INTO THE BLACK |
Hard to Protect, Book 3 in the Hard to... and Black Ops Heroes series, (releasing March 20th) is featured in a giveaway on Goodreads. Woot!
Goodreads Book GiveawayEnter GiveawayMight be English, the words all familiar, but can you translate this sentence so it makes sense? "It nearly knocked me off my plates—he was wearing a syrup! So I ran up the apples, got straight on the dog to my trouble and said I couldn't believe me mincers." No clue as to what in the hell that means? You would not be alone. It’s London Cockney Rhyming Slang. Colourful but damn near impenetrable, because rhyme and foreshortening get in on the act. Here’s how it translates: “It nearly knocked me off my feet—he was wearing a wig! So I ran up the stairs, got straight on the phone to my wife and said I couldn’t believe my eyes.” Plates = plates of meat = feet Syrup = syrup of figs = wig Apples = apple and pears = stairs Dog = dog and bone = phone Trouble = trouble and strife = wife Mincers = mince pies = eyes So, to help out those travelling to London and wishing to avoid a ‘barney’ (Barney Rubble = trouble, as in fight), I’ve provided a short list of some common rhyming slang phrases to help you out. Enjoy… Brahms and Liszt = pissed (drunk) Brown bread = dead Adam and Eve = believe Boat = Boat Race = face Bottle and glass = arse Bubble Bath = laugh (as in, ‘having a bubble’) Butcher’s hook = look ( as in, ‘having a butcher’s) Half inch = to pinch (to steal) Gypsy’s kiss = to piss Vera Lynn = gin Tommy tit = shit (as in, I don’t give a Tommy tit) Actually, these guys say it better: (Note the credits at the end please). There, now you can travel with some confidence. Have a favourite phrase you want to share? Add to comments....
My five kids are the stuff of nightmares, their favorite game: Who would you save? It’s not pleasant. I have to decide which of them gets to live or die if, say, they were all drowning simultaneously or, thanks to The Walking Dead, which one of them I’d rescue during the zombie apocalypse. My stock answer ‘All of you’ (damn their sibling rivalry), breaks the rules, but I don’t care, it’s a horrible game. Though it did seed the idea for my third book Hard to Protect, releasing March 13th via Entangled Publishing, the research leading me an anxious dance through the subject of hysterical/superhuman strength, berserkers and the phrase ‘going postal’. Anxious dance, because here are just three of the weird and wonderful facts I uncovered: SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH In 2006, Lydia Angiyou, a slight woman saved several children, including her young son, by wrestling an eight-foot, 700lb polar bear. A mother’s love, or adrenalin? Who knows, who cares—it ended well for Lydia and the children, but not so well for the bear (about which I am sorry—tranquillizer guns before rifles might be the way forward in this gun toting world of ours).
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Hard Men the Hard Way
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Photo used under Creative Commons from LetTheCardsFall