Yet another question for our former British overlords

[squirell nutkin]

In the Flanders and Swann song, "pee po belly bum drawers" there is a line: "What did Prince Phillip tell the lords?" "(Well, never mind about that)"

Is this relating to an historical event or a topical one, like say, Earl Butz's famous, but now forgotten, quote about tight pussy, loose shoes, and heated bathrooms?

What is this referring to?

[DanaC]

I don't know for sure, but Prince Phillip has a reputation for making offensive or rude comments.

[limey]

I agree with Dana, but thanks for bringing to my attention another creation of the Great Flanders & Swann. I didn't know of this song.

[squirell nutkin]

It was a favorite of the Inchling's when he was three or so. Now that the Millimeter is approaching the 3 y.o. mark, we are dusting it off, so to speak.

[squirell nutkin]

In Jake Thackray's "The Brigadier" there is a line "Let the bearded wonders come" What is he referring to and whay making pottery? Is he talking about hippies?

The Brigadier --Thackray

Up where we live we've got everything,
We've got a cuckoo and a nightingale,
We've got a shop and chapel and a boozer
And a little jail.
We've got a brain-sick witch and a cricket pitch,
We've got a pump and a duck pond here,
A vicar and a blacksmith and a local idiot
And a brigadier, a frigging brigadier.

Let the caravans come, let the charabancs roll!
Tripping our hills, picking our daffodils
Getting stuck in our holes. We don't care.

We don't mind trippers and scouts and ramblers,
They can come and stand in the rain all day.
They give us money and beer and a right good belly laugh,
Then they go away.
But who pins medals on the chests of our children?
Who pins a rose on our biggest pig's ear?
Who pins a little red poppy on our cenotaph?
A brigadier, a frigging brigadier.

Let the bearded wonders come.
Whether we like or not
They squat in the cottages of our ancestors
Making bloody pottery! We don't care.

We get drunk, we get rowdy,
And we get nicked when the flatfeet come;
How are we judged? By whose almighty
Finger and thumb?
Not by Bacchus's, not by Jupiter's.
Not by Solomon's. We're summonsed to appear
Underneath the beak of his week-a-day worship
A brigadier, a frigging brigadier.

Let the rain-god come, spitter and spat and spout.
At least he's a god who is impartial:
He waggles it about. We don’t care.

On a Sunday when the vicar admonishes our wickedness
Whose "Amen" resounds down the aisle?
Who reads the Sermon on the Mount with a Holy
Ghost of a smile?
Who takes the wine? Who takes the biscuit?
Who brings the plate? Who bends the ear?
Singing of his hopes for a new Jerusalem,
A brigadier, a frigging brigadier.

Let God's pale archangel the Grim Reaper come;
He can hack my bones, he can step upon my gravestone,
He can kiss my bum. I don't care.

If he wants my chimneys, if he wants my acres,
If he wants my trout, if he wants my grouse,
If he wants gold and silver titbits,
He's got the wrong house.
He can rattle my latch, bang my knocker,
There's not one whit of a titbit here;
Go tap with his dainty sickle on the windowpane
Of the brigadier,
The frigging brigadier.

[Sundae]

Yes, it's about bloody hippies of course.
Coming in and taking over and being determined to save the rural way of life... and then prolly buggering off to Harvey Nicks with the trust fund to get essentials like squid ink pasta and distilled goat hair oil.

BTW - at least now I remember why I refer to urinating (when talking to the Diz cat) as pee-po. Comes from you referring to Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers.

I concur with Dana re Prince Philip.
It suggests that whatever he said, it was a heck of a lot ruder than Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers.

[Trilby]

Are the Brits our overlords? I thought the Vikings held that distinction. I mean Brits via the Vikings, of course.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Bri, seriously, no, they didn't. Their incursion into North America at Anse Aux Meadows and environs wasn't sustainable in the face of hostile locals. No overlordship got established until European/English inventiveness devised enough of a technological gap and an organizational scale that tribes couldn't cope with.

[Clodfobble]

Hey you Brits!

So I'm watching The Last Enemy, recommended to me by Netflix based on my adoration of the new Sherlock series. (Netflix was absolutely right, BTW. Another fucking brilliant BBC series, and I now have a serious crush on Benedict Cumberbatch.) Anyway, main character is a mathematician, and at one point he appears in a UK newspaper under the headline "Math Genius Something Blah Blah..."

So how come it's not "Maths Genius?" I thought it was all about the pluralization over there.

[jimhelm]

In that context, math is an adjective. Maths is a noun.

[Trilby]

LOVE Benedict Cumberbatch!

He was in the movie Atonement, too. Played a horrid character.

[DanaC]

It could just be because it's a newspaper headline and 'math' scans better on the page.

We would never say 'math teacher' for instance. So, it's not normal usage.

It could also be an Americanism :p

I noticed the other night on Newsnight, John Snow was interviewing someone and referred to a solution (to what i dont recall) as 'merely a bandaid'. We don't have 'bandaids', we have 'plasters'. But the term is starting to be used more often.

British English is changing and incorporating American terminology. It's not a new phenomenon, but it has sped up quite a bit as communications have become more fluid and global.

[Undertoad]

It's all good though because we stole most of our words from everyone else.

[DanaC]

Har!

It is what it is. Language moves.

[Clodfobble]

A friend of mine in the UK is trying to get Dulcolax suppositories for her son.

1.) She said her MIL went to pick some up for her and "the pharmacist refused," and sold her a different (unacceptable) product instead. Is this for real? Your pharmacists can refuse to sell over-the-counter products?

2.) Is there an equivalent UK product that she can buy without some douchebag in a labcoat's approval?