Something Rhymes with Purple - Green Fingers

Episode Date: July 25, 2023

This week, we delve into the world of gardening. Susie and Gyles take us around their linguistic garden and introduce us to some of the words that have interesting  stories behind them. We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us on our NEW email  address here: [e-mail] Want even more purple, people? Join the Purple Plus Club by clicking the banner in Apple podcasts or head to purpleplusclub.com to listen on other platforms' Enjoy Susie’s Trio for the week:  Dumple: To make something into a dumpling shape (back-formation, 1827) Earth-apple: First a cucumber (11th century), then a potato Hardy-dardy: A rash or silly dare Gyles' poem this week was ‘My Cat Major’ by Stevie Smith  Major is a fine cat What is he at? He hunts birds in the hydrangea And in the tree Major was ever a ranger He ranges where no one can see. Sometimes he goes up to the attic With a hooped back His paws hit the iron rungs Of the ladder in a quick kick How can this be done? It is a knack. Oh Major is a fine cat He walks cleverly And what is he at, my fine cat? No one can see.    A Sony Music Entertainment production.   Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts     To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, Giles here. And knowing that we have a family audience, and the Purple people often include some very young people, just to say that today's episode does include some language that some people may find uncomfortable or offensive. Hello and welcome to Something Rhymes with Purple. I'm Susie Dent and sitting opposite me, at least on my screen, is Giles Brandreth. And we have a lovely subject today, Giles. Have you got green fingers? Have I got a green thumb or is it green fingers? I can't remember.

Green fingers, I think. Maybe both. It's fingers. I don't know. No, it's the long or the short of it. I don't. My wife does and we have somebody who helps us in the garden called Marta and she doesn't just have green fingers, thumbs, toes. She is the personification of all things that are wonderful in a garden because she cultivates the garden. And then she creates from our garden. She picks amazing flowers and bits and pieces and creates lovely pots of flowers to have in the house. And she's fantastic. Oh, your house is always full of flowers. I had absolutely no idea they came from your garden. So

for the purple people listening, Giles and I have been together on a programme shown here in the UK called Gogglebox, which has got a very strange concept behind it. It is essentially watching people watching telly and listening to their commentary. And I've been sitting on your sofa, Giles, and I have to say your garden is really beautiful because it's not particularly manicured. And I'm not that keen on manicured gardens. Well, it's a good way of putting it, not particularly manicured. No, it isn't.

No, it's lovely. But we actually should sit in the garden side by side and just watch the plants grow, watch the little bees buzzing about and we get butterflies and things. It's fantastic. And the birds and all of that. Yeah. Well, we love gardens and we're particularly associated with Britain.

We're supposed to be a great country of gardening people. And I think we are. And if you go to other countries in Europe, for example, France, they don't have the same kind of gardens that we have. No, well, those are a little bit more manicured. I think before I have quoted Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the great German author and playwright who said he compared English to a country garden, French to a park, and German to a deep dark wood. And he was talking

linguistically, but you're right, they do parks very well in France, don't they? They do. And I'm interested in that big wood where Hansel and Gretel are lurking. But I love a British garden. I love an English garden. What is the origin of the very word garden? They've been around since the Garden of Eden, I assume. So they've been around since the beginning of time. Yeah, straightforward Germanic borrowing this one. So probably brought over by the Angles and the Saxons. So we have the German Garten. So probably brought over by the Angles and the Saxons. So we have the German Garten. We have Jardin in French, which is related.

Yard, actually, which is related as well. So yeah, it has an ancient root, as you would expect. And we talk about roots very much when we mention etymology. We talk about the roots of words and the way that these families have different branches and things. So I really like the fact that we use these garden or gardening metaphors. Well, a tree is fundamental. And as you know, I'm always saying that one of the great secrets of being happy is to be a leaf on a tree. We use the tree metaphor a great deal in life, because I believe that every tree in the world is unique, and every leaf on every tree in the world is unique

as we are all unique but a leaf off a tree it quickly feels free but it quickly floats the ground and it dies whereas we as people we need to be attached to an organism that is larger than ourselves and still growing so we need to be leaves on a tree it could be this podcast that's a tree that you and i are both leaves on but it could be a school a golf club a choir we need to be part of a community maybe a beach tree because their leaves are fairly purple aren't they coppery gorgeous love beach trees yes they are i mean tree what is the origin of the word tree tree is really lovely one because again ancient root and it's related to true which i love because you, you get a steadfast oak. They're solid.

