Something Rhymes with Purple - Guttersnipes

Episode Date: May 26, 2020

Roll up, roll up! Read all about it! This week we're stalking the pavements of Fleet Street to get the scoop on the lingo from the world of journalism. We'll be finding out what links an urchin to a hedgehog, why you'd rather your basement wasn't spiked, and why a tabloid might be just the pill that you need. It's all part of the furniture. Also, through the smoke of the newsroom, Susie types up her weekly trio of words and Gyles delivers a fantastic poem about the joys of reclining... If you want to get in touch, please do, we're at [e-mail]. A Somethin' Else production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up y'all it's your man Mark Strong Strizzy and your girl Jem the Jem of all Jems and we're hosting Olympic FOMO your essential recap podcast of the 2024 Olympic Games in 20 minutes or less every day we'll be going behind the scenes for all the wins

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with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main We'll see you next time. Annex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Something else. Hello and welcome to another episode of Something Rhymes with Purple, the podcast by people with a passion for words, everything to do with words, for people with a passion for words. And I'm Susie Dent. And with me, looking at me from a Zoom camera, is Giles Brandreth. Hi, Giles.

It's good to be with you, Susie. And it's exciting to be with you with this new medium. And I've been thinking this week how the world has so totally changed since I began, for example, as a journalist. I began as a journalist 50 years ago. And in those days, when you wrote an article, I'm thinking of that because today I wrote an article and I just did it on my computer. I pressed a button and it was sent immediately to the newspaper and it will appear tomorrow.

Whereas 50 years ago, if you wrote an article at home, you went to a telephone. You picked up the telephone. If you were like me, then a student contributing to the newspapers, you had to put money into a machine and you had to press a button to get the money registered. And then you got through to the newspaper and you would say, copy takers, please. And they would put you through to a department where there were copy takers, men and women, mostly women, who sat there and took down a dictation what you had written. They then took it down and typed it up. It was then sent to

typesetters. A whole complicated raft of things happened that don't happen now. The world was quite different. Newspaper offices were different. When I first worked in Fleet Street, you couldn't see the editor when you went to see him, not because he wasn't there, but because of the haze of smoke around him. The clatter of typewriters, the noise of the printing presses, and the smoke was extraordinary, and the smell of whiskey. Every editor had in his drawer, well, some of them actually on the table, a bottle of whiskey, a totally different world. Now, you write now for the I newspaper, I know, I do occasionally. I've seen your lovely pieces on a Saturday. How do you deliver those? What is the process? Yes, I literally type them up on Word. I mean, it's not as simple as that because I do labour

over them to try and get things right. That's the pressure of someone who supposedly knows about words and then writing about words. have to sound okay so anyway once I've done that yes I ping it off by email it comes back to me I quickly look at the edit and then it goes off the only thing that you can't control when you are a journalist is the headline that is quite frustrating because quite often the headline doesn't actually reflect your point of view have you ever found that? Oh, all the time. I think people have come unstuck slightly that way. I no longer look at my pieces because I know that the headline can distort it

or at the last minute they've had to cut a bit or change a little bit. And normally they're very good about that, but sometimes it does happen. And it's just too depressing. So once I've written it, I've sent it off, I just keep my fingers crossed. You won't ever see any of the articles I write. I do a lot of journalism. I write mainly for the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph. And I also write for a magazine, a monthly magazine called The Oldie, which is actually

for people who are young at heart. So there are younger people who read it, but it's essentially for older people. It's a fun, amusing magazine launched by Richard Ingrams, who was the editor of Private Eye, now edited by Harry Mount. But you don't need to see these magazines. We're just churning them out. But I began literally in Fleet Street because my first job on a newspaper was for the Manchester Evening News. And it was owned by The Guardian. And in fact, it was what funded The Guardian. It was successful. The Guardian wasn't so successful financially. And the Manchester Evening News made it work. And I worked for a wonderful editor called

