He is a vair funny person.
in my room
Well, why couldn’t I just like Dave?
But then I thought of my night with Masimo when we had looked at the stars together, and I felt like crying.
If only I had had a chance to get to know him, I could have found out all about a different culture. I could have found out about neck snogging and everything. But I had well and truly blown it now. Wet Lindsay will be dancing about on her stick insect legs when she finds out. Which she is bound to because of Radio Jas.
I wonder if I should phone Jas up and see what she thinks?
Am I mad??? I might just as well phone Mrs. Mad in Maddingtonshire. Then I heard the familiar roar of a scooter engine.
Below my window.
The doorbell rang.
I had lost all gross motor control. I knew I should go and answer the door, but I couldn’t move my legs. Oh marvelous, I was paralyzed. Come on, come on, legs, be brave, don’t let me down now. Hahahahahaa, I was telling myself really crap inward jokes, hurrah!!! I eventually managed to stagger downstairs.
Oh mon Dieu, I hope I don’t inadvertently go to the poo parlor division.
For confidence I picked up cross-eyed Gordy; he was busily chewing something, so he didn’t attack me.
I opened the door.
Masimo was there.
Oh God.
He looked at me and his eyes looked so soft and sad.
“Georgia. This is a big thing. Give me a little time. I will see you in a week and I will say yes or no. I will not, how you say, I will not mess about with you, I will say yes or no. Ciao, caro.”
And he blew me a kiss and got on his scooter and accelerated off.
I shut the door and stood there holding on to Gordy. What had I done???
Gordy looked up at me, eye to eye, and I looked down at him. He looked at me as if he could see deep into my soul and understood. He even stopped chewing the spider thing he had in his mouth.
And suddenly I understood as well.
It wasn’t a spider he was eating…
And then he ate my boy entrancer.
Glossary
agony aunt • A woman in a magazine who gives you advice if you are a sad person with no one else to talk to. For instance, Jas might write, “Dear Agony Aunt, My friend Georgia is so much better-looking, cleverer and an all round brilliant person that I feel inadequate. What should I do?” And the agony aunt would write back, “Kill yourself.” (Not really, that last bit is a joke.)
billio • From the Australian outback. A billycan was something Aborigines boiled their goodies up in, or whatever it is they eat. Anyway, billio means boiling things up. Therefore, “my cheeks ached like billio” means—er—very achy. I don’t know why we say it. It’s a mystery, like many things. But that’s the beauty of life.
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.
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.”
boy entrancers • Ah, yes. The real emergence of the boy entrancers. Hmmm, well. Boy entrancers are false eyelashes. They are known as boy entrancers because they entrance boys. Normally. However, I have had some non-entrancing moments with them. For instance, when I put too much glue on to stick them on with. It was when I was at a Stiff Dylans’ gig trying to entrance Masimo. I was intending to do that looking up at him and then looking down and then looking up again, and possibly a bit of flicky hair (as suggested in How to Make Any Twit Fall in Love with You). I did the looking at him and looking down thing, but when I tried to look up again I couldn’t because my b.e.’s had stuck to my bottom lashes. So my eyes stayed shut. I tried raising my eyebrows (that must have looked good) and humming, but in the end out of sheer desperadoes I said, “Oooh, I love this one,” and went off doing blind disco dancing to Rolf Harris’s “Two Little Boys.” So in conclusion…boy entrancers are good but be alert for glue extravaganzas.
bum-oley • Quite literally bottom hole. I’m sorry but you did ask. Say it proudly (with a cheery smile and a Spanish accent).
chokey • A prison cell. Also known as pokey. Maybe because they are quite small cells.
chuddie • Chewing gum. This is an “i” word thing. We have a lot of them in English due to our very busy lives, explaining stuff to other people not so fortunate as ourselves.
clud • This is short for cloud. Lots of really long boring poems and so on can be made much snappier by abbreviating words. So Tennyson’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.
conk • Nose. This is very interesting historically. A very long time ago (1066)—even before my grandad was born—a bloke called William the Conqueror (French) came to England and shot our King Harold in the eye. Typical. And people wonder why we don’t like the French much. Anyway, William had a big nose and so to get our own back we called him William the Big Conkerer. If you see what I mean. I hope you do because I am exhausting myself with my hilariosity and historiosity.
David Blaine • For heaven's sake, don't you know who he is? He is one of your lot. He is from New York, New York. He stands in blocks of ice for a year without food and steals people's watches. He came to England and hung around in a glass cage over Tower Bridge for a month. No one knows why.
do • A “do” is any sort of occasion. We say “It’s your birthday, let’s have a bit of a do.” Or, as in Elvis’s case, “Let’s not have a leaving do, can’t he just go?” Or perhaps I am being a bit harsh. No, I am not.
double cool with knobs • “Double” and “with knobs” are instead of saying very or very, very, very, very. You’d feel silly saying, “He was very, very, very, very, very cool.” Also everyone would have fallen asleep before you had finished your sentence. So “double cool with knobs” is altogether snappier.
duffing up • Duffing up is the female equivalent of beating up. It is not so violent and usually involves a lot of pushing with the occasional pinch.
five’s court • This is a typical Stalag 14 idea. It’s minus 45 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!
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 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.
Froggie and geoggers • Froggie is short for French, geoggers is short for geography. Ditto blodge (biology) and lunck (lunch).
fule • Fool. This is a more pleasant way of saying it (ish). It sounds more Christmas-ey somehow…“Let's all go sing a hey nonny no and bring in the Christmastide fule for the fire” and so on.
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.
gorgey • Gorgeous. Like fabby (fabulous) and marvy (marvelous).
hobbit • Do we really have to do this?
