Bob the Brit

Archive for the ‘Phrases and Sayings’ Category

There is an accepted order of precedence for the hundred plus livery companies within the City of London. These were based on the economic or political importance of the various companies in the sixteenth century. The top five in order of precedence are Mercers (General Merchants), Grocers, Drapers, Fishmongers and Goldsmiths.

Numbers six and seven have been in dispute by since both the Merchant Taylors and the Skinners companies were incorporated under royal charter in 1327.

The phrase ‘on sixes and sevens’ was used by Geoffrey Chaucer in 1374.

In a ruling by in 1515 it was agreed that the companies would alternate the numbers six and seven. The Merchant Taylors are normally sixth in the order of precedence in odd numbered years, and at seven in even numbered years; this exchange takes place each year at Easter and members of each company dine in each others halls.

Bedlam is a term meaning chaos… hence the title of James Blunt’s album ‘Back to Bedlam’.

Its name derives from the ‘Bethlem Royal Hospital of London’ that used to occupy the site now occupied by the Great Eastern Hotel at Liverpool Street in the City of London. There’s a plaque on the wall near the hotel entrance.

The Bethlem Royal Hospital was founded in 1247, initially as a priory, became a hospital in 1330 and started to take mental patientsin 1357. Treatment was minimal, and in the 18th century the lunatics became a popular freak show.  The ‘hero’ of Hogarth’s “Rake’s Prgress” series of prints meets his end in Bedlam.

Various well known patients, over the years include the artists Richard Dadd and Louis Wain (famous for his paintings of cats), and the playwright Nathanial Lee.
 
In 1815 the hospital moved further out from the City, to the leafy suburb of Southwark where a grand building was built to house its occupants. The hospital moved on in 1930 to Beckenham in Kent and the former building in Southwark now houses the Imperial War Museum.

Incidentally, another large lunatic asylum was housed outside London, to the east, attached to Barking Abbey; hence the term ‘Barking Mad’.

And finally, while we’re talking insanity, Victorian asylums and mental hospitals were often grand buildings, not unlike stately homes, built on the outskirts of the metropolis. To shield the general public from these buildings, and presumably to shield the occupants from the public, the buildings were accessed by a winding driveway, in contrast to the grand, direct driveways favoured by ‘real’ stately homes and grand houses.

These asylums were truly ‘round the bend’.

While the Irish celebrate St Patrick’s day on March 17th, and Americans celebrate their independence on July 4th, the English have their own patron saint, and his day is celebrated on April 23rd.

In recent years the flag of Saint George (a red cross on a white ground) has been hijacked by extreme nationalists, it was recently announced by Boris Johnson – the Mayor of London – that London would celebrate St George’s day in 2009.

St. George is believed to have been born in Cappadocia (Eastern Turkey) in 270 AD, his parents were Christian and remained Christian, despite becoming a renowned Roman soldier serving a pagan emperor – Diocletian.

When the pagan Emperor Diocletian started persecuting Christians, St. George pleaded with the Emperor to spare their lives. The Emperor ignored these pleas and actually tortured St. George in an attempt to make him deny his Christian faith.

St George was beheaded near Lydda in Palestine on 23rd April 303 AD his faith undenied.

The most famous legend about St George is that he defeated a dragon in Libya that was partial to devouring maidens. This legend was concocted in the middle ages and, you might be surprised to learn,  has no foundation in fact – not only had St George been dead for nine hundred years, but there are no records of dragons in Libya at that time.

As well as being the patron saint of England, St George is also the patron saint of Aragon, Catalonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Palestine, Portugal and Prague, amongst others.

There’s another reason for Brit’s to celebrate April 23rd, it marks William Shakespeare’s birthday (1564) and also the day on which he died (1616).

The term ‘public school’ in Britain is the cause of some confusion. ‘Public schools’ are actually not public, they’re private, and funded by school fees paid by parents. Publicly funded schools are known as ‘state schools’.

Fees for ‘day pupils’ average around £9000 per school year – day pupils, as the name suggests, only attend during the school day – while ‘boarders’ – who live in the school – can pay over £20,000 a year.

The best known public schools in England include Charterhouse, Eton, Harrow, Rugby and Winchester, while Gordonstoun and Fettes are the best known in Scotland.

The influence of public schools on British life exceeds the number of students who attend them, they send more students to the top tier of universities than state schools and the majority of British Members of Parliament have attended public schools.  Napoleon is said to have reported that ‘the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton’.

Several fictional characters have attended public schools, including James Bond (Eton), Captain Hook from Peter Pan (Eton), Flashman (Rugby – pictured), Ducky Mallard from NCIS (Eton) and Tom Brown from Tom Brown’s Schooldays (Rugby).  

‘Knackered’ has come to mean exhausted or very tired… “I feel knackered” or “that car’s knackered”; there’s also a rhyming slang version – ‘cream crackered’.

In the early part of the twentieth century horse drawn carts were commonplace on British streets, and when the animal in question had outlived its useful working life (sometimes while pulling the cart – hence the folly of ‘flogging a dead horse’) then the knackerman would be called in.

The knackerman would collect and dispose of working animals at his work place ‘the knackers yard’ processing the carcass. In this respect they were the original recyclers;  the animal’s skin would be tanned for leather, the flesh usually used for petfood, the fats reduced to tallow for fertiliser and so on.

The picture in this article has been taken from a fascinating website ‘knackerman’.