Brian Redhead, who taught me a great deal. He was on the Today programme then, wasn't he? It was before he was on the Today programme. He hoped to be the editor of The Guardian. And when he didn't get that job, he went off and was the presenter on the Today programme. But the point is, I went to Fleet Street, the old Fleet Street. People still refer to it as Fleet Street, although there are no newspapers offices in Fleet Street. Why is Fleet Street called Fleet Street, both the street and its association with newspapers? What's the background to that? Do you know, I actually, I genuinely don't know the answer to that one. I mean, there was the River Fleet, so that's why it's called Fleet Street. But I don't actually know why. I mean, because I guess that's where

the newspapers established themselves. And no more than that, I would imagine. I mean, I know we've talked before about how the word hack goes back to the horses that were bred on Hackney Marshes for, you know, the pretty, to mix my metaphors, pedestrian routes, the sort of fairly dull everyday routes. They were the workhorses. And that's why journalists picked up the term hacks. But I don't know about Fleet Street. It's really interesting that because there was Grub Street as well, wasn't there? Ah, Grub Street, I'm sure predates Fleet Street. I think Grub Street is Dickens and even earlier, Dr. Johnson, of course, who lived near Fleet Street, Goff Square, where Dr. Johnson lived, is just off Fleet Street. I am sure your instinct is right.

I think it's because I remember when I was working in Fleet Street, there was, I was in the Guardian building, but nearby was the Daily Telegraph building. Opposite us was the Daily Mirror and an amazing building, the Daily Express building. When I started, Lord Beaverbrook was still alive and on top of the Daily Express building. When I started, Lord Beaverbrook was still alive and on top of the Daily Express building. And then at the end of the street was Printing House Square, where The Times was based and the Sunday Times. And in those days, most of the newspapers were broadsheets. And they then began to shrink. When I began in Fleet Street, both the Daily Express and the Daily Mail were broadsheets, large newspapers, as was the Manchester Evening News.

And they then shrank and became tabloids. What's the origin of the expression broadsheet and tabloid? Well, broadsheet, I suppose, is fairly self-explanatory. They were large sheets of paper on which you read your news. on which you read your news. Tabloids, the first tabloids were actually little pills. So that word was invented by the pharmaceutical company Burroughs & Welcome in the 1880s. And it was a trademark then for really concentrated drugs and chemicals in tablet form. And then Lord Northcliffe, who was a newspaper proprietor,

was the first to apply the word to half-size newspapers. And in fact, Burroughs & Welcome, the company, tried to apply for an injunction to prevent that use. And I think they succeeded initially, but then later had to accept that tabloid had become pretty much common property, like sellotape or band-aids or all of those others that then become generic. Hoover, exactly. And at the time, the word was intended to mean nothing more than the fact that these were kind of concentrated or compressed into smaller sheets of paper and if anything it was quite complementary um so it was beneficial handy just like tabloid medicine but then over the years it's become a bit of a term of abuse isn't it meaning oversimplified and a bit gossipy

when the sun newspaper first came into existence it it was a broadsheet. I first contributed to the Sun in 1967. Page three? No, they didn't have page three. It was then, I think, the successor to the Daily Herald. And it considered itself rather a serious paper. It was popular, but it had sort of, there were certainly no page three element. And then it shrank and became a tabloid, which to some is a term, a pejorative term. I would say that gutter press is certainly a pejorative term. Where does gutter press come from? Gutter press. Now I did look this one up because I thought you might may ask me this one. So it was generally an adjective in the 18, middle of the 19th century, so 1850s or so, for being brought up in the gutter of a low

or disreputable character. And then, you know, over time that was first of all transferred to gutter journalists, people who just basically dug in the gutter for their news stories and then to the newspapers themselves. But it's always been pretty insulting. So gutter because the gutter leads to the drains, the drains lead to the sewers, that sort of thing. That's why you're in the gutter. Yes, we're all in the gutter. But some of us are looking at the stars. Yes. What about the word gutter snipe? That's a really good one, actually. I mean, that's just as pejorative as someone, I'm going to check to see whether that is Dickens as well, who, you know, scavenges a sort of urchin, if you like. Shall I tell you while I'm looking this up that an urchin actually goes back to the French for a hedgehog because their hair was so spiky and ragged and ruffled that they took that name.

Is that why a sea urchin is called a sea urchin? Because it looks like a hedgehog. Exactly right. Wow. Yes. But a street urchin because it looks like a hedgehog. Exactly right. Wow. Yes. But a street urchin, same thing. So gutter snipe, the common snipe. So it was used in birding. And then it became in the 1860s, okay, a gatherer of refuse, such as rags and paper from street gutters. They were called gutter birds originally. So that's the idea. Well, in the world of journalism, we still use

traditional phrases. You still file your copy, even though you're actually just pressing the button that says send. You still live in dread of your story being spiked. What's the origin of that being spiked? That was a real spike that lived on the editor's desk. So when a story was discarded for whatever reason, it was literally pierced upon the metal spike that once sat on, in fact, I think they once sat on each desk on the editorial floor. So it was a crucial filing system, but for sub-editors, it was used either to keep a copy or to kill it. And then the killing it bit came to the fore. The first time a copy, a piece of copy of mine was spiked was in 1970. I'd been sent by Brian Redhead, the editor of Manchester City News, to do a piece about