They are loyal. They are enduring. So I absolutely love that. And book, of course, goes back to, I mentioned a beech tree, the German Bucher, meaning just that. And paper goes back to papyrus. So it's all about the sort of, you know, the natural writing materials that people used once upon a time. Well, take me around your linguistic garden and introduce me to some of the words that are related to gardens that have interesting stories behind them. Well, I talk about the roots of words. That is from Old English, but it's actually related to

a Viking word. It is also related to a Latin word, radix, which of course gave us radical, somebody who goes back to the roots of things or even tears things up by the roots. Root and branch goes back to the Bible, the day cometh that shall burn them up, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. That's fairly apocalyptic. You have sowing your seeds. So, to sow had the sense of kind of disseminating from quite early on. It actually goes back to the Latin semen, which we obviously use in a different context, but that means seed. And seed in Old English in turn comes from the same root as sow. So, that's part of a quite important family as well.

Do you ever mow your lawn or is that down to martyr as well? Do you have a lawn, actually? Yeah, you do. You do nothing. Yes, I do nothing. Lovely. Except sit and look at it. That's all my contribution to the garden is to appreciate it. Well, that's nice. Well, lawn itself goes back to a dialect word meaning glade or pasture. But

actually, it's one of the few Celtic words that have survived. And we've talked about before about how it's surprising and linguists are often quite perplexed by how few Celtic words actually survive in the language. And most of you will find in places like the Lake District, pen and tor and sort of place names or names for the landscape. But lawn is one of them. Actually, it's of Celtic origin and we have used it for short mown grass from about the mid 18th century. Grass itself comes from the same roots as green and grow, which I think is quite lovely. Why do Americans call their gardens, their yards, you know, the backyard? Yeah.

We don't have yard. Well, in this country, if you have a yard, it's covered in concrete. It's not going to have any grass in it or any flowers, particularly. Whereas the Americans say the yard and it could be a beautiful garden. It could be, yes. You're right. It's usually an enclosed piece of ground near a building for us, isn't it? It actually goes back to an old English word meaning an enclosure, really. And it's related to garden. As I say, it goes back to the same root. It's also related to orchard, which is quite nice. And obviously in Jamaican English, yard means back to the same root. It's also related to orchard, which is quite nice. And obviously in Jamaican English, yard means a house or a home. And the yard that's a unit of length, that's different. That comes from a different word, an old English word meaning

a twig or a stick with which people used to measure things. And it's been three feet, more or less, since the late medieval period. Do you ever suffer from hay fever? People are discussing the pollen count, one of the disadvantages of summer in the garden. Yeah. But you know, I didn't. My mum used to get really bad. Well, it's not so bad these days,

but she used to get it very badly and she was allergic to nettle pollen. So when the stinging nettles came out, that would always really set her off, but she has it under control now. I didn't have hay fever until my 30s. And then it sort of set in. And it's very random. But I think this year in Britain, a lot of people have been really suffering with grass pollen. I think it's been particularly bad. You're going to ask me about pollen, aren't you?

Yes, I am. Do you have hay fever? No, I've been blessed in that direction. Well, it actually goes back to a Latin word that means fine powder, but also flower in the sense of the flower that you might use to make cakes. And that flower, incidentally, is related to the flowers that we pick in our garden because it was all the idea of the essence of something, really. So we used it for this fine powder and then adopted it for the pollen that flowers give off in the mid-18th century. But yeah, pollen is not something that most people will embrace other than birds.

