I've always assumed it was a case of exaggeration. Ask someone in the country how far it is to the next village and he may say it's about a mile when in fact it's much more than that.

The country mile was understood to be a longer mile than "townies" did because country folks were used to walking distances .

My fav was asking directions in Eire and being told it was 5 "Strong" miles actually clocked at 8.3 miles!

No longer on the sign posts in miles but on exiting Athboy there used to be a sign pointing to Kells 7 miles as you entered the edges of Kells a signpost pointing back the direction you came Athboy 8 miles!

Yet technically they were both correct .

So what's a New York minute then?

(insert commodity) to cobble dogs with.

I've heard this expression in various parts of t'North over the years, but never quite understood it...

Another mysterious northern expression, which I've never used, is 'I'll go to the foot of our stairs'. Eh, mother?

EDIT:

on the latter expression:

Meaning

An exclamation of surprise.

Origin

This originated in the North of England. It did travel to other parts of the UK during the 20th century, but not much further, and is little known in other parts of the English-speaking world. It is now less used than previously, although it is still staple fare for any writer wishing to write a part for a stage northerner.

The foot of the stairs was en route to the lavatory, as was, in the days of the outside privy, the less well-known alternatives, 'the back of our house' and 'the bottom of our garden'. The implication of the speaker's destination suggests that the real meaning was 'I was so surprised that I soiled myself and need to visit the lavatory to clean up'.

Beyond that there's little more to tell. Exactly, when the phrase was coined and by whom, I don't know.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/the-foot-of-our-stairs.html

His website - World Wide Words - is a great source of answers. For instance:

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-new1.htm

He doesn't have an entry for Country Mile though!

always makes me smile.

"Lord, love a duck"

I mean, break it down. What is going on here?

Your grandmother to suck eggs. WTF?

This is not much help:

The origins of the phrase are not clear, there are several contradicting ideas:
The phrase was used in the 1890s in a Punch magazine cartoon[2]
"You see, Grandmama, before you extract the contents of this bird's egg by suction, you must make an incision at one extremity, and a corresponding orifice at the other." Grandmama's response is to the effect, "Dearie me! And we used to just make a hole at each end."
In "Hog on Ice" (Harper & Row, New York, 1948), Charles Earle Funk says[3]
"To teach one's grandmother to suck eggs - To offer needless assistance; to waste one's efforts upon futile matters; especially, to offer advice to an expert. This particular expression is well over two hundred years old; it is just a variation of an older theme that was absurd enough to appeal to the popular fancy.
The OED and others[4] suggests that it comes from a translation in 1707, by J. Stevens of Quevedo (Spanish Playwright)
"You would have me teach my Grandame to suck Eggs"
Its use was recorded in Tom Jones by Henry Fielding, published in 1749[5]
“I remember my old schoolmaster, who was a prodigious great scholar, used often to say, Polly matete cry town is my daskalon. The English of which, he told us, was, That a child may sometimes teach his grandmother to suck eggs”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaching_grandmother_to_suck_eggs

Whenever I described my Mum as "She", Mum would say, "She's the cat's mother." I haven't a scooby what she meant.

Much to my friends' and wife's amusement, I read a book called "Cod:A Biography Of The Fish That Changed The World" by Mark Kurlansky. Apart from being fascinating, it also included numerous instances of common phrases you'll be using every day that come from the cod fishing industry of centuries past, such as codswallop. Can't think of others off the top of my head. Fun holiday read.

with many snippets of interesting titbits. The phrase "Going for a Burton" was RAF slang for a plane crash. It's thought that it originated from a Burton brewery advertisement that showed a group of people with one man, who had gone for a pint of Burton, missing from the group.

...supposedly pertains to the 17th century Alum shale mining industry of my native North Yorkshire.

One of the main things used to process the shale was stale human urine, which was usually sourced from 'That London'. This was collected, put in barrels and transported up the coast in sailing ships, which generally ended up smelling like floating privys. To be captain or crew of such a festering hulk was about as low a job as was possible for a sailor to take. Any crew member questioned about their job would cover up by saying "Oh, we transport barrels of wine from London to Yorkshire" to which the obvious reply was "You are taking the piss".

I suspect it's a spurious explanation, it just seems too neat.