h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

...but when anyone over 13 years of age starts talking in earnest about "guarding the bonfire", you know you've got a prize plonker on your hands.

And that you'd have more chance of an intelligent or enlightening conversation if you start a discussion about Finnegans Wake with your own backside.

Is this some sort of idiom of which I have not before heard?

*googles*
*learns nothing that seems relevant*

TRiG.

It's an idiom I suppose, but it's not figurative or anything, it's just what it sounds like.

You have a bonfire, and you sit beside it and "guard" it in case anyone tries to harm it. And you feel all proud of yourself and tell yourself you're a real man or your community's last line of defence or something.

It's all good fun when you're 8, but I can't help thinking adults could aspire to something a bit more ambitious than guarding a rubbish heap they intend to burn in a few hours' time.

*nods sagely*

Did you get home OK?

Yep.

I played it safe and left early. It will hopefully amount to not too much trouble, but no point taking the chance, really. A lot of the shops shut a bit early and sent people home, too.

There are too many clowns looking for any excuse to cause a bit of bother, lately.

Ok guys, it's time to give it a rest now. You're starting to awaken strange feelings in me of fondness for the cops. My head's in a spin!

http://www.psni.police.uk/statement_following_belfast_city_centre_disorder

(Incidentally, the PSNI need a sub-ed. There's at least one rogue apostrophe in there which evaded arrest!)