That bees and birds actually. Do birds collect pollen ever? No, maybe not. Hummingbirds, I was thinking. I don't know. I need to go on a natural history lesson. I'm just looking it up now. The random things that we type into our search engines.

Well, you certainly do because I just enjoy the garden and I do love it. And years ago, my wife and I made a television series, in fact, two television series called Discovering Gardens. And we travelled around some of the most beautiful gardens in the British Isles, particularly in the West Country. And it was quite fun. I sat on the lawn, usually, having afternoon tea with the owner of the garden garden while my wife was down in the potting shed with the gardener actually discussing the details of the mulching and the hardy perennials now those hardy perennial mulch where do these words come from yes i'm just gonna after my random search on google i'm just gonna say that birds are very important pollinators of wildflowers

and hummingbirds indeed are key in wildflower pollination so there you go i wasn't as mad as you think perennials yes so perennials in the sense of remaining leafy through the year you know evergreen is simply from the latin perennis meaning lasting the whole year through and evergreen is such a beautiful word isn't it oh it's gorgeous i mean i know there's the melody and it's just a lovely lovely word and if something is a hardy perennial, it means it's strong and hardy. Simple as that. Yes, it does. And it actually goes back to an old French word meaning bold or daring.

But it's actually related to hard, as you might expect. So it's kind of hardy, hard and tough. And yeah, that's always my problem with the garden is I put things in pots and I put them outside and it says they're semi-hardy. And I think, well, hey, that makes me, if I was working on comedy countdown, I'd sort of go in a different direction with that. But it also just, I don't know what it means. Can I leave it outside or not?

But I do quite like looking into which soil to get, which earth to get for my garden, which fertilizer. That's quite a big question now, isn't it? In terms of, you know. Well, I think mulching, mulching which i mentioned comes into that area what's the origin of that oh yes mulching simply goes back to an old english word meaning soft if you're mulching you are making the ground a little bit soft aren't you so it's yeah dialect word and ultimately from old english you can see a lot of these are very, very old. Soil, you might think that actually the soil meaning earth and the soil meaning making dirties, and I've soiled my

trousers or something, are linked, but they're actually quite distinct. So soil itself as in when you're on home soil or the soil you'll put in the garden, that is from Old French. And it once referred to a land or a country. And this is from John Gay. Was he a poet, John Gay, in the 18th century? Yes. He said, the man who with undaunted toils sails unknown seas to unknown soils. So it referred to a country, but then to the ground and later to the lay of earth beneath the ground. But the verb to soil, to make dirty, is actually a bit of an insult against pigs because it ultimately, if you go take it all the way back, it goes back to a Latin word meaning a

little pig. And pigs aren't actually aren't as dirty as their reputation suggests. You know, we have making your house into a pigsty and that kind of thing, but it's a slightly unfair reputation. You're not old enough to have listened to a radio program that I used to listen to in the 1950s and 1960s called Beyond Our Ken, which featured Kenneth Horne. And in it, there was a regular character, a gardener called Arthur Fallowfield, that was played by Kenneth Williams. And his catchphrase was, the answer lies in the soil, which when I was growing up became a familiar catchphrase. People would ask anything to do with gardening. The reply would be, ah, the answer lies in the soil.

Well, it probably does, actually, because it's pretty important, as is earth, of course. And earth, it's impossible to tell with that one which meaning of earth came first, because all senses are found in Old English already. So the ground, the soil and also our planet, they're all there. And there are lots of different what we call cognates in language. So relatives in other languages such as German, you have erde and in Dutch you have aarde as in aardvark. So, yeah. What about the buildings? and in Dutch you have aarder as in aardvark.

So, yeah. What about the buildings? I know the people who live in glass houses, as the saying goes, people who live in glass houses should undress in the basement. But a glass house, is it the same as a greenhouse? I suppose that's different from a pavilion.

Well, a greenhouse is simply where you grow green things. Glass houses are usually glass, made of glass. We have conservatories as well, which is from the idea of conserving or preserving things and actually also behind the conservatoire. Did you ever go to a conservatoire? I visited them, but I was not taught at one.

