Category: catchphrases

Mustn’t grumble

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“White rabbits, white rabbits, white rabbits” is something people say to ward off evil spirits; Chas ‘n’ Dave fans and anyone who was in Jefferson Airplane should they come round.

It is the less violent option to “Pinch, punch, first of the month”.  There is, of course, a suffix to this: “..and no return.”.   If this happened in any of the south London playgrounds where I was brought up, this would have introduced total carnage.  Although, having attended a grammar school, we’d have kept our caps on whilst fighting.

Luckily I went to a school where medieval superstitions weren’t encouraged.   Although, there was a black cat; a series of ladders erected by the prefects at playtime and umbrellas deliberately opened during geography lessons.  The Stevie Wonder album Talking Book was obviously banned.

We were never allowed to knock on wood as the school walls were unstable.

We weren’t allowed to cross our fingers as the maths teacher told us “if the wind changed, we’d stay like that”.

One of the reasons I did so badly during my O-levels was the constant need to hoover up salt the teachers had thrown over their shoulders.

I’d have given them the “evil eye”, but my eyesight was so bad.

Mum’s gone to the Ottoman Empire

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Many people use social media.  My activity on Myspace (something I thought was for people suffering from claustrophobia) and Friends Reunited (they really weren’t your friends or you’d not need to reunite with them) isn’t as active as it once was. 

Another social media platform I no longer use is Twitter.  It is now called X.  Growing up in the ‘60s and ‘70s in rural Balham (I lied about the rural bit) X meant one thing: the film you weren’t allowed in to see. 

Looking as young as I did, I was more likely to see Charlie George starring in an acting role at the cinema rather than Susan George!

Changing Bejam to Iceland was just as confusing, especially with the tag line “Mum’s gone to Iceland”.  This made many small children believe that one day their mothers would suddenly disappear to some Nordic wasteland.  I was always asking my milkman if he was aware of where Reykjavik was?

No doubt Philippides is turning (he can’t run anymore) in his grave now his sporting event chocolate is called Snickers (which is what American call plimsolls).

MFI is now called the Secret Intelligence Service.  However, their bookshelves are better quality.

Anyway, what do I care?  I’m about to go on holiday to Czechoslovakia via Abyssinia to get some Opal Fruits in Duty Free!

Upper case twit

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I had to buy a new phone this week.

What they don’t warn you in the shops is that you’ll have to remember every password for every app you have. 

Having unsuccessfully tried Gerd Müller’s birthday, Alan Knott’s wedding anniversary and the square root of two, the words I no longer wish to see are “forgotten password?”.

Before phones etc., the last time I needed a password was in the early ‘70s, doing Am Dram in a Balham church hall, saying the words, “Open Sesame”.  (This would have been good if we were performing Aladdin; sadly, we were doing King Lear).

I never did CCF at school (I visited old ladies in Clapham, which was far more dangerous than being on a school field with fellow sixteen-year-olds with pretend guns), so I never had the chance to say, “Who goes there?”.  The key to getting into the houses of the old ladies was to simply answer “yes” to the question “Is that you, Mick?”.

The most complex thing you had to remember growing up was the combination on your bike’s padlock.

Back when we were kids, you didn’t have to invent a special word using upper and lower cases, a selection of numbers and liberal use of asterisks, exclamation marks and semi-colons.  Once I’ve mastered a way to remember such things, I shall be applying to work at Bletchley Park and you can all start calling me Alan Turing!

Clocking in

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Growing up, I would listen to aged relatives (it was that, or have your pocket money come to an abrupt halt) and wonder if any of them were related to Stanley Unwin?

I had a paternal grandfather who, if you asked him a question, would always answer with: “I’ll tell you for why”.  He was from north London, so perhaps, having been brought up south of the River, having far too many prepositions in a sentence was considered the norm?  Or perhaps he was a precursor to Google Translate? To paraphrase the Catchphrase catchline – “it’s good, but it’s not right”.

Where cab drivers dare not go after 8.00, my maternal grandmother, when asked the time, would answer: “five and twenty past” or “five and twenty to”.   Is this a generational thing and people in SW17 were taught to speak as if they were still living in Georgian London?

