Musings from Saint Vincent de la Colline & Chateau Blissac

Bowdlerisation 

Removing or changing words or parts from a book, play, or film that are considered to be unsuitable or offensive.

Benighted

intellectually or morally ignorant, unenlightened.

Flibbertigibbet

An irresponsible, silly, gossipy or excessively talkative person.

Insults of the Day

A cross between a half-witted fish and a pneumonia germ.

Pop-eyed defective.

Goggling like a fish.

A low-down, horn-swoggling, double-crossing skunk.

What Patrick (Packy) Franklyn thinks of Senator Opal

"If he ever asks me to come down a lonely alley way with him to see his stamp collection I shall refuse with considerable firmness."

Downright amusing

"It was the first time Packy had been formally introduced to a cistern, and he was not quite sure of the correct etiquette. He bowed slightly and eyed the repellent object with interest."

"You cannot conduct a full-throated long-distance conversation in the early morning and finish up by ejaculating 'Hell!' in a voice like the bursting of an ammunition-dump without rousing such sleepers as may be in your vicinity."

Mr Slattery's Breakfast

Pot of coffee

Omelette fines herbes

Double order of ham and eggs

Small sirloin steak 

Toast and marmalade

Gertie gives Gordon Carlisle the bird

"If you want to know how you stand with me, we're pf' f' ft, and don't you forget it."

The scene changed

Medway smoked her cigarette without exhibiting any of the emotion which a girl listening to the conversation of a libertine might be expected to display.

The cigarette fell from Medway's fingers. She stared at her companion as if what he had just said had shocked her maidenly modesty to the core.

Sagacity

Foresight or ability to make good judgements.

Quagmire

A dangerous place or a difficult situation from which it is hard to escape.

Gendarme

French armed police force.

Auge davonkommen

As we should say in English (hazarding a translation of an untranslatable phrase): 'jolly well out of it.'

Broken off engagement 

Exquisite elation.

Luncheon of the Boating Party by Renoir

* Information taken from 'The Second Worst Restaurant in France' written by Alexander McCall Smith and 'Hot Water' written by P. G. Wodehouse *