Slanguage

Originally posted by Keith Webb
Perhaps you could favour us with some slang, Richard? The Beefing ones I know... but the uphill gardner?

As for the ashes... it's amazing so much importance is placed on some ash from old wickets, isn't it...
And I don't mean ash from cancer-sticks or coffin nails

Ah, yes.

We'll scrub round the beef things, ladies present y'know.

Uphill gardener - homosexual. You figure it out. . . . . . .
I will not use "gay", this is a hijacked word. The Concise Oxford Dictionary gives it as "light-hearted and carefree, brightly coloured, showy."

Bottle, bottle out, lost his bottle - loose one's nerve, bottle of beer from the Courage Brewery, one of the first bottled beer providers.

Crumpet - pretty girl (tasty)

Scrubber - possibly "Sheila" in colloquial Oz slang.

Pelmet - very short skirt.

Bristols - Try rhyming with Bristol City. . . . . . . .

Puppies plums - something very good, the dogs b***ocks.

Cough in your rompers - see launch an air biscuit.

2 'n 6 - in a fix, trouble.

2 'n 8 - in a state.

Ackers - money.

Auntie - BBC

Badger - to bother incessantly

Belt - hit hard

Berk - rhymes with Berkeley Hunt (Foxhunting)

Betty Swollocks - hot and uncomfortable, a spoonerism.

Big girls blouse - a feeble and ineffectual person

Birmingham screwdriver - hammer

Boracic - no money, boracic lint ~ skint.

Chalfonts - gonads, Chalfont Hall ~ ball.

Pants - nonsense, rubbish, bad

etc, etc, it goes on and on. Lets not forget the Aussie definition of foreplay:
"Aw, you awake Sheila?"

Ah, the ashes then, although frankly I'd rather watch the grass grow, officially from Auntie's historical site:

Ashes to ashes

The British cricketer W G Grace, 1898. Many other great contests were born in the Victorian era. Cricket's rules had been laid down as early as 1744, but in 1861 an English touring team travelled down under for the first time. Seven years later a team of Aborigines toured England, although the first official Test match was not until 1877 when Australia beat England in Melbourne. An inauspicious start, but worse was to come. When Australia won a Test in England for the first time in 1882, The Sporting Times published the famous obituary:

In affectionate remembrance of English cricket which died at the Oval on 29th August, 1882. Deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing friends and acquaintances. R.I.P. N.B. The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.
The 'body' is reputed to be one of the bails, and England and Australia have played for the Ashes ever since.

Ooooo, that's nice, Mrs Notton has just brought me a mug of Rosy (Lee ~ tea), time for a off we go. . . . . .

R.