I bet, these days, no one is told “wait ‘til your father gets home”; as, with the advent of working from home, most fathers are already home, albeit working in a room which originally housed coal.

With raging inflation, I wonder much people should be paid for their thoughts?  Certainly not a penny.

And you didn’t have to do seven-years at medical school to give someone a taste of their own medicine.

Curiosity has been reported to the RSPCA.

Those were the daze

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The moment my Bullworker arrived in at Balham flat in the late ‘60s, was the moment I believed I could win Opportunity Knocks.

Every Friday I’d watch the programme and get inspired by the weekly winners. 

Given I was only 11 in 1968, I could hardly go on and sing a song about nostalgia as Mary Hopkins did.  (She was very good in the ITV show where she played a ghost detective).

I’d have sung Mother of mine, except there were so many things my mum did which were either a secret or couldn’t be mentioned before the nine-o’clock watershed; plus I haven’t got the legs to wear a kilt.

Science was not a strength of mine at school; even learning very elementary physics, I could not understand how the “Clapometer” worked.  I assumed there were a team of hamsters working it from behind?  The louder the claps, the more the hamsters ran on their wheels?

I look back and think about the Muscle Man, Tony Holland, and the fact he might have had more credibility if he’d had another winner’s name – Bobby Crush. 

Still, we did learn that someone saying “and I mean that most sincerely, folks” probably didn’t.

Vote, vote, vote.

I am the Queen of Sheba

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“Well, I’ll go to the foot of our stairs” my nan would exclaim in abject horror of something I’d done; given she lived in a one-storey Balham flat, I wondered if this was physically possible?  Was there a secret tunnel which led to the other side of the High Street?  Did she own some collapsible stairs?  Was there an emergency carpenter as a lodger?

Either way, it leads me to things people said years ago and are rarely heard these days.

She clearly had tremendous powers as, if I pulled a face, she would tell me if the wind changed, I’d stay like that; I was never going to run the risk of having my tongue permanently on show the moment the levels of the Beaufort scale rose.

She was obviously unaware of the abolition of slavery, as she’d often asked what my last slave had died of? 

My nan clearly never did history at school as the retort to any of my many lies – “Yes, and I’m the Queen of Sheba” – was clearly inaccurate.  My nan was old and had no teeth, but she was neither 3,000; Arabic (she was from Clapham) nor royalty!

Cat’s got your tongue?  Well, of course not, as we don’t possess any pets.

Given that time travel doesn’t exist it would be hard, unless you’re Superman or Dr Who, to knock someone into the middle of next week.

Unless you’ve a 120-year-old greengrocer, you’re unlikely to hear “much obliged”, “thanking you” or “that’ll be tuppence, three farthings, love”.

Gertcha!

Say goodnight to the folks, Micky

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People don’t have catch phrases like they used to.

Growing up you’d hear “can I do you now, sir?” – after ITMA stopped, you’d only hear it if you drove, very slowly, up Balham’s Bedford Hill; former resident of my block of flats, Tommy Trinder, would say “you lucky people” – that wouldn’t be allowed these days as it’s unfair on people who are generally unlucky and you could never accuse a cleaner to “look at the muck on ‘ere” as they’d probably sue you.

I would also question some of the catch phrases of yesteryear: did Hughie Green really mean things “most sincerely”?  – as long as he got his salary from Rediffusion and didn’t get into a fight with the Muscle Man, he probably couldn’t give a monkey’s.

Columbo episodes may have been shorter had he not had “just one more thing”; Hawaii Five-O showed Steve McGarrett’s ability to delegate all the unnecessary admin to Danno; Dick Emery showed, as Gloria, that he/she had a split personality; Harold Steptoe introduced us to the importance of hygiene (albeit in a kitchen sink); Bruce Forsyth to palindromes and Jack Regan to the correct dress sense if being arrested.

Perhaps I just don’t watch enough TV these days, but there just don’t seem to be as many – or as memorable.  Am I bovvered? 

Good night, John-Boy.