Warrington, the beautiful town of Warrington, not far from Manchester. Anyway, I came back, I looked around Warrington and I wrote up my piece. It wasn't totally favourable. In fact, I gave my own headline to it. I called it Warrington Warts and All, because there's a statue of Oliver Cromwell in Warrington. So I thought it was rather clever. Nice, because that's, of course, where that phrase came from. Warts and All, because of the portrait. A portrait of Cromwell that had, he said, I want you to paint me warts and all. And he did have very, apparently very prominent warts. So I prayed I did a portrait of Warrington Warts and all. It was quickly spiked. And I said,

why? What's happened? What have I done wrong? He said, you've told us what you thought of Waddington. That's not what we wanted, Giles. We support the local communities here. Your piece was really what we might call an advertorial. We'd hoped to write a lovely piece about Waddington with advertising all the way around it of the different businesses in Waddington. Here, people will be cancelling their subscriptions in Waddington. We're spiking it, Charles, spiking it. I was told when I was researching my book on the kind of jargons of different professions and different hobbyists, etc., I spoke to quite a few journalists and I was told by a couple that the editor of The sun in the 70s who was called larry lamb uh famously impaled his forehead on a spike after dunking a piece of copy with a bit too much relish oh my goodness i know can you imagine oh wow but you know they had actually

quite a religious vocabulary as well because they called newspaper unions they were organized through chapels weren't they which were associations of what were called the journeymen in printing offices and these laid down rules on working practices and that kind of thing and then within within each chapel there were companionships groups of writers who worked together and the leader of each chapel was the father or the mother so it's a bit like a masonic lodge There were quite a few kind of rituals involved, really. And so there was quite a lot of reverence as well as, you know, all the kind of cheeky slang that we now associate with newspaper offices. Tell us about the tradition of banging out.

Do you know about that one? Oh, yeah, the banging out. That's, I mean, I think that is still done today when somebody is leaving and everybody, you know, much as we might grab saucepans now to clap in Britain anyway, there are wonderful health services. And I think, in fact, that's happening all around the world. You know, a similar noise will be made for somebody who's leaving. Again, real rite of passage. Were you banged out when you left? Banged up, more likely. My arrival and my departures from all the newspapers I've worked on have gone entirely unnoticed. Newspapers have certainly changed in my lifetime, but some things haven't. For example, the bottom of the page is still called the basement.

Yeah, and that's usually a weaker story that runs along the bottom without a picture. And then it might become a nib, which is a news in brief. A which is a news in brief a nib is a news in brief and one journalist says it's the where the boring stories by specialist correspondents go which is a bit mean um and then they get a byline don't they and a date line a byline is simply says it's by you exactly a story can be a back of the book or a down pager if it's not very visual but the best stories compete to make the splash so if there's a paper's afternoon conference they'll say what are we going to splash on and that conference incidentally is known as the back bench apparently and then that will be puffed on the

skyline which is the panel high up between the masthead that's the newspaper title and the splash reporters file the copy the body text and then the byline and the stand first which is the explanatory feature introduction to a feature those are all provided by the subs i'm just trying to think of other there's a caption to an article can contain a kicker which is usually a two-word phrase and then you've got sidebars and all of this is known as the furniture in the trade as well and journalists often known as the inkies oh i haven't mentioned the scoop as well of course the scoop is pretty what is the scoop what is the origin of the scoop nothing to do with ice cream

well no it's all to do with digging isn't it most scoops are usually done by a bit of digging but a detective work on the part of the journalist who might do a phoner if they're doing a quick phone interview, or they might do the horrible door stepping. And we mentioned headlines earlier. We must come back to that maybe after the break, because headline ease is just amazing. Well, to take you into the break, this is a fun fact. Do you know, in the olden days, you sometimes see this in period movies, Upstairs, Downstairs, Downton Abbey, those sorts of movies, they have the butler ironing the newspaper. And do you know why the butler is ironing the newspaper? I was just assuming because it didn't have any crinkles in it.

Exactly. The newspaper arrives, it's folded in half. But if you're reading your copy, your traditional copy of the Times newspaper, because you're Lord Pispot and you're sitting there at breakfast, you know, with the Labrador at your feet, dipping your toast soldiers into your beautifully soft yolk, looking at the Times. You want it to be crisp and fresh. You don't want a crease across the middle. That is not why the butler was ironing your copy of the Times. The butler ironed the newspaper not to get the creases out, but to stop the ink from smudging onto your fingers. Oh, I never knew that. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations.

