Read Are These My Basoomas I See Before Me? Online
Authors: Louise Rennison
bhaji
• A bhaji is an Indian food. An onion bhaji is brown and round and full of fat, hence my hilarious joke about Slim looking like one. I exhaust myself with my good humor, I really do.
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.
Blu-Tack
• Blue plasticine stuff that you stick stuff to other stuff with. It is very useful for sticking stuff to other stuff. Tip-top sticking stuff actually. I don’t know why it’s called Blu-Tack when it clearly should be called Blue Sticking Stuff. Also, “Blue” is spelled wrong, but that’s life for you.
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.
brillopads
• A Brillo pad 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(ation)
• 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).
catsuit
• An all-in-one suit thing with trousers and a zipper up the front. Usually evening wear. It is supposed to be sexy, and perhaps it is, but try getting out of one quickly if you have to pay an emergency lavatory call. Like a grown-up version of a romper suit.
chuntering
• When people are moaning on, they are said to be “chuntering.” An example of chuntering would
be my dad saying, “Why can’t you tidy your room like a normal person. I found two pizzas and a dog bone in there that must have been there for weeks. A decent person would tidy their room. An ordinary person…blah blahh chunter chunter.”
clown car
• Officially called a Reliant Robin three-wheeler, but clearly a car built for clowns 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 Wordsworth’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.
darkroom
• Oh stop being so lazy—you know what a darkroom is. It’s a room. And it’s dark. Leave it. Leave the darkroom.
div
• Short for “dithering prat,” i.e., Jas.
DIY
• Quite literally “Do It Yourself”! Rude when you think 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.
épée
• A form of sword fighting. All sword fighting is hilarious, but
épée
takes the biscuit comedywise because: a) there is a comedy opportunity for misunderstanding that someone is not actually saying “a pee,” and b) when you fight with an
épée,
it is a sword with a bit on the end so that you cannot hurt anyone. Which has to be one of the most pointless things around. (Do you see? Do you see what I did there? “Pointless.” Do you see? Oh, I am so vair vair tired.)
fives court
• This is a typical Stalag 14 idea. It’s minus forty-five degrees outside so what should we do to entertain the schoolgirls? Let them stay inside in the cozy warmth and read? No, let’s build a concrete wall outside with a red line at waist height and let’s make them go and hit a hard ball at the red line with their little freezing hands. What larks!
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.
f.t.
• I refer you to the famous “losing it” scale:
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 among you, “gad” probably meant “God” in olde English and “zooks” of course means…Oh, look, just leave me alone, OK?
GBH
• Grievous Bodily Harm.
geoggers
• Geoggers is short for geography. Ditto blodge (biology) and lunck (lunch).
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.
gusset
• Do you really not know what a gusset is? I do.
Horn
• When you “have the Horn,” it’s the same as “having the big red bottom.”
on my jacksie
• It means “on my own.” All aloney. On my owney. It is of course Olde Englishe and was formed because “jacksie” rhymes with…erm…alonesie.
Jammy Dodger
• Biscuit with jam in it. Very nutritious(ish).
jimjams
• Pajamas. Also pygmies or jammies.
knickers
• Americans (wrongly) call them panties. Knickers are a particular type of “panty”—huge and all encompassing. In the olden days (i.e., when Dad was born) all the ladies wore massive knickers that came to their knees. Many, many amusing songs were made up about knicker elastic breaking. This is because, as Slim, our headmistress, points out to anybody interested (i.e., no one), “In the old days people knew how to enjoy themselves with simple pleasures.” Well, I have news for her. We modern people enjoy ourselves with knicker stories too. We often laugh as we imagine how many homeless people she could house in hers.
Lecoq
• Hahahahahahahaha. Do you see why this is so funny??? For the same reason that the Koch family are so funny. Lecoq is, alarmingly, the name of a mime school in
le gay
Paree. People go there to learn how to look as though they are trapped behind a glass wall, etc. No one knows why.
Leper of Rheims
• Oh come on, you must know who the Leper of Rheims is. Oh blimey. Well. He was living in Rheims—erm—in ancienty times and he had dodgy skin. And as we all know the Rheims-type people (the Rheimsonians) can’t abide a poor complexion so they ignored him. The end.
loo
• Lavatory. In America (land of the free and criminally insane) they say “restroom,” which is funny, as I never feel like having a rest when I go to the lavatory.
Merc-lurk-io
• a.k.a. Mercutio. He is Rom’s friend in
Rom and Jul
and supposed to be the “comedy” element in the tragedy. But as far as I can see, he just hangs around in a lurking way. Hence my vair vair
amusant
nickname. Occasionally, he stops lurking to fight and complain. Much like my vati.
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.
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.
nub
• The heart of the matter. You can also say gist and thrust. This is from the name for the center of a wheel where the spokes come out. Or do I mean hub? Who cares. I feel a dance coming on.
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.
Och Aye land
• Scotland. Land of the Braves. Or is that Indiana? I don’t know, and I know I should because we are, after all, all human beings under our skins. But I still don’t care.
Pantalitzer doll
• A terrifying Czech-made doll that sadistic parents (my vati) buy for their children, presumably to teach them early on about the horror of life.
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.
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.
rucky
• A rucksack. Like a little kangaroo pouch you wear on your back to put things in. Backpack.
sailor’s hornpipe
• As I have pointed out many, many times, England is a proud seafaring nation and our sailors on the whole are jolly good chaps, etc. However, when they were first invented in the olden days, they had a few too many rums and made up this odd dance called a “hornpipe,” which largely consists of hopping from foot to foot with your arms crossed. Well, you did ask.
Scheissenhausen
• Quite literally (if you happen to be a lederhosen-type person) a house that you poo in (
scheiss
is “poo” and
haus
is “house”). Poo house. Lavatory. Or restroom as Hamburger-a-gogo types say. No one knows why they say that. Oh no, hang on, I think I do know. When they all lived in the Wild West in wooden shacks, one room was both their bedroom and their lavatory. Cowboys didn’t mind that sort of thing. In fact they loved it. But I don’t.
silly beggars
• “Playing silly beggars” is an old-fashioned term used by the elderly insane, when they
are suggesting that the youth of today are acting stupid. Which of course, as we all know, they never do.
sing-alonga
• This is when you have the lyrics to songs printed along the bottom of a film. So that the audience can sing along. (Not the lyrics to any songs…just the lyrics to the songs in the film. Otherwise you would be there all day and night.)
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.
Strawberry Mivvy
• Is an ice lolly. It has red-colored ice on the outside, but inside (when you have sucked like a mad sucking thing) you find the ice-cream center. Hurrah!! People who eat them usually end up with red lips and chin. Often with a slight red mustache effect. Miss Wilson of course took it the whole hog and managed to get red nostrils. Either that or she had applied lippy in the dark with a spoon.