But that's where you go to learn something, isn't it? I mean, a music conservatoire particularly. Yes, so you kind of preserve minds. How is that link conservatoire to conservatory? It's all to do with the idea of preserving minds and preserving ideas and inspiration. It's quite a nice idea, actually. It's like a sort of hothouse, isn't it, of talent. So I think that's really nice.

We have an orangery as well, where people traditionally would grow oranges. I'd love to live in a house where there's an orangery. Anybody who listens to The Archers over here will know that there is an orangery at the big stately home that features in that particular radio drama. I'm sure there's an orangery at Kew Gardens. There ought to be. Probably. It just automatically makes you feel good, that word, doesn't it? Because it's something warm and exotic and brightly coloured. Well, if you're thinking about oranges, it's a really nice one. At the weekend, I met up with someone who now runs the Jane Austen House at Chawton in Hampshire. But previously, I think she was running the home of, for the National Trust, the home of the great Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw at Ayrton Lawrence.

And in his garden, he has a small pavilion where he used to do his writing. a small pavilion where he used to do his writing. And this was a pavilion, as I recall, I hope I've not got this wrong, that could revolve so that he could face the sun at whatever time of day it was, or indeed avoid the sun, I suppose. But the pavilion moved around. It was just a small circular pavilion, which he would sit at his writing desk and work away. Isn't that a lovely idea? That is a gorgeous idea. And you will remember, because it's one of my absolute favourites, it's always on my greatest hits, a pavilion is a relative of papillon, French for butterfly, because a pavilion originally was a bit like a marquee with sort of canvases stretched out like long arms or indeed like the wings of a butterfly, which I love.

Oh, that's fantastic. Well, look, let's take a little break and then maybe we could explore some of the idioms that come from the world of the gardens. Once upon a time, I think you were a bit of a shrinking violet. I like to think I'm a late bloomer. Let's explore all of that after our break. Wherever you're going, you better believe American Express will be right there with you. Heading for adventure? We'll help you breeze through security. Meeting friends a world away? You can use your travel credit. Squeezing every drop out of the last day? How about a 4 p.m. late checkout?

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Listen to Getting Curious wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to Something Rhymes with Purple. We're out in the garden today, and I'm saying that I'm hoping I'm a late bloomer. And I think once upon a time, Susie was a bit of a shrinking violet. A, is that true about you? And B, do violets shrink? Why is a shrinking violet? One speaks of somebody who's a little bit shy and who has great beauty like you do,

but sort of shrinks away from it. Yes, a shrinking violet. It's interesting, isn't it? Because we tend to give these plants, these little characteristics, much as we do, I suppose, our garden birds, when we give them names like Robin and that kind of thing. I was thinking about Busy Lizzy. My mum used to call me a Busy Lizzy always.

And a Busy Lizzy, that's an African violet as well, isn't it, I think? So that one is just busy because it's got abundant flowers. Now a shrinking violet is a really good question because I have no idea what the plant-based characteristic is that gave us that. So I'm now looking it up. Okay. So it's never actually been used for the plant, but the metaphor is very clear in the first reference in the OED from 1915, where it says, voting will not be compulsory. The shrinking violets will not be torn from their shady fence corner. So the implication is that violets do their job quietly and in sort of unobtrusive parts of the garden. And that's the idea. Very good. But they're wonderful. I love, I love a violet. One of my favourite expressions,

but now it's become a bit of a cliche, it's too worn, is as fresh as a daisy. And I love it because it was you who told me, and we've said it many a time and oft, but I love hearing it again, the origin of daisy. It's the day's eye, isn't it?

