Louise Rennison_Georgia Nicolson 09 (19 page)

 

pence
• English currency. We used to have pounds and shillings and pennies until we “went metric”; now we have pence (or pee). (Although try telling Elvis the school caretaker that we have gone metric; he lives in the twilight world of the very elderly. I don't think he knows Queen Victoria is dead yet.)

 

Pizza-a-gogo land
• Masimoland. Land of wine, sun, olives and vair vair groovy Luuurve Gods. Italy. (The only bad point about Pizza-a-gogo land is their football players are so vain that if it rains, they all run off the pitch so that their hair doesn't get ruined. See also Chelsea players.)

 

prat
• A prat is a gormless oik. You make a prat of yourself by mistakenly putting both legs down one knicker leg or by playing air guitar at pop concerts.

 

red bottomosity
• Having the big red bottom. This is vair vair interesting
vis-à-vis
nature. When a lady baboon is “in the mood” for luuurve, she displays her big red bottom to the male baboon. (Apparently he wouldn't have a clue otherwise, but that is boys for you!!) Anyway, if you hear the call of the Horn you are said to be displaying red bottomosity.

 

snogging
• Kissing.

The Sound of Music
• Oh, are we never to be free?
The Sound of Music
was a film about some bint, Julie Andrews, skipping around in the Alps and singing about goats. Many many famous and annoying songs come from this film, including, “The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of PANTS,” “You Are Sixteen Going on PANTS,” and, of course, the one about the national flower of Austria, “IdlePANTS.”

 

spangleferkel
• A kind of German sausage. I know. You couldn't make it up, could you? The German language is full of this kind of thing, like lederhosen and so on. And Goosegot.

 

spondulicks
• A Sudanese term for money. Possibly.

The reason we use it is because in olden days English people used to go to other countries where the weather was nicer (i.e., everywhere) and say to the leaders of these other countries:

“Hello, what extremely nice weather you are having, do you like our flag?” And the other (not English) people would say: “Yes, it's very nice, is it a Union
Jack?” And the old English people would reply: “Yes. Where is your flag?” And they would say: “We haven't got one actually.” And we'd say: “Oh dear. That means you have to give your country to us then.”

That is how we became world leaders and also how we got foreign words in our language.

By the way, it is a very good job that I have historosity at my fingertips; otherwise certain people (i.e., you) would feel hopelessly dim.

 

spoon
• A spoon is a person who is so dim and sad that they cannot be allowed to use anything sharp. That means they can only use a spoon. The Blunderboys are without exception all spoons.

 

spot
• Officially a blocked pore that gets all red and inflamed and sometimes has a white top on it. In reality something you get every time you need to look your best. You never get spots in concealed places—they are always on your nose or chin or on a sticky-out bit. Americans call them “zits” and I hope against hope this has nothing to do with the noise they make when you pop them.

 

Spotty Dick
• This is an olde English pudding named after an Elizabethan bloke called Dick. Which is nice. However, Dick was not blessed in the complexion department and was covered in boils and spots. Anyway, in honor of Dick's spots a pudding was made up that had currants all over it to represent the spots. Think how pleased Dick must have been with ye olde
Elizabethan folke leaning out of their windows as he passed and shouting, “Oy spotty Dick, we've just eaten your head…with some custard.” I hate to bang on about this because as you know I am a big fan of world peace, but in Hamburgese spots are called “zits.” Please don't ask me why. Personally I think a pudding called “Zitty Dick” does not have the appeal and savoir faire of Spotty Dick. That is what I think. And I am not wrong.

I am right.

 

squid
• Squid is the plural of quid and I do know why that is. A bloke owed another bloke six pounds or six quid, and he goes up to him with an octopus with one of its tentacles bandaged up, and he says, “Hello mate, here is the sick squid I owe you.” Do you see?? Do you see? Sick squid, six quid??? The marvelous juxtaposition of…look, we just call pounds squids. Leave it at that. Try and get on with it, people.

 

strop
• A “strop” is No. 3 on the famous “losing it” scale—see f.t.

 

tart
• A girl who is a bit on the common side. This is a tricky one, actually, because if I wear a very short skirt I am cool and sexy. However, if Jackie Bummer wears a short skirt it is a) a crime against humanity and b) tarty.

 

Thunderbird puppets
•
Thunderbirds
was an incredibly olde program on TV in the 1960s about something called international rescue and it was a puppet show. Mike Mercury and his gang rescued people on other planets and fought alien bodies in their Thunderbird space
ships. But really, the other planets were bits of old cardboard and you could see all the strings on the puppets, but best of all comedy wise the puppetry was done by some fool who was really crap at puppeteering. Mike clopped about with his feet about two feet off the ground and his eyes swiveling around, and Lady Penelope's chauffeur Parker drove along with his hands off the steering wheel and his head facing backward. Not safe driving as such.

 

tig
• Tig is a childish game, which I would never play actually. If I did play it, I would know that it is a game about chasing people and when you catch up with them you tap them on the arm and say “tig.” And then they are “it” and have to chase you. The whole thing is tosh and a ludicrous waste of time. And silly. Some fool (Jas) told me that Hamburgese (well known for changing Billy Shakespeare's language for no apparent reason…and by this I mean stuff like “aluuuuuminum” for aluminium and “fanny” for bottom, etc.), anyway, Jas says they call this game “tag.” Which is wrong and also spoon behaviour. But I mean this in a caring way.

 

titches
• A titch is a small person. Titches is the plural of titch.

 

tosser
• A special kind of prat. The other way of putting this is “wanker” or “monkey spanker.”

 

vino tinto
• Now this is your actual Pizza-a-gogo talk. It quite literally means “tinted wine.” In this case the wine is tinted red.

 

welligogs
• Wellington boots. Because it more or less rains all the time in England, we have special rubber boots that we wear to keep us above the mud. This is true.

 

wet
• A drippy, useless, nerdy idiot. Lindsay.

 

whelk boy
• A whelk is a horrible shellfish thing that only the truly mad eat. Slimy and mucuslike. Whelk boy is a boy who kisses like a whelk, i.e., a slimy mucus kisser. Erlack a pongoes.