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Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Hello, I'm Elizabeth Day. You might know me as the creator and host of the How to Fail podcast, but I want to tell you about a new podcast I've made. How to Write a Book is for anyone who wants to get their story out there. Fronted by a best-selling author, a super agent, and a powerhouse publisher, this 12-week masterclass will take you right through from developing an idea to nailing the plot.

If you want to get all episodes at once and completely ad-free, subscribe now. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, I'm Jay Rayner and I host the Out to Lunch podcast, where I take fabulous guests out for lunch and grill them to a turn. For now, whilst lockdown reigns supreme, we're staying in for lunch instead, and we've got great company. Fascinating people share only the best takeaways with me over webcam. Great food, an insightful conversation with the likes of Gary Neville,

Sharon Horgan, George Ezra, and Dieter von Teese. Have you ever had a cream pie in the face? No! So if you, like me, enjoy food and are missing restaurants, subscribe to Out to Lunch with Jay Rayner, available wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome back, where Jasper, Andrus and I are talking about journalism, but specifically the language of journalism, the language of newspapers. We thought we might just linger a little bit more on headlines, because let's face it, most of us will have one favourite

headline and headline writers are quite ingenious, aren't they, Giles? They certainly are. They're brilliant. Andrew Marr, who has written a brilliant analysis, really, of British newspapers and British media, but he puts it that the classic male headline, which begins, is this the most evil, depraved, shocking, dot, dot, dot, can almost always be answered. Actually, no. Which I just love. There are just some brilliant ones that I remember. You know, when the Queen had an anus horribilis, one of the headlines was one's bum year. So clever. That was really good. And light years away from that, you know, a century earlier than that,

headlines were things like a judge's wife cured of pelvic catarrh. That was one of the really early headlines. Good grief, the mind boggles. But those ones, those royal ones, they're a bit of a stereotype. And I use the word advisory because stereotype's a word that comes from journalism printing. Yes? Yes, stereotype, definitely. I mean, in fact, you know, so many of the words that we use when it comes to hackneyed language,

and I mentioned hacks earlier, do go back to printing. So stereotype, one of them, you know, stereotype, I'm just actually going to look up to see when it first came into use. Because it was a stereotype plate, plate really which was the process of printing in which a solid plate of metal was used for printing instead of the form itself if that makes sense 1800 it said here and we've just taken that to mean continuing or repeating something without any change it's a stereotyped phrase or a formula or whatever. And cliché, the same thing, again, something hackneyed. And cliché is rather wonderful because that goes back

to the French and it was thought to be imitative of the sound of striking molten metal in order to make a cast and maybe kind of dropping it into the heat. So cliché, I love that. That was designed to be onomatopoeic from the start, that one. I like that. I like that one too. I've been trying to remember the headlines that I've loved seeing recently. There was one, and I have remembered it now, because I take an interest in teddy bears, I was struck by this. A poor child managed to flush its Winnie the Pooh teddy bear down the

loo. And the headline, this was reported in the local newspaper, under the headline, sewer blocked by large poo. It made me laugh anyway. Uppercase and lowercase when we're talking about capital letters and small letters. That goes back to where the certain letters were kept before they were used on the printing press as well. Capital letters were in the uppercases and selected from there and the smaller letters were selected from the lower cases. So that goes back there too. Oh, and mind your P's and Q's, which is another one that often comes up. Does that actually come back to printing, you know, making sure that you don't mix up the P's and Q's, which are quite easily interchangeable

if you're a typesetter? The answer is probably not. The best guess that we have is that P stands for please, and the Q is part of thank you. So we think that's where that comes from. Do you still read a newspaper, a physical newspaper? No, and particularly not during the pandemic. But to be honest, I'd stopped quite a while ago, so I do tend to look at my news online now. How about you? I'm afraid, well, I'm afraid, I'm pleased to say I still read a physical newspaper. I like seeing the whole page. I like being able to turn the page. I like being able to read the newspaper in the bath. I love a newspaper. I like being able to take a newspaper and turn it into a boat

to sail on a pond or to wear as a funny hat. I like a traditional newspaper. But then I still have a landline. I was pleased to see there was a picture in the paper the other day of members of the, senior members of the royal family saluting the nurses. It was on International Nursing Day, also the birthday of Florence Nightingale. Florence Nightingale, great name, named after the city of Florence, the first person popularly to be called Florence. The name Florence Nightingale comes from Florence Nightingale. Incidentally, Florence Nightingale, you can make an anagram of that, which I love, flit on cheering angel. But in this photograph of all the senior royals talking to nurses around the country, we had them all talking