It is. The daisy opens up, it's the beginning of the day, the day's eye. Yes. That gives you daisy. It's the day's eye, isn't it? It is. The daisy opens up, it's the beginning of the day, the day's eye. Yes. That gives you daisy. It's hard to believe, but that is the origin of daisy. And being as fresh as a daisy is a charming expression, isn't it? Yes, because it opens its petals at dawn, hence it's the eye of the day, and it closes them again at dusk. So when it opens them again, it is fresh because it's had a long sleep, I think is the idea, which is absolutely lovely. There's also nipping something in the bud, which makes me laugh because, you know, we talk on the

show about egg corns, the slips of the ear that some people just have always thought, you know, was the case of whether it's a doggy dog world or to all intensive purposes or like a bowl in a china shop, all of those. Nipping it in the butt is something I have heard of more than one occasion. Let's nip it in the butt is something I have heard on more than one occasion. Let's nip it in the butt, which is just such a strange image. Well, you'd get arrested now for doing that. You absolutely would. So guard against it, please. I mean, many of these expressions speak for themselves. I mean, a late bloomer is obviously something that blossoms later than earlier. A rose amongst thorns is clearly something that is beautiful,

surrounded by stuff that is less beautiful and rather sharp. But a wallflower, how did the people who at a dance just sat at the side and didn't take part, how did they come to be known as wallflowers? Well, I guess they're hugging the wall, aren't they? Simple as that. It's as simple as that, yeah, that they are definitely propped up against a vertical vertical surface did you have school dances when you were at school oh let's not go to my school dances they were absolutely horrific because i went to girl's school and we would then be paired up with a boy's school and it was grim it's absolutely grim how about you yeah well i was at a co-educational school. And it was a bit humiliating,

actually, if you were a wallflower. I mean, there were some people who were constantly being, you know, people were asking them to dance and other people who just sat around. It must have been agony. I don't know. I was to cover my inability to dance. I think what would be called an eccentric dancer. I made a virtue of my lack of capacity in the dancing field. Funnily enough, I think because of that at school, I'm just remembering this. I began a sort of dance club when I was older, when I was sort of 16 or 17, with a girl called Diana Ambash, who later became a very distinguished, is a very distinguished musician. She's particularly popularized British, indeed international, women composers over the years.

She was a fabulous cellist, fabulous pianist, and has had her own ensemble and orchestra. Anyway, but she and I were at school together, and briefly I think we were head boy and head girl together, and we organized a dance club for the smaller children. And I think the origin of that may have been because we found it so ghastly when we were smaller that we didn't know how to dance. But in those days at school, we're talking about the 1960s now, as well as doing jitterbugging dancing, you know,

jiving and the twist and modern dancing, we still did do things like the waltz and the quick step. And we also did Scottish country dancing as part of it and those are fun because actually everybody can take part yes i was taught in that i would love it like line dancing also this looks really fun so i think if there's a specific step i'm all for that for sure how do we get on to dancing because of wallflowers a wallflower and being a wallflower at the school dance which was giving it some welly wallflowers and giving it some welly. Wallflowers. And giving it some welly, which I like, because that actually was first used for putting your foot down on the accelerator in a car. Is that as in putting down the Wellington boot then? Is that what welly is?

Exactly. The Wellington boot. You might lead someone up the garden path. That's another one. And probably to do with, you know, from a long time ago, the idea that a man will sort of ask a woman to accompany him up the garden path and sort of try to seduce her. I mean, there's not a lot. But also, he could be leading her up the garden path to be away from the main house where the parents were, to be able to whisper sweet nothings

and say lovely, tender things. Well, that's true. Yes, I'm only trying to account from the idea of bamboozling or hoaxing or blarneeing someone by leading them up the garden path. Ah, to lead her up the garden path with false promises. And then actually all you're after is a snog. And you're not really there to do the decent thing and pop the question.

I looked up the etymology of snog the other day, by the way. Oh, what is it? Realising I'd never done it before. It's related to snug. Oh. Simple as that, which is quite nice, actually. And also there's a lovely dialect word, to snudge. And to snudge is to nestle closely with someone. To snudge. I like that one. Oh, I like that idea. Yeah.

