Louise Rennison_Georgia Nicolson 09 (18 page)

In case you haven't noticed, me and the ace gang have created some of the grooviest dance moves ever invented. I always find that a quick burst of disco inferno dancing is a fab way of getting rid of tensionosity and frustrated snoggosity. So because I love you all so much, I have written down our fave steps so you can get grooving too.

The Viking bison disco inferno

We're still practicing this for Rosie's forthcoming (i.e., in 18 years' time) Viking wedding. It is danced to the tune of
Jingle Bells
because even Rosie, world authority on Sven land, doesn't know any Viking songs. Apart from
Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer
. Which isn't one.

For this dance you need some bison horns. If you can't find any bison shops nearby, make your own horns from an old hairband and a couple of twigs or something. Oh, I don't know, stop
hassling me. I'm tired.

 

Instructions:

Stamp, stamp to the left,

Left leg kick, kick,

Arm up,

Stab, stab to the left (that's the pillaging bit),

Stamp, stamp to the right,

Right leg kick, kick,

Arm up,

Stab, stab to the right,

Quick twirl round with both hands raised to Thor (whatever)

Raise your (pretend) drinking horn to the left,

Drinking horn to the right,

Horn to the sky,

All over body shake

Huddly duddly,

And fall to knees with a triumphant shout of “HORRRRNNNNN!!!!”

 

P.S.

In a rare moment of comic genius, Jas, who is clearly in touch with her inner bison, added this bit too—it's a sort of sniffing the air type move. Like a
Viking bison might do. If it was trying to find its prey. And if there was such a thing as a Viking bison.

The snot disco inferno

For this dance you will need a big blob of bubble gum hanging off your nose like a huge bogey. It needs to dangle about so you can swing it round and round in time to the music. Dance this to the tune of
EastEnders
, or your favorite TV show theme tune. It goes:

The Viking disco hornpipe extravaganza

(Just a note, costume wise, the earmuffs are worn over the Viking horns. It is imperative that the horns are not removed, otherwise it makes a laughingstock of the whole thing.)

So:

The music starts with a Viking salute. Both paddles are pointed at the horns.

Then a cry of “Thor!!!” and a jump turn to the right.

Paddle paddle paddle paddle to the right.

Paddle paddle paddle paddle to the left.

Cry of Thor! Jump turn to the left.

Paddle paddle paddle paddle to the left and right.

Jump to face the front (grim Viking expression).

Quick paddle right, quick paddle left x4.

Turn to partner.

Cross paddles with partner x2.

Face front and high hornpipe skipping eight times (gay Viking smiling).

Then, and this is the complicated bit:

Interweaving paddling! Paddle in and out of each other up and down the line, meanwhile gazing out to the left and to the right (concerned expression—this is the looking-for-land bit).

Paddle back to original position. On-the-spot paddling till all are in line and then close eyes (for nighttime rowing effect).

Two sets of right and left paddling and then:

Open eyes wide.

Shout, “Land AHOYYYYY!”

Fall to knees and throw paddles in the air (behind, not in front, in case of crowd injury).

1. Ignorez-vous
   ing
   
2. Sniffing (in an “I told you so” way)
   
3. Head tossing and fringe fiddling
   
4. Cold shoulderosity work
   
5. Midget gems all round, but not for you
   
6. Pretendy deafnosity
   
7. Walking on ahead
   
8. The quarter humpty (evils)
   
9. The half humpty dumpty (evils and withdrawal of all snacks)
   
10. The full humpty dumpty (walking away with dignitosity at all times)
    

1. minor tizz
   
2. complete tizz and to-do
   
3. strop
   
4. a visit to Stop Central
   
5. f.t. (funny turn)
   
6. spazattack
   
7. complete ditherspaz
   
8. nervy b. (nervous breakdown)
   
9. complete nervy b.
   
