A little item of criminal slang that has found its way into common use. To blag something is to get it for free, possibly without deserving to. So you can blag your way into parties or concerts, you can blag free CDs or clothes or video games by pretending to be a critic. Or by actually being a critic.
Bubble & squeak
A dish of cooked cabbage, fried with cooked potatoes and other vegetables which is often made from the remains of the vegetables from the Sunday roast. It’s known as colcannon in Ireland.
Although there are many American English words that mean clumsy, this is unique in that it comes from mocking left-handed people. The implication is that you dropped that priceless ming vase because your dominant hand is the one you should only use to wipe yourself with in the bathroom. Cack meaning poo, y’see.
If your cellphone still has buttons, and they’re too small for your sausage fingers to operate properly, it’s fiddly. If you’re trying to work out your accounts and there are complicated equations at play, they’re fiddly. If a french plait is beyond you, that’s because it’s fiddly. As is a Gm7 chord on a mandolin (if you only play the guitar).
That which is disgusting, dirty or of poor quality. It’s closest American cousin would probably be gross, although arguably grotty describes things that are bearably disgusting. Once those things become intolerable, they become gross.
Anyone who has ever missed a train by nanoseconds, held up by some official who just HAD to check over your ticket with the kind of scientific rigor you’d normally expect from an archeologist, has met a jobsworth. It’s that person who does everything by the book, on purpose, just to make your day worse, and then claims it has to be that way, because it would be “more than my job’s worth” to do anything else.
Not the music, this is the mint-flavored hard candy stick, not unlike a candy-cane, but usually straight and pink, that you can buy at British seaside resorts. Often the name of the resort runs through the stick, due to clever work by the manufacturers. So Graham Greene’s novel Brighton Rock is named after this confection, not a geological feature.
This refers to the act of stealing apples from an orchard. It’s commonly seen as a naughty schoolboy’s pursuit, and something of a rite of passage during late childhood. (see also: scrumpy – a strong cloudy cider)
Literally means walking, taking a route that would normally involved transportation. It’s a reference to Edward I, medieval king of England, who was known as Longshanks due to his beanpole physique. The joke is that his legs were so long, if he were to ride a pony, he’d still be walking.
Little Tich was the stage name of the Victorian actor Harry Relph, who was incredibly famous in his day, and was quite small. Subsequently, titchy is now a part mocking, part affectionate term for someone of a similar stature.
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