Why do people say to me, oh, you're going to seed, when, meaning that I'm looking a bit ropey, when the idea of seed is birth, renewal. So, if you're going to seed, it seems a contradiction in terms. Yeah. Well, not always, though. If you go to seed, you also are being sort of dried up, desiccated, and then the seeds, if they're self-propagating, will fall down and then you'll have a new bloom the following year. But sadly, the person who has gone to seed won't normally see that new rebirth. Sorry about that. Oh, thank you. Well, there we are. Can't a seed and there's no possibility of rebirth, according to Susie Dent. What does she know?

I'm so sorry. Should we quickly move on to correspondence? Please. Have people been in touch? Yes, and this one's quite appropriate, actually, because it goes back to something that we were talking about with garden building. It's from Domin from Dominique who says please help the word of the day is so she is part of a group that have a word of the day which I love with a tricky word puzzle following a discussion at work when you hear the term shed load do you think a enough of something to fill a shed b a polite variation of shit load or c meaning that a load of something has been shed by falling out of a container or

perhaps leaves shed from a tree we're a group of colleagues who meet every friday lunchtime to guess the meaning of the past seven words of the day originally now from a well-known dictionary website she says collectively we think a enough of something to fill a shed but can you basically she's saying can we help she says that a few are leaning towards B, which I think is ridiculous, a polite variation of the term shitload. Oh, well, I mean, I hate that expression. Yes. So what is it?

Funny you should say that. So yes, it's not a shed load. So we can discount the idea that this is something that has been shed by accident by a lorry. So we know it's not that. But I'm afraid, Giles, that the Oxford English Dictionary will say that it was influenced by the idea of a shit load. So it combines both A and B. So it is something that is very big in quantity, quite voluminous, as might be found in a shed if it's a big shed but also it was definitely influenced by shit load which i think i also hate to tell you probably came first i'm just gonna double check

whether it was shit load or shed load my job is very weird shit load 1954 okay so that is that shed load 1992 so i'm afraid the thing you thought was ridiculous is probably the ultimate source. How amazing. That is extraordinary. It's my least favourite four-letter word. Yeah, mine too, mine too. I really don't like it at all.

Although, as you know, from Old English, and it was no ruder then, then excrement or defecation would be today. So it's only because of our aversion to bodily functions that we have invested it with that sort of slight repulsiveness. Let's lift our spirits with another letter. This is from Warwick Gill. Dear Susie and Giles, I was writing a birthday message

to my Korean brother-in-law recently, and I wished him many happy returns. As soon as I pressed send, I suddenly thought about where the expression came from and how I would explain it if my brother-in-law asked what it meant. My family's, wife's family in Korea, use English as a second or third language and they sometimes ask me to explain meanings and origins of common English expressions that I use when I write to them. Needless to say, I often draw a blank and have to say I don't know, which is a little embarrassing. What makes it worse is that I might use another expression in my explanation that I can't explain. Susie, can you please give me the lowdown on many happy returns? I'll be able to get at least one explanation right.

Well, that's Warwick Gill, who also sends thanks and warmest regards. Oh, thank you. Well, if you just take it in its most literal sense, Warwick, you will really crack it because it is simply saying, may you have many more birthdays. So may you have many more returns of this day. So may it come again and again and again. In other words, may you live to a ripe old age

because if you have lots of birthdays, you will be getting older with each of them. And it's first recorded from 1714. And here it says, And to wish we may see many returns of this day, many happy new years. So it was first used for New Year's and then attached to birthdays. Good. Yeah.

