction  hung  on a wall in  a  teenage girl's
bedroom which  is  covered with glass bambies and poodles, matching pigs and
porclain ponies in various postures.

TIDPIT (n.)

     The corner of a toenail from which satisfying little black deposits may
be sprung.

TIGHARRY (n.)

     The  accomplice  or  'lure'  who  gets punters  to  participate in  the
threecard trick  on London streets by winning an improbable  amount of money
very easily.

TILLICOULTRY (n.)

     The man-to-man  chummieness adpoted  by an  employer  as  a prelude for
telling an employee that he's going to have to let him go.

TIMBLE (vb.)

     (Of small nasty children.) To fail over very gently, look around to see
who's about, and then yell blue murder.

TINCLETON (n.)

     A man who  amuses himself in  your lavatory by  pulling  the  chain  in
midpee and then seeing if he can finish before the flush does.

TINGRITH (n.)

     The feeling of silver paper against your fillings.

TODBER (n.)

     One whose  idea of a good time  is to stand behind  his front hedge and
give surly nods to people he doesn't know.

TODDING (vb.)

     The  business of  talking amiably and  aimlessly  to  the barman at the
local.

TOLOB (n.)

     A crease or fold  in an  underblanket, the  removal  of  which involves
getting out of bed an largely remaking it.

TOLSTACHAOLAIS (phr.)

     What the police in Leith require you to  say in order to prove that you
are not drunk.

TOOTING BEC (n.)

     A car behind which one draws up at the traffic lights and hoots at when
the lights go green before realising that the car is  parked and there is no
one inside.

TORLUNDY (n.)
     Narrow but thickly  grimed  strip of floor  between  the fridge and the
sink unit in the kitchen of a rented flat.

TORONTO (n.)
     Generic term for  anything which comes out of  a gush despite  all your
careful efforts to let it  out gently, e.g. flour into a white souce, tomato
ketchup on to fried fish, sperm into a human being, etc.

TOTTERIDGE (n.)

     The riduculous two-inch hunch that people adopt when arriving late  for
the  teatre in  the vain and futile hope that it  will  minimise  either the
embarrassment of the lack of visibility for the rest of the audience.
     c.f. hickling.

TRANTLEMORE (vb.)
     To make a noise like a train crossing a set of points.

TREWOFFE (n.)

     A very thick and heavy drift of snow balanced precariously on the edoge
of a door porch waiting for what it judges to be the correct moment to fall.
From the ancient Greek legend 'The Treewofe of Damocles'.

TRISPEN (n.)
     A form of  intelligent  grass. It grows a single, tough stalk and makes
its  home on lawns. When it sees  the lawnmover coming it lies down and pops
up again after it has gone by.

TROSSACHS (pl.n.)
     The useless epaulettes on an expensive raincoat.

TUAMGRANEY (n.)
     A  hideous  wooden ornament that  people  hang over  the mantelpiece to
prove they've been to Africa.

TULSA (n.)

     A slurp of beer which has accidentally gone down your shirt collar.

TUMBY (n.)

     The involuntary  abdominal  gurgling which fills the  silence following
someone else's inimate personal revelation.

TWEEDSMUIR (collective n.)

     The  name  given  to  the  extensive  vollection  of hats kept  in  the
downstairs lavatory which don't fit anyone in the family.

TWEMLOW GREEN (n.)

     The  colour of some of  Nigel Rees's trousers,  worn  in  the  mistaken
belief that they go rather well with his sproston green (q.v.) jackets.

TWOMILEBORRIS (n.)
     A popular Ease European outdoor game in which the first person to reach
the front of the meat queue wins, and the losers have to  forfeit their bath
plugs.

TYNE and WEAR (nouns)

     The 'Tyne' is the small priceless  or vital object accidentally dropped
on  the floor (e.g.  diamond  tieclip, contact lans) and  the  'wear' is the
large immovable  object  (e.g.  Welsh dreser, car-crusher) that  it shelters
under.