10. ballisticisimus
    

airing cupboard
• It's a cupboard full of air, you fools. If you haven't got enough air, you go into the airing cupboard in your house. Not really! It's a cupboard by the hot water boiler and you put towels and sheets in and they get all warm and snuggly buggly (don't start saying you don't know what snuggly buggly means).

 

arvie
• Afternoon. From the Latin “arvo.” Possibly. As in the famous Latin invitation: “Lettus meetus this arvo.”

 

balaclava
• This is from the Crimean War when our great-great-grannies spent all their time knitting hats to keep the English soldiers warm in the very, very cold Baltic. A balaclava covers everything apart from your eyes. It is like a big sock with a hole in it. Which just goes to show what really crap knitters our great-great-grannies were.

 

billio
• From the Australian outback. A billycan was something Aborigines boiled their goodies up in, or whatever it is they eat. Anyway, billio means boiling things up. Therefore, “my cheeks ached like billio” means—er—very achy. I don't know why we say it. It's a mystery, like many things. But that's the beauty of life.

 

Blimey O'Reilly
• (as in “Blimey O'Reilly's trousers”) This is an Irish expression of disbelief and shock.
Maybe Blimey O'Reilly was a famous Irish bloke who had extravagantly big trousers. We may never know the truth. The fact is, whoever he is, what you need to know is that a) it's Irish and b) it is Irish. I rest my case.

 

blodge
• Biology. Like geoggers—geography—or Froggie—French.

 

bloke
• You must know what a bloke is…it is a person of the masculine gender. Hence the expression “my bloke”—as in “I am dumping my bloke because he is too thick.”

 

boboland
• As I have explained many, many times English is a lovely and exciting language full of sophisticosity. To go to sleep is “to go to bobos,” so if you go to bed you are going to boboland. It is an Elizabethan expression (oh, OK then, Libby made it up and she can be unreasonably violent if you don't join in with her).

 

Boots
• A large drugstore chain selling mostly cosmetics.

 

boy entrancers
• Ah, yes. The real emergence of the boy entrancers. Hmmm, well. Boy entrancers are false eyelashes. They are known as boy entrancers because they entrance boys. Normally. However, I have had some non-entrancing moments with them. For instance, when I put too much glue on to stick them on with. It was when I was at a Stiff Dylans' gig trying to entrance Masimo. I was intending to do that looking up at him and then looking down and then looking up again, and possibly a bit of flicky hair (as suggested in
How to Make Any Twit Fall in Love with You
). I did the looking at
him and looking down thing, but when I tried to look up again I couldn't because my b.e.'s had stuck to my bottom lashes. So my eyes stayed shut. I tried raising my eyebrows (that must have looked good) and humming, but in the end out of sheer desperadoes I said, “Oooh, I love this one,” and went off doing blind disco dancing to Rolf Harris's “Two Little Boys.” So in conclusion…boy entrancers are good but be alert for glue extravaganzas.

 

brillopads
• A brillopad is a sort of wire pad that you clean pans and stuff with (if you do housework, which I sincerely suggest you don't. I got ironer's elbow from being made to iron my vati's huge undercrackers). Where was I? Oh yes. When you say, “It was brillopads,” you don't mean, “It was a sort of wire pad that you clean with!” You mean, “It was fab and groovy.”

Do you see? Good night.

 

bugger
• A swear word. It doesn't really mean anything but neither do a lot of swear words. Or parents.

 

bum-oley
• Quite literally bottom hole. I'm sorry but you did ask. Say it proudly (with a cheery smile and a Spanish accent).

 

cardi
• Cardigan. Like pulli (pullover), only different.

 

chav
• A chav is a common, rude, rough person. They wear naff clothes. A chav joke would be, “What are the first words a chav baby says to its single parent?” Answer: “What are YOU looking at??” Or: “If there are
two chavs in a car and no loud music playing, what kind of a car is it?” Answer: “A police car.”

 

chips
• French fries.

 

chuddie
• Chewing gum. This is an “i” word thing. We have a lot of them in English due to our very busy lives, explaining stuff to other people not so fortunate as ourselves.