through their computers, except for one person in the bottom right-hand corner. And I was, at the time, doing the Jeremy Vine television program in the morning. And he said, there's this person in the bottom right-hand corner. Nobody knows who she is. It isn't the Queen, but it's obviously an old lady. I said, well, it's got to be somebody over 80. And I said, well, senior royals over 80, a lady, gray hair. I said, it must be Princess Alexandra. And people said, who, what? Princess Alexandra is one of the grandchildren of King George V

and is a senior royal in her 80s. And she was, of course, using a landline. And the queen, of course, who is over 90, when she has her weekly call with the Prime Minister, he and she, they both use a landline because that's what the Queen is used to. If the Queen or Princess Alexandra want to get in touch with us, they're going to have a problem because on the whole, you get in touch with us via Twitter or via an email where we are, purple at somethingelse.com. And people do get in touch from all over the world.

Graham Reid has been in touch and he wants to talk cock with us. We spoke about birds in a recent episode, so I'm assuming this is why these phrases have sprung to his mind. Cock a hoop, a lot of cock, a cocktail, cock fosters, cock and bull. Where does all this cock come from and why? This reminds me of the longest take ever on Countdown, the programme that I work on, because somebody had emailed in for my origin of word slot to ask for the etymology of cock a hoop. And honestly, it took me 15 minutes to get to it because I was

laughing so much all the way through as was the crew so I'm going to try not to laugh my way through this one we do know that it goes back to setting the cock a hoop which apparently meant to turn on the tap of a cask of beer or a cask of alcohol and let the liquor flow and we know that the cock was often applied to the kind of tap that you would turn on and off, but quite why, nobody knows. But I can say it's at least 600 years old. So I can tell you about Cockfosters. Cockfosters is believed to have been the residence of the Cock Forester, so the chief forester. And it was possibly the name of a family or of a house which stood in Enfield Chase in London. Cock and Bull, if you were a tourist guide around Stoney Stratford, which is a village named Milton Keynes,

you would probably be telling your visitors that two inns, one called the Cock and one called the Bull, were once stopping posts for rival stagecoach companies. So passengers would stop on their way to London and refresh their horses, et cetera, and themselves. And the cock and the bull were said to run a competition to see which of them could produce the most outlandish story, which would then be believed, and travellers would then swiftly deliver the gossip to London.

So it was said to be a competition. Sadly, there's no proof of that whatsoever. What we think it goes back to is in the first instance, a French expression, which was a coq à l'an. In other words, it was told by the coq to the donkey. So it was an incoherent rambling story, which was passed from animal to animal and person to person. That's where we think that one comes from. What other coqs did you mention? I can't remember.? I've got one more cock to offer you. I remember that in French, a feuille de coq is a boiled egg. And there's coq au vin, the delicious, have you ever had coq au vin? I have made cocks.

Oh, have you? Yes, I have. There's a dreadful, a dreadful witticism. There was a famous impresario called C.B. Cochran in the 1920s who put on shows called Cochran's Review. People like Noel Coward appeared in them. And C.B. Cochran lived in a hotel. I think it was somewhere like the Ritz or the Savoy. And he was known as Cock or Cocky.

And unfortunately, when he was quite old, he was in a bath in his hotel. The hot water tap was on. And he sort of had a kind of stroke in the bath with the boiling water. He boiled in his own bath. Cocky boiled in his own bath. And the headline was, Coq au bain. Perhaps too subtle. No, I do guess it's Coq au bain. Anyone listening and tuning in at precisely this point in the podcast is going to wonder what they've landed upon because I'm now going to tell you about cocking your pistol in readiness I'm afraid it goes back to 16th century idea of causing something to stick up in an assertive defiant or jaunty way and from there you could cock your hat you could turn up the brim of your hat or you could place a match in the cock of a match lock in firearms

and then finally when you were loading your firearm you are raising the hammer, aren't you? So there you go. I'm afraid it all goes back to things sticking up. But I like the idea of it being jaunty. That's my style. Always jaunty. Moving swiftly on.