Well, look, Susie, at this stage in the game, you always give us three interesting words that you've dug up that you think might be ones that we would enjoy hearing about, but they're not in current currency. No, and these are ones that have just tickled my fancy, and a couple of them are relevant to our subject today. So the first one isn't necessarily, but I was just very happy to see that this verb exists. To make something into a dumpling shape is to dumple it. So I was around the 1820s. So I just, you could just say, I just dumpled my dough. But I'm sure there's lots of other things that you can dumple with if you make it into a dumpling shape, plasticine, for example, or Play-Doh, just like that one. The second one is an earth apple. We borrowed this from German,

but earth apple is now used for a potato because it's like an apple that you dig up from the earth. But actually in the 11th century, it's that old, it's as meant a cucumber, an earth apple. A cucumber was once called an earth apple. Yeah, and it's not particularly apple shaped, which is a bit surprising, but that's what it was. And now a potato, we've been a bit more logical. That is intriguing. And the third one, we talked about hardy plants. I just quite like the sound of this one. A hardy-dardy. A hardy-dardy is a very silly dare. So it's a slightly rash decision to take on a challenge and then you basically perform a hardy-dardy. It's quite fun, isn't it? Oh, I like it. I think it's a very useful one. Lovely. Do you

have a poem for us? I do have a poem for you. And it's written by one of my favourite poets called Stevie Smith. Oh, yeah. I think her real name was Florence Margaret Smith, but she was known as Stevie Smith. And born 1902, died 1971. And I was introduced to poetry by a friend of mine who knew her well and there's a wonderful play by Hugh Whitemore yes called Stevie which was made into a film I think with the late great

Glenda Jackson starring ah when I was at university was the first production that I helped work on with and my great friend Susie was the lead role. Oh, well, there you are. So this is a poem by Stevie Smith. And the reason I chose it is because I associate our garden, where I live in West London, with cats. Because the cat that now lives with us, Nala, used to live in the house next door and came over the garden wall and ran towards my wife, this is about seven years ago, and essentially adopted my wife and

never went home. And eventually the neighbors said, okay, you can keep the cat. Even better than that, they went on paying the vet's bills until they moved house. And now we have new neighbors and they've got a cat who is called Shadow, a male cat, very handsome. And that male cat keeps coming over the garden wall and also wants to be adopted by us. But we can't. We can't have Shadow because we've already got Nala. And Nala doesn't really, Nala is older now and really can't cope with this handsome male cat in her territory in the garden. So there's a little bit sort of turf wars going on in the garden. But I love to sit in the garden and I love to have Nala, our cat, come and sit with us.

And this is a poem about Stevie Smith's cat who was called Major. And the poem, it's a short poem, is simply called My Cat Major by Stevie Smith. Major is a fine cat. What is he at? He hunts birds in the hydrangea and in the tree. Major was ever a ranger. He ranges where no one can see. Sometimes he goes up to the attic with a hooped back. His paws hit the iron rungs of the ladder in a quick kick. How can this be done? It is a knack. Oh, Major is a fine cat. He walks cleverly. And what is he at, my fine cat? No one can see. Love that. That's absolutely beautiful. Brilliant. I do love her poetry. It encapsulates the nature of a cat, doesn't it? In a few short lines. It absolutely does. Brilliant person, Stevie Smith. Brilliant creatures, cats. Wonderful

things, gardens. But you don't have to have a garden. My friend, Stevie Smith. Brilliant creatures, cats. Wonderful things, gardens. But you don't have to have a garden. My friend, Derek Nimmo. Do you remember Derek? Were you on Countdown in the days when Derek was a regular companion in Dictionary Corner? I wasn't, no. But I know of him. Yeah.

Derek Nimmo was a comic British actor and a very amusing human being and a friend of mine. And he won several times the Window Box of Kensington Award. He lived originally in a flat in Kensington. Amazing. And no room for a garden. But he kept the most beautiful window boxes and was very proud of them and was very happy to win the Window Box of the Year. So if you haven't got a garden, enjoy your window box. Excellent. Absolutely. And thank you for, we hope, enjoying the show as well.

Really love your company. You can find us on social media at Something Rhymes on Twitter and Facebook or at Something Rhymes With on Instagram. There is also the Purple Plus Club where Giles and I will be going to soon for, you can listen ad free, but you also get some bonus episodes. Something Rhymes with Purple is a Sony Music Entertainment production produced by Naya Deo, with additional production from Hannah Newton, Naomi Oiku, Chris Skinner, Jen Mystery and Rishi.

He's the new answer to Gully.