 

clown car
• Officially called a Reliant Robin three-wheeler, but clearly a car built for clowns, built by some absolute loser called Robin. The Reliant bit comes from being able to rely on Robin being a prat. I wouldn't be surprised if Robin also invented nostril hair cutters.

 

clud
• This is short for cloud. Lots of really long boring poems and so on can be made much snappier by abbreviating words. So Tennyson's poem called “Daffodils” (or “Daffs”) has the immortal line “I wandered lonely as a clud.” Ditto Rom and Jul. Or Ham. Or Merc. of Ven.

 

conk
• Nose. This is very interesting historically. A very long time ago (1066)—even before my grandad was born—a bloke called William the Conqueror (French) came to England and shot our King Harold in the eye. Typical. And people wonder why we don't like the French much. Anyway, William had a big nose and so to get our own back we call him William the Big Conkerer. If you see what I mean. I hope you do because I am exhausting myself with my hilariosity and historiosity.

 

div
• Short for “dithering prat,” i.e., Jas.

 

DIY
• Quite literally “Do It Yourself!” Rude when you think it about it. Instead of getting someone competent to do things around the house (you know, like a trained electrician or a builder or a plumber), some vatis choose to do DIY. Always with disastrous results. (For example, my bedroom ceiling has footprints in it because my vati decided he would go up on the roof and replace a few tiles. Hopeless.)

 

double cool with knobs
• “Double” and “with knobs” are instead of saying very or very, very, very, very. You'd feel silly saying, “He was very, very, very, very, very cool.” Also everyone would have fallen asleep before you had finished your sentence. So “double cool with knobs” is altogether snappier.

 

Eccles cake
• A culinary delight from the north of England. Essentially, they look like little packets of dead flies—yum yum. Lots of yummy things come from the north of England: cow heel and tripe (a cow's stomach lining with vinegar), and most delicious of all, cow nip nip (yes, I am serious).

What you have to remember is that the northern folk are descended from Vikings, and frankly, when you have been rowing a boat for about three months, you will eat anything.

 

fag
• Cigarette.

 

fandango
• A fandango is a complicated Spanish dance. So a fandango is a complicated thing. Yes, I know there is no dancing involved. Or Spanish.

 

first former
• Kids of about eleven who have just started “big” school. They have shiny innocent faces, very tempting to slap.

 

footie
• Soccer.

 

form
• A form is what we call class at English secondary schools. It is probably a Latin expression. Probably from the Latin “formus ignoramus.”

 

fringe
• Goofy short bit of hair that comes down to your eyebrows. Someone told me that American-type people call them “bangs” but this is so ridiculously strange that it's not worth thinking about. Some people can look very stylish with a fringe (i.e., me) while others look goofy (Jas). The Beatles started it apparently. One of them had a German girlfriend, and she cut their hair with a pudding bowl and the rest is history.

 

Froggie and geoggers
• Froggie is short for French, geoggers is short for geography. Ditto blodge (biology) and lunck (lunch).

 

full-frontal snogging
• Kissing with all the trimmings, lip to lip, open mouth, tongues…everything. (Apart from dribble, which is never acceptable.)

 

gadzooks
• An expression of surprise. Like for instance, “Cor, love a duck!” Which doesn't mean you love ducks or want to marry one. For the swotty knickers amongst you, “gad” probably meant “God” in olde English, and “zooks” of course means…Oh, look, just leave me alone, OK? I'm so vair tired.

 

get off with
• A romantic term. It means to use your womanly charms to entice a boy into a web of love. Oh, OK then—snogging.

 

gob
• Gob is an attractive term for someone's mouth. For example, if you saw Mark (from up the road who has the biggest mouth known to womankind) you could yell politely, “Good Lord, Mark, don't open your gob, otherwise people may think you are a basking whale in trousers and throw a mackerel at you” or something else full of hilariosity.