ULLAPOOL (n.)

     The spittle which builds up on the floor of the Royal Opera House.

ULLINGSWICK (n.)

     An over-developed epiglottis found in middle-aged coloraturas.

ULLOCK (n.)

     The correct name for either  of the deaf  Scandinavian tourists who are
standing two abreast in front of you on the escalator.

UMBERLEIGH (n.)

     The  awful  moment which  follows a  dorchester  (q.v.) when a  speaker
weighs up whether to repeat  an amusing remark after nobody laughed the last
time. To be on the horns of an umberleigh is to wonder whether people didn't
hear the  remark, or whether they did hear it  and just  didn't think it was
funny, which was why somebody coughed.

UPOTTERY (n.)

     That part of a  kitchen  copboard which contains an unnecessarily large
number of milk jugs.

UTTOXETER (n.)

     A  small but immensely  complex mechanical  device which is essentially
the 'brain' of a modern coffeevending machine, and which enables the machine
to take its own decisions.

VALLETTA (n.)

     On ornate  head-dress or loose garment worn  by a  person in the belief
that it renders then invisibly native  and not like a tourist at all. People
who don huge conial  staw collie hats with 'I Luv Lagos' on them in Nigeria,
or  fat  solicitors  from  Tonbridge  on  holiday in Malaya  who  insist  on
appearing in the hotel lobby wearing a sarong know wat we're on about.

VANCOUVER (n.)

     The technical  name for one  of those huge trucks with whirling brushes
on the bottom used to clean streets.

VENTNOR (n.)
     One who, having been visited  as a child by a mysterious gypsy lady, is
gifted with the strange power of being able to operate the air-nozzles above
aeroplane seats.

VIRGINSTOW (n.)

     A Durex machinewhich doesn't  have  the  phrase  'So was  the  Titanic'
scrawled on it. The word has now fallen into discuse.

VOBSTER (n.)

     A  strain of perfectly healthy rodent which  develops cancer the moment
it enter a laboratory.

WARLEGGAN (n.archaic)

     One who does not approve of araglins (q.v.)

WATH (n.)

     The rage of Roy Jenkins.

WEEM (n.)

     The tools with which a dentist can inflict the greatest pain. Formerly,
which  tool this  was was  dependent upon the  imagination  and skill of the
individual dentist, though  now, with  technological advances, weems  can be
bought specially.

WEMBLEY (n.)

     The hideous moment of confirmation that the diaster presaged in the ely
(q.v.) has actually struck.

WENDENS AMBO (n.)

     (Veterinary term.) The operation to trace an object swallowed by  a cow
through all its seven stomachs. Hence, also (1)  en  expedition to  discover
where the  exits  are in the Barican  Centre, and  (2) a search  through the
complete works of Chaucer for all the rude bits.

WEST WITTERING (participial vb.)

     The uncontrollable twitching which breaks out when you're trying to get
away from the most borig person at a party.

WETWANG (n.)

     A moist penis.

WHAPLODE DROVE (n.)

     A homicidal golf stroke.

WHASSET (n.)

     A  business  card in you wallet belonging  to someone whom you  have no
recollection of meeting.


WHISSENDINE (n.)

     The nose which occurs (often by night) in a strange house, which is too
short and too irregular for you ever  to be able to find out what it  is and
where it comes from.

WIDDICOMBE (n.)

     The sort of person who impresonates trimphones.

WIGAN (n.)

     If, when talking to someone you know has only one leg, you're trying to
treat  then perfectly casually  and normally, but find to  your  horror that
your conversion  is  liberally  studded with  references to  (a)  Long  John
Silver, (b) Hopalong Cassidy, (c) The Hockey  Cokey, (d) 'putting your  foot
in it', (e) 'the last  leg of the UEFA  competition', you are  said to  have
commited a wigan.
     The  word  is  derived from the fact that  sub-editors  at  ITN used to
manage  to mention the name of either the town Wigan, or Lord Wigg, in every
fourth script that Reginald Bosanquet was given to read.

