Apples, pears and other cockney rhyming fruits

I think the most well known bit of Cockney rhyming slang is probably 'apples & pears' meaning stairs, but fruits are used in other phrases too.

Apple itself is used a fair bit, apple tart means either heart or fart, apple-pie is the sky, apple core is a score meaning £20. Apples and pears is also used in the criminal fraternity to mean court, there being stairs between the dock and the cells beneath.

For your summer holidays you may spend time on the apricot (apricot & peach = beach).

A cherry is used for face (cherry ace), a dog (cherry hog, cherries=cherry 'ogs = the dogs, ie greyhound racing).

Lemon (squeezer) = geezer, a "prune and plum" is the bum and of course raspberry (tart) is also a fart. Orange is used as a (racist) term for a Japanese person, "orange pip" being the full rhyme. Orange squash is rhyming slang for dosh and refers to money.

The list goes on, bananas tend to have a lot to do with bowel movement, banana splits for the shits and banana fritter for a toilet (the shitter)!

Kid Creole's Annie I'm Not Your Daddy

Songs about paternity are less common now DNA is readily available, yet in the early 1980s they were all the rage. Michael Jackson vehemently denied that Billie Jean's son was not his and Kid Creole was quite quick at refuting Annie's claim that she was his daughter.

"If I was in your blood then you wouldn't be so ugly" he calmly reassured her.

The line "your mama was in search of love but all she got was used" I always thought was "all she got was you" which is a much funnier line, so ner.

'Kid Creole' was also used as rhyming slang in the 1980s and 1990s for that thriving British institution, the dole.

Anyway here is a rather odd video of a fun song

Richard The Third

Richard The Third wasn't just a play by Shakespeare, he was also an actual bona fide King of England in 1483.

He has also entered into the Cockney rhyming slang lexicon as rhyming slang for a bird

 or a bird (the one on the left!)

It is also used for a turd, but I've happily dispensed with that picture.

The term 'bird' for a lady dates back to mid 19th century when bird was used for all young living creatures and thus a term of endearment for a young lady (filly was similarly used). It continued to be used in the UK throughout the 20th century but around the late 1970's started to be seen as  degrading to women, I'm not sure if it had anything to do with that "tough old bird" Margaret Thatcher being Prime Minister, but who knows?

The missing 8% of breastfeeders

On a recent hospital visit I was intrigued by the two signs encouraging breastfeeding.

79% of men are apparently pro for their own children

Yet only 71% of men want their partner to do it, so do 8% of men hire someone in to breastfeed their child? Do they ask a passing stranger? Do they just want their partner to do it, but not when they're around?
Perhaps these are unrelated statistics, after all the second one doesn't say the men want their own child fed.

Fortunately this is a cheerful blog, otherwise there'd be a rant about a hospital that has signs about the perils of diabetes in pregnancy and a careful diet, yet the only food available to buy whilst waiting is sugary snacks and crisps.

Currant Bun

Currant bun is used as rhyming slang for at least 4 different things.

The sun

The sun

A son

and a nun

Some fatherly cockney advice may be "my dear currant bun, never catch yourself reading the currant bun in the presence of a currant bun whilst out in the currant bun"

Pork Pies

Pork pies manage to give me 2 reasons to be cheerful, it would be three if I actually liked pork pies.

First up is a bit of common Cockney rhyming slang, largely in everyday speech "porkies" is a shortened form for pork pies and is rhyming slang for lies.

"Someone's telling him porkies if he thinks he looks good in that titfer"

So the second reason is the titfer, the wonderfully named pork pie hat, worn by such legends as Buster Keaton, Dean Martin and the bears Yogi Bear and Fozzie Bear from The Muppets.

George Formby's Little Stick Of Blackpool Rock

George Formby was a legendary British star of stage, screen and record. At the height of his fame in  the 1930s and 1940s Formby was probably the most famous man in the land. A gifted entertainer and musician, Formby is still highly regarded as one of the UKs greatest entertainers.

Blackpool Rock was one of, if not the very, first song that had to be edited to be played on the BBC, back in 1937, Formby's double entendres were impressively sophisticated, especially if all the ones we can see now were intended.

The song was written by Harry Gifford and Fred Cliffe who wrote many of Formby's songs, George occasionally altering some of the lyrics.

Looking up the songwriters, Gifford it appears also co-wrote a song called Underneath Your Mushroom Umbrella, which I have never heard but my imagination is doing a good job writing it.

The song includes lyrics such as

It may be sticky but I never complain, it's nice to have a nibble at it now and again

More on George Formby here

and now a bit of Blackpool Rock