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

Don't worry, Kaeori, most Princesses aren't Princess-like.
It does at least prove you are not an agent of the Disney Corp.
Personnaly, I keep kissing Princes in the hope of finding a frog (no, not a toad in a hole or otherwise situated)

Nikki-D, you clearly don't need to go to all the trouble of kissing princes to find a frog. Just ask Percy to show you how to draw his penta-thingy.

Or hop on a Eurostar train...

Pheroneous - how expertly you describe the stereotypical image of British hanky-panky (or naughties, even) - all true, of course !!
I presume (picking up on a previous posting of mine) that the British folk herein know what "Hunters" are ?
Also, no one seems to have mentioned yet that the toads-in-the-hole can have skins or be skinless !!

Doolally tat or doolally pip comes from "Deolila tap". Tap is a Hindi word meaning fever. Deolila is a town in India. Those who suffer from this condition are the mad dogs and Englishmen who go out in the midday sun.

I thought a wurzel was a turnip or swede. They are often known as mangle-wurzels, although this might be spelled mangold-wurzel. Wurzel Gummidge was a friendly scarecrow with a turnip head. I don't think they are anything to do with mandrakes, which we all know are forked root vegetables inhabited by evil spirits. They scream when you pull them up and the scream can kill.

My toad in the hole was eaten by a Welsh rabbit.

Rivet.
Definitely not a princess.
Boudicca - thankyou.

Does that make wurzel Swedish Engish ?
Opps, I must have my wrong head on (quote from Wurzel Gummidge for the uninitiated)
Is the tat just any old tat ? (isn't that usage short for tatty ?)

Have gone completely doolally tap catching up on four days' postings, and so am really just bookmarking my place, as 'twere.

Bonking with arms akimbo? Are you barking tonto? (Sorry, *not* a dog reference...)

(TC : your list make me laugh a *lot*!)



A

Even though I'm British and have enjoyed toad-in-the-hole since being a mere sprogg, I don't know if there is a tradition about the variety of toad for the pukka article.
Should the toads be pork, beef, Lincolnshire, Cumberland etc. and should the hole be plain or self-raising ?

Damuntundblasten! Gnomon corrects me correctly again. It is Mangold wot I meant. (Wasnt there a popular beat combo called wurzels who sang a paean of praise to their Combine Harvester) My only excuse is that I was thinking of kimchee, which led me to Korea, which led me to Ginseng, which led me to the Mandrake which fitted nicely with the pagan theme.

I like v much the Indian origin of doolally. The 'tat' we used referred, I thought, to the head, the location of the derangement.

Ah, the lost art of skinning toads. They just don't do it like they used to!

I regret to have to tell you, Nikki, that the late Ms McCartney has reached out to us from beyond the grave and produced for our delectation and delight a frozen totally vegetarian toad in the hole. A form of revenge, methinks, for those who said she couldn't sing so well.

Perhaps it isn't so bad as it seems at first, dear Pheroneous. Haven't we been lambasted etc. by the EC for having more vegetarian content in our toads than the foriegners ? 100% vegetable toads must be a pale imitation of the real thing, rather like Ms McC's voice, perhaps (allegedly).
Remind me to draw a penta-thingy around my kitchen if I every make TITH.
Talking of penta-thingies, I'm going to have to draw one round my desk to stop my boss monitoring my use of email and the Internet.

Mangle-wurzels are neither turnips or swedes, but something very similar. So there.

Look, penta-thingies don't work. It's an old husband's tale.

Please check the label on your veggie toad to make sure that it was not fed anything other than veggie flies - organic, of course.

Why isn't 'spiffing' in my dictionary? It's in all your old Brit movies. Or did they say 'spitting', and I misheard?

Excuse me Dr W, but I never said they were, and Gnomon is always right about everything and inferred that they were of the same family, or meant to.

Faggots are politely referred to as ducks. Savoury ducks. But I am not sure if they are usually skinned or not! I once had a very posh meal in a very posh restaurant in the capital of gastronomy, Lyons. I ordered something that was translated as savoury offals in intestine on a jus de something or other. When the waiter brought it, I couldn't stop myself exclaiming, "Ahh, Faggots!, in Gravy!" The room went silent.

Came across and article yesterday written in the US. It said some corporation intended to demolition a building - here we would have said "demolish". Was this just a mistake, or is the usage different ?

Dear Pheroneous, how widely fed you are !
Ducks or Ducky have another connotation (linked with an alternative meaning of faggots) as in "Hellooo, ducky" (V.difficult to type with an accent or inflection in one's keyboard)

Our European friends may be on to something. As a boy I worked in a butchers in a gentile Sussex market town, and it was my task to sweep the sawdust up, complete with blood, dirt from shoes etc., and put it in the sau.... sorry toad making machine. These were then sold as 'Ye olde Worlde Hande Made Prime Genuine Sussex Country sau...sorry..toads' at a very inflated price. Be wise, be cynical, beware!

It was doubly a mistake. "Demolish" would have been OK, but "Refurbish" would have been cheaper and better

I think this was part of a US assualt on the language which assumes you can just use nouns instead of verbs willy-nilly...such verbizing should be stopped

Faggots are bundles of birch wood used in lighting fires I think. Especially used in lighting the fires that were used to burn people at the stake.