Entertainment For Lively Minds
Waiting for the Penny to drop
Posted by Steve Turner on 2 May 2010 - 12:57pm.
I am 53 years old and have been quite partial to Brown Sauce since the age of 10. HP is without question the definitive brand. It is quite funny that at the age of 52 I first realised that HP stood for Houses of Parliament. Call me slow on the uptake but it never dawned on me that the picture of the Houses of Parliament that adorns the bottle may have been something of a clue.
Anyone else have examples of the penny dropping long after it should have done?
- More from Steve Turner.
- Login or register to post comments
-
Tongue
When I was a kid, my favourite meat was cold tongue. It was only when I was fairly late in my teens that it occured to me that what I was eating was indeed the tongue of a cow. I haven't been able to eat it since. Again, the clue was right there in the name...
I did the same thing...
It was a weekly treat at my nana's. Haven't been able to eat it since the penny dropped.
Me too...
...I'd had always been pre-sliced by granny (usually as part of the Boxing Day cold cuts). When I saw it in all its pressed, rolled glory, two thoughts occurred.
a) Man, that's a big tongue
a) Man, that's a BIG TONGUE!!!!
I've not had it since, which is silly really. I still find the cow's arse parts to be quite delicious.
I always thought
Oxtail soup was just a name until the day it actually dawned on me.
Tongue Sandwiches
Strangely I bought some yesterday - I like it very much but then again I ate it for years without really thinking about what it was (or even knowing for that matter). I made a sandwich for wife and daughter today and asked if they would like tongue but knowing the hoots of derision my suggestion would provoke. Sure enough it did. My daughter is 11 - I am sure she knows more at that age than I ever did.
Toppermost of the Poppermost
Milk bottle tops.
For years I would prise them off by laboriously sliding a fingernail all the way under the rim, then carefully unpeeling and lifting the foil.
One day I watched someone else do it. She simply pressed her thumb on the centre of the foil and up it popped.
Who knew? Well, she knew. And everyone else on the planet.
Quite recently I discovered
that the best way to puncture the foil sealing a tube of tomato puree was to use the small prong in the middle of the top of the cap. I told the GLW this useful tip. "What else did you think it was for?" she enquired.
Ladies Fingers.
For the longest time I thought Ocra was edible.It isn't.
I'll have yours
I love the stuff! yummy yummy yum
Bleagghh..
It goes all snotty and that when you cook it.
Keep your lady fingers to yourself, Hannah. As it were.
Snot-free okra joy
Okra's delicious! Chopped and stirfried fast with some cumin, chilli, garlic and salt - the smaller darker ones are better than the fatter, pale ones
XTC
Ex Tee See. Everyone pronounced it like that. It took a while before the middle syllable morphed.. Ah, yes, that's what they meant..
Spooky....I was just going to say
that among my friends such penny dropping occurrences are forever referred to as 'I had an XTC Moment', for that exact reason.
I'm just about to expose my supreme stupidity to the Massive...
... but I don't get it. Please explain.
And please try to stop sniggering at me. It's not my fault I'm daft...
Well, actually
it's interesting. It's either a play on ecstasy - the euphoric state or emotion
Or on extasy the tablet that's said to help induce such states.
Given the band's vintage - I'd say the former as I don't think the drug of that name was around at the time of their forming.
Ah...
... ha.
Thanks Sheev.
INXS
Took a while for me to suss out that it wasn't pronounced "inks".
I've shared this before
but in 1987 my mum famously went into HMV and asked for the Inks album, as it was on my Christmas list. Wot larks!
Oh It's Zee Zee
not Zed Zed Top.Duh!
Oh no it isn't!
It'll always be Zedzed in this house!
Likewise Lady Gaggaaaar, Chas "Nuh" Dave and Emjy Emty.
All Posh like.
I bet It's Nipda Blue not NYPD Blue at Dyson Mansions.:-)
HP Sauce
Blimey, I'd never realised that either!
No
Me neither!
Maureen Lipmann
She played a woman called Beattie in adverts for BT. Couldn't see the relevance for years.
Moving to Birmingham
And wondering why there were so many Midland Bank branches.
The Porcupine Tree
took me until the night I saw them at the Cottier to get the 'pine tree' bit, I'd allas imagined some exotic extra spikey tree only found in South America
From the mouths of babes
For most of my 36 years I laboured under the belief that the red and yellow emblem on the front of Superman's costume was an abstract design presumably of Kryptonian origin. A couple of years ago my nephew pointed out that it is in fact a red 'S' superimposed on a yellow background.
How did I not see this?
You are both a meringue and not
yuppity it's an S, however his father Jor El (Marlon Brando) has the same symbol on his cosmic kaftan in the film. I believe the studio hastily claimed it was indeed a Kryptonian symbol.
From the mouths of babes (part 2)
While watching the Apprentice on TV, my 8 year old son said:
"How can that man fire people?"
I said that the man was the Boss and he decides who stays and goes.
"He's NOT their boss!"
- "I think you'll find that he is!"
"No he's not!"
- "Erm, isn't it your bedtime?"
He explained very patiently to me that the candidates were having an interview. If they are having an interview, then they have not been hired. So how can they be fired?
He has a point. Other than on The Apprentice, has an interview ever concluded with the employer slagging off the candidate and then saying "You're fired!"?.
Where cheese comes from
i posted this one another thread (the General Ignorance one) but think it bears repeating here, if only because I still find myself wondering where this young woman thought cheese came from.
But
I thought cheese came from Asda!
Tower Bridge
All such occurrences are known to myself and brother-in-law as Tower Bridge moments. We didn't realise that it's so named because it leads to the Tower of London. Not because it has little towers on it.
'Ceefax'. That was another.
I worked with a Girl Singer who told me how fantastic
the group 'Chick' were. I didn't know who she was talking about until I asked her to spell it, and sure enough it was Chic.
Mind you her grip on French couldn't have been any good, because she also used to pronounce Lingerie as Linger-ee. As in 'I'm going into that Linger-ee shop in Shelton Square.' (This was 30 years ago, it's not there any more).
Had a 'Janine' (Spinal Tap) 'Dobly' moment with the wife of a band manager I knew, who insisted that the feedback during a gig was caused by 'resin'. My wife (then girlfriend) suggested that she meant resonance, but she wouldn't have it.
Back in the early 80s...
... a French exchange student couldn't believe no-one he met in the UK had heard of a big new British band he told us about, "ooh-bay quarante". When he got home he sent us a cassette by them: "Signing Off" by... UB40.
And it took me decades to get "Sandie Shaw."
I never knew that?
What so as in Sandy Shore??? Oh that's quite naff really.
Oxymoron
In the early 80s I had a Guinness Book of Hit Singles that had inside it a photo of Womack & Womack. The words underneath said "An oxymoron introduced Womack & Womack to the charts".
For a very long time, I thought an oxymoron was a not just a moron, but an extreme kind of moron i.e. much worse than your average moron.
I thought the book's writers were berating someone at the record company for signing them up and releasing their records. I didn't like the song either, but remember thinking that it was a bit harsh to pick on W&W in particular.
Their single was called "Love Wars" which (now) makes sense.