Yes. At K8Wayne on Twitter has communicated to say really enjoying Something around with purple. It's the perfect lockdown distraction and podcast for walking the dog. Is there a word for that sigh you make when you've just had your first sip of coffee in the morning? If not, what should it be? Yes, this is Kate, isn't it? I remember she asked me this and I did answer on Twitter because I immediately thought of one of my favourite words ever, which is suspire. And to suspire is to breathe out with a sigh. It can be in relief, it could be regret, or it could be after the perfect cup of coffee. Multipurpose word, but it's just beautiful. To suspire, that early morning sigh of satisfaction. Hi, Giles and Susie, writes Harry Johnson. In a recent podcast, you talked about homonyms,

words that are spelt the same but have different meanings. Could you please touch on, or riff on, in Susie's case, words that are spelt the same but mean completely opposite to each other? For example, dust. One can dust a windowsill to remove dust, but can dust a cake by adding sugar. Yes. Well, they're also called Janus words, these. Janus, the god that famously had two faces and gave us January, because January is the start of the year when you look back at the one just gone and you look to the one ahead and it gave us janitor because janice was also the gatekeeper of doorways um yes they're also called that but technically they also also called contronyms which is quite a recent creation that word actually there are lots of them why they exist is purely because languages often flow in different channels and have different

kind of stops along the way. It's funny. They replicate themselves and they go off to have different meanings. Fast can mean firmly fixed, so held fast as well as very quick. Sanction can mean an approval. You sanction something, but it can also be economic disapproval. You impose sanctions. You overlook something. You can look over it and watch over it, or you can fail to see it. If you screen something you can look over it and watch over it or you can fail to see it if you screen something you might show it in the cinema but also to screen something to hide it from view there are lots and lots of them and yes you're absolutely right it is the most fascinating perplexing contradictory language in the world and that's why we love it. And we love discovering new words. And every week you have your trio

of words that are always new to me. What three have you got in store for us this week? The first of my three is olecranon. Do you know what this is, Giles? No idea. Your olecranon. It's part of your body. Olecranon. It's the bony point of your elbow. It has a name. That is your olecranon. So it's spelled O-L-E-C-R-A-N-O-N. Medical term for that bony bit of your elbow.

I just love the sound of this one. And any of our listeners, our purple people, must forgive me if I sometimes repeat myself because sometimes I go with the inspiration of a particular day. And if I've encountered something that reminds me of it, that's the one that I'm going to go with. And it's a huff snuff. So a huff snuff is a conceited braggart. Take your pick. I'm trying to be kind and gentle during lockdown, but occasionally a voice of irrationality and just stupidity kind of thunders through the airwaves and you can describe them as a huff snuff. So someone who kind of huffs and puffs and just walks around believing themselves to be better than everyone else that's a huff snuff um and finally i have mentioned before the word wumble cropped which is when you were severely crappulous in other words you've drunk too much you've eaten

way too much which let's face it is a danger during lockdown, and you wake up feeling awful. If your stomach, however, is just churning a little bit uneasily because you've overdone it, perhaps you've tasted something that's not to your liking, you can just describe your stomach as wombling. Nothing to do with the Wombles of Wimbledon for any British listeners who remember the Wombles. It's spelt with an A, W-A-M-B-L-E, to churn uneasily off the stomach. Beautiful trio of words. Thank you very much. And I've got a charming poem to share with you to end this week. I've been judging something called the King Lear Prizes. These are prizes for people in their 70s who are doing creative work they've never done before, writing a poem, a play,

playing some music, creating music, composing music. You can find out more about it at kinglearprizes.org. Can I just quickly ask what it's got to do with King Lear? I'll tell you what it's got to do with King Lear. King Lear was written in around 1604, a year when there was a plague in London, and therefore the theatres closed.

So one of the side benefits of the plague of 1604 was William Shakespeare writing one of his greatest ever tragedies, the tragedy of King Lear. So the idea behind these King Lear prizes is to encourage people in their 70s, there's a prize of £1,000 for the best poem, the best original composition, the best work of art, and it can be a craft work as well as an artwork. It's wonderful. Several thousand people have taken part. And as a result of it, I'm coming

across some wonderful poems. And I've been sent a poem by a friend of mine who's called Richard Harries. You may have heard of him. He used to be the Bishop of Oxford. And he sent me this rather amusing poem. As you grow old and your years are declining, there remains the great pleasure of simply reclining. Feet up, head back, eyes gently closing. It takes a lot of beating, does lolling with the sun on your face, gently warming, and lazy thoughts hazily meandering, the sheer pleasure of simply unwinding. of simply unwinding. Poets write so much about love and sighing, of loss and distress and pining,

but never about the pleasure of simply reclining. Pascