I sent a copy of "And the Best Blog Is: Word of Mouth" to my friend Sheila, in Netanya, Israel. She replied that my writing reminded her of a bloke named Jeremy Clarkson, whose style I shared she thought. Terse and to the point. I was equally flattered that someone else wrote as badly as I do and curious about this younger rival (57.)
Amazon delivered with amazing speed and yesterday I got halfway through "The World According to Jeremy Clarkson" (371 pages) before I was able to tear myself away. He is funny. He is not afraid of upsetting apple carts or commenting negatively about such as the Brit version of OSHA, various Prime Ministers and similar matters that I rarely cover. "Abroad" gets trashed as it always does when the traveler is a Brit. Nothing outside the edges of Great Britain is any good. Accommodations with noisy hotel room neighbors, strange and indigestible foods, rude fellow travelers and on and on.
But all through the book, he gives delightful reminders of common slang in Great Britain.
Keep schtum - to keep silent; believed to derive from the German "stumm" or "silent."
Grass - usually includes "out" To tell on someone or (America) rat them out.
Shop - to sell someone out, possibly or likely for personal gain. "I could shop him to the coppers for the joint he smoked back in 1979."
Incandescent with rage This would be a fair description of my visage during all Presidential elections to date.
Drinking ourselves daft. Also in use for being drunk is the colorful "tits up" My personal favorite, Jeremy, if I may be so bold as to first name you is: knee-walking drunk.
Skint I'm skint = I'm broke. Speculation: possibly from one sheep to another each Spring?
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