WIKE (vb.)

     To rip a piece of sticky  plaster off your skin as fast as possible  in
the hope that it will (a) show how brave you are, and (b) not hurt.

WILLIMANTIC (adj.)

     Of a person  whose  hearth  is in the  wrong place (i.e.  between their
legs).

WIMBLEDON (n.)

     That last drop which, no matter how much you shake it, always goes down
your trouser leg.

WINKLEY (n.)

     A  lost  object which turns up  immediately  you've gone and  bought  a
replacement for it.

WINSTON-SALEM (n.)

     A  person in  a  resturant  who  suggest to their companions  that they
should split  the  cost of the meal equally, and then orders  two packets of
cigarettes on the bill.

WIVENHOE (n.)

     The cry of alacrity with which a  sprightly eighty-year-old breaks  the
ice on the lake when going for a swim on Christmas Eve.

WOKING (participial vb.)

     Standing in the kitchen wondering what you came in here for.

WOOLFARDISHWORTHY (n.)

     A mumbled, mispronounced or misshears  word  in a song, speech or play.
Derived from the well-known mumbles passage in Hamlet :

     '...and the spurns,
     That patient merit of the unworthy
     takes
     When he himself might his quietus
     make
     With a bare bodkin? Who
     woolfardisworthy
     To grunt and sweat under a weary
     life?'

WORGRET (n.)

     A kind  of poltergeist which specialises  in stealing new copies of the
A-Z from your car.

WORKSOP (n.)

     A person  who never actually gets  round to  doing  anything because he
spends all his time writing out lists headed 'Things to Do (Urgent)'.

WORMELOW TUMP (n.)

     Any seventeen-year-old who doesn't know about  anything  at  all in the
world other than bicycle gears.

WRABNESS (n.)

     The feeling after having tried to dry oneself with a damp towel.

WRITTLE (vb.)

     Of a steel ball, to settle into a hole.

WROOT (n.)

     A short little  berk  who thinks that by pulling on his pipe and gazing
shrewdly at you he will give the impression that he is infinitely wise and 5
ft 11 in.

WYOMING (participial vb.)

     Moving in  hurried  desperation from one cubicle to another in a public
lavatory trying to find one which has a lock on the door, a seat on the bowl
and no brown steaks on the seat.

YADDLETHORPE (vb.)

     (Of offended pooves.) To exit huffily from a boutique.

YARMOUTH (vb.)

     To  shout at foreigners  in  the  belief that the louder you speak, the
better they'll understand you.

YATE (n.)

     Dishearteningly white  piece  of  bread which  sits  limply in a pop-up
toaster during a protracked throcking (q.v.) session.

YEPPOON (n.)

     One of  the hat-hanging corks which  Australians wear for making Qantas
commercials.

YESNABY (n.)

     A 'yes, maybe' which means 'no'.

YONDER BOGINE (n.)

     The  kind  of resturant  advertised as 'just  three minutes  from  this
cinema'  which  clearly nobody  ever  goes to  and,  evn  if  they  had ever
contemplated it, have certainly changed their minde since seeing the advert.

YONKERS (n.)

     (Rare.)  The combind thrill of pain  and  shame  when being  caught  in
public plucking your nostril-hairs and stuffing them into your side-pocket.

YORK (vb.)

     To shift the position of the shoulder straps on a heavy bag or rucksack
in a vain attempt to make it seem lighter.
     Hence :  to laugt falsely and heartily at an  unfunny remark.  'Jasmine
yorked politely, loathing him to the depths of her being' - Virginia Woolf.

ZEAL MONACHORUM (n.)

     (Skiing term.) To ski with 'zeal monchorum'  is to decend the top three
quaters of the  mountain in a  quivering blue funk,  but on arriving  at the
gentle  bit just in  front  of the  resturant  to whizz  to a  stop  like  a
victerious slalom-champion.




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