 

goosegog
• Gooseberry. I know you are looking all quizzical now. OK. If there are two people and they want to snog and you keep hanging about saying “Do you fancy some chewing gum?” or “Have you seen my interesting new socks?” you are a gooseberry. Or for short a goosegog, i.e., someone who nobody wants around.

 

gorgey
• Gorgeous. Like fabby (fabulous) and marvy (marvelous).

 

horn
• When you “have the horn” it's the same as “having the big red bottom.”

 

in vino hairy arse
• This is a Latin joke and therefore vair vair funny. The Latin term is “in vino veritas,” which means “truth in wine.” That is, when you are drunk you tell the truth. So do you see what I've done??? Do you? Instead of “veritas,” I say “hairy arse.” Sometimes I exhaust myself with my amusingnosity.

 

Jammy Dodger
• Biscuit with jam in it. Very nutritious(ish).

 

jimjams
• Pajamas. Also pygmies or jammies.

 

Kiwi-a-gogo land
• New Zealand. “A-gogo land” can be used to liven up the otherwise really boring names of other countries. America, for instance, is Hamburger-a-gogo land, Mexico is Mariachi-a-gogo land and France is Frogs'-legs-a-gogo land. This is from that very famous joke told every Christmas by the elderly mad (Grandad). Oh very well, I'll tell you it.

A man goes into a French restaurant and says to the French waiter, “Have you got frogs' legs?”

The waiter says,
“Oui, monsieur.”

And the man says, “Well, hop off and get me a sandwich then.”

This should give you some idea of what our Christmases are like.

 

knickers
• Panties, briefs, things you wear to conceal girlie parts. Boys don't wear knickers; they wear underpants or boxer shorts. Some of them wear underpants that have a Union Jack or a funny joke on them. So Jas says, but she is, as we are all too aware, mad.

 

lippy
• Oh come on, you know what it is! Lipstick!! Honestly, what are you lot like!

 

loo
• Lavatory. In America they say “rest room,” which is funny, as I never feel like having a rest when I go to the lavatory.

 

maths
• Mathematics.

 

midget gem
• Little sweets made out of hard jelly stuff in different flavors. Jas loves them A LOT. She
secretes them about her person, I suspect, often in her panties, so I never like to accept one from her on hygiene and lesbian grounds.

 

milky pops
• A soothing hot milk drink, when you are a little person. (No, not an elf, I mean a child.) Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, when you are a child, people give words endings to make them more cozy. Chocolate is therefore choccy woccy doo dah. Blanket is blankin'. Tooth is tushy peg. Easy is easy peasey lemon squeasey. If grown-ups ever talk like this, do not hesitate to kill them.

 

Mystic Meg
• A mad woman in a head scarf and massive earrings who can predict the future. And probably lives in a tree house. A bit like Jas, really. Except that Jas hasn't got a head scarf or earrings. And can't tell the future. Apart from that (and the fact that Mystic Meg is a hundred), they are quite literally like identical twins.

 

naff
• Unbearably and embarrassingly out of fashion and nerdy. Naff things are: Parents dancing to “modern” music, blue eyeshadow, blokes who wear socks with sandals, pigtails. You know what I mean.

 

nervy spaz
• Nervous spasm. Nearly the same as a nervy b. (nervous breakdown) or an f.t. (funny turn), only more spectacular on the physical side.

 

nippy noodles
• Instead of saying “Good heavens, it's quite cold this morning,” you say “Cor—nippy noodles!!”
English is an exciting and growing language. It is. Believe me. Just leave it at that. Accept it.

 

nuddy-pants
• Quite literally nude-colored pants, and you know what nude-colored pants are? They are no pants. So if you are in your nuddy-pants you are in your no pants, i.e., you are naked.

 

nunga-nungas
• Basoomas. Girls' breasty business. Ellen's brother calls them nunga-nungas because he says that if you get hold of a girl's breast and pull it out and then let it go—it goes nunga-nunga-nunga. As I have said many, many times with great wisdomosity, there is something really wrong with boys.