Oh God, are we never to be free? A hobbit is one of those little creatures in the Lord of the Rings with really big ears. They’re bloody lucky to get away with the ears compared to a lot of the other things in the books, orks and so on. Is there anyone in Lord of the Rings who is normal? Answer: no. The whole thing is a nightmare of beards.
horn • When you “have the horn” it’s the same as “having the big red bottom.”
jimjams • Pajamas. Also pygmies or jammies.
keen • If you are keen on someone, that means you really fancy them. However it is vair naff to let someone see you are keen, so you have to seem unkeen. Do you see?
Kiwi-a-gogo land • New Zealand. “A-gogo land” can be used to liven up the otherwise really boring names of other countries. America, for instance, is Hamburger-a-gogo land. Mexico is Mariachi-a-gogo land and France is Frogs’-legs-a-gogo land.
knickers • Panties you call them (wrongly). 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.
Land of the Big White Clots • Now I am glad you asked me this because it is a hilarious play on words. (It is, believe me.) Anyway this is it. Kiwi-a-gogo land is called something in Maori that translates as “Land of the Big White Clouds.” But I have changed “clouds” to “clots” to hilarious effect, because it implies that Kiwi-a-gogo land is full of clots. Hahahahahahahaha!!!!
Oh dear God, you don't know what clots are, do you? I can feel my life ebbing away. But as it is you and I love you so much, I'll go on. “Clots” is an old Englishe worde for “fool,” i.e., a person who is in between a twit and a tosser.
“Late and Live” • A late-night gig which has live bands on.
lippy • Oh come on, you know what it is! Lipstick!! Honestly, what are you lot like!!
loo • Lavatory. In America they say “rest room,” which is funny, as I never feel like having a rest when I go to the lavatory.
Maths • Mathematics.
naff • Unbearably and embarrasingly out of fashion and nerdy. Naff things are: Parents dancing to “modern” music, blue eyeshadow, blokes who wear socks with sandals, pigtails. You know what I mean.
nervy spaz • Nervous spasm. Nearly the same as a nervy b. (nervous breakdown) or an F.T. (funny turn), only more spectacular on the physical side.
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.
nunga-nungas • Basoomas. Girl’s 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.
O.A.P. card • Stands for Old Age Pensioner card. This is a card to identify the elderly mad in our midst. It is supposed to mean that they show their card and get on buses for free and get cheap tickets at the cinema and so on, but really it is to alert people to their presence so that they can be ejected when they start causing trouble. You know the sort of thing, rattling their sticks and clacking their boiled sweets against their false teeth in the quiet bits of the film.
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.
oeuvre • Now this means…er…hang on a minute, maybe it is the French plural for eggs? Now you've got me all confused. Un oeuf, two oeufs…it's not two oeuvre, is it? Any fool would know that…. Yes, I am pretty sure that it means “work,” like in work of art. And not egg. Look, just leave it.
phased • A bit put out by something. Full of confusiosity and redness, and inward mayhem.
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.
pressies • Presents!!! Ditto choccies (chocolates). It is just another “i” thing.
quid • In English currency a pound is called a quid. (I don't know why, to be frank with you, but what I do know is that it is nothing to do with Harry Potter and quidditch, so don't even go there.)
quiff • You put some gel on your hair and make the front bit stick up in a wave. Elvis had one.
R.E. • Religious education.
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 luuuurve, 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.
Robin Reliant • Oh, please please don’t ask me about this. Oh very well. You know how English people keep inventing things? For no reason? Well, we do. There’s always some complete twit from a village called Little Beddingham or Middle Wallop—anyway, somewhere where there are no shops or television (or a decent lunatic asylum), and the complete twit is called Nigel or Terence and he invents things like a tiny shower for sparrows, or an ostrich eggcup. A nose picker, etc. You get the idea. Anyway, one of these types called Robin invented a car that only had three wheels. A three-wheeled car. Er—that’s it. That was his brilliant invention. No reason for it. It’s a bit like that bloke who invented the monocycle. All they do is encourage clowns. They should be stopped really, but I am vair vair tired.
score • Twenty pounds. (You are obsessed with money.) Score is a numbering system from Henry VIII's times. “Three score year and ten” meaning seventy years. You have no idea the amount of words we have to remember in our land. You are very lucky that you made up your own language and can miss letters out (like aluminum and 'erbs instead of herbs and so on).
Sellotape • Sellotape is a clear sticky tape. Usually used for sticking bits of paper to other bits of paper but can be used for sticking hair down to make it flat. (Once I used it for sticking Jas’s mouth shut when she had hiccups. I thought it might cure them. It didn’t, but it was quite funny, anyway.)
sidies • Bits of face hair that men grow down the sides of their ears to their chins. If you are asking me why, try asking yourselves why, as I believe you will find George Washington started it.
slag • Slag is a lovely complimentary word for girls meaning “madam.” (No it's not. It is a word that means “you are a rough, common, tarty girl with very low moral standards.”)
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.
Vair vair good value.
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. This is as follows.
minor tizz
complete tizz and to do
r /> strop
a visit to Strop Central
F.T. (Funny turn)
spazattack
complete ditherspaz
nervy b. (nervous breakdown)
complete nervy b.
ballisiticisimus
tannoy • Loudspeaker system. Intercom.
tosser • A special kind of prat. The other way of putting this is “wanker” or “monkey spanker.”
truncheon • A fat piece of wood for policemen to bop criminals on the head with, or twirl about for a laugh. I have been told (by Jas, so I am not relying on it), that you say “baton.” But why your policemen have the time to conduct orchestras at work, I do not know.
Veet • A cream you use to remove evidence of the orangutan gene. Hair remover. It used to be called Immac.
Water Board • A bunch of blokes who look after the nation’s reservoirs and water supply.
wet • A drippy, useless, nerdy idiot. Lindsay.