In which this anonymuncle encounters a horde of brainless rapscallions divested of most clothing and is compelled to put quill to paper with the use of some vulgar tongue. (And some illustrations of quieter times to break up the nonsense.)
I was in Yialos on Friday, and although I was only walking from the main square to the taxi rank… O M double-G, I encountered such a collection of mutton-headed rapscallions beyond any it has been my misfortune to witness. Let me describe the scene with the use of some English language words that rarely get a day out.
It is a glorious day in June, sun shining, gentle breeze, a calm fishing boat bobbing sea, blah-di-blah, and all is quiet in the ancient port until at least seven day-trip boats sound horns in various keys and set their arse ends dockside. From that particular exit pour upwards of two thousand scapergraces arranged into various types:
The Gobemouches gather gawping in inconvenient places, including the taxi rank, the street, and the bus stop into which the bus is reversing. There, they pay vague attention to their leaders before finally following the umbrella or raised clipboard, believing every tall tale told.
The Mamothrepts come next, dragged by their hands and flustered parents, at one with other unfortunate bui doi who didn’t want to come on this bleedin’ day out anyway, and where’s the ice cream you promised?
The Bewildered, who may be genuinely interested and who are usually well behaved but who, on leaving their all-in hotel, forgot not only their manners but most of their clothing.
A short time after the landing, the streets throng with noise as the chaw-bacons follow the herd listening to the fiddle-faddle fudge of someone who ‘once did a morning’s course in it’ as they are led like lambs from one place to another while being fed the most unusual trumpery. There are, as one must expect, those at the back of the pack who soon lose interest and wander off, taking their earpieces with them until the sound of the drone fades to crackle. There are those who have come only for photographs, and these, too, take various forms.
The Adventurer. Recently crept away from the other sounders being led to market, he can be seen fearlessly scaling the steep face of the hillside by way of the white steps, ‘head down bum up’ as Antipodeans say, only to reach a halfway point, turn and find himself faced with a sheer drop to the rabble below. Photographing abandoned, he descends on legs wobbly with anxiety and embarrassment.
The Professional. He shows no embarrassment as he kneels, lies even, in the middle of the road to get that perfect angle, and capture the glint of sunlight on the ripples around the fishing boat’s yellow nets that lie tangled by the water’s edge. As he frames the shot, he is tripped over by bungling buzzards whose attention was long ago grabbed by the price of the calamari at ‘that nice place back there’, and when he finally stands and becomes less of an obstacle, the only thing he takes away is the reputation for being a perv who does up-skirts.
The Trout. Invariably as attractive as the Covent Garden ague, these are those that one sees posing by the decorative anchor or cloying up the leg of the Fisherboy statue. One hand behind the tipped back head, the apple dumpling shop on full display, bodice stretched to gasping point, she makes herself attractive to the opposite sex, the intersex, the gender fluids and kamaki artists by pouting her gan as if she was about to attach herself to the rear windscreen like a Garfield. Thus, she takes up the position of the Mother Abbess at a bawdy house and hopes to draw crowded attention. For sure, the Professional is there on his belly in seconds, flash at the ready, while five stumbling people need treatment for turned ankles, and the men with wandering eyes receive a slap in the face.
Then come the flushers’ favourites. Flushers, you see, are used to dealing with the undesirable, the effluent of the affluent found far beneath the earth in the fast-flowing slime-dripping caverns of Joseph Bazalgette’s genius, with only rats and toshers for company. Flushers would have no problem with the fogs and frogs when they block their tunnels. However, it is another matter when faced with a cribbage faced flap dragon with no sense other than one of their own self-importance, who has miserably failed to understand that she (or he/it/they/them) has paused to patter in the paviour’s workshop. There, their (his/hers/its) prattle-prattle tittle-tattle chit-chat babble causes the fog and frog of the flusher’s nightmare, while traffic backs up behind because they are blocking one side of the harbour. Three such jolly jolterheads, one on each quayside, at the same time, and the whole island grinds to a halt.
Clearly, most of these characters were enjoying a good old benjo, but at whose expense?
By this time in my observation, I had reached only Trawler Square. I still had to duck, dodge and dive my way in and out of the road to reach the taxi rank, and from then, it wasn’t only me who suffered the trauma of the harbour at Day-Trip Time, but also Thanasi. That, as they say, is another story.
You can find most of these obscure words in ‘The Vulgar Tongue’ a dictionary of street slang and cant compiled by Francis Grose and published in 1785, but here are two that I found elsewhere:
Sewer-workers’ FOG: Fats Oils Grease. FROG: Fats Roots Oils Grease.
Benjo. Nineteenth-century sailor slang for “A riotous holiday, a noisy day in the streets.” This could well be American in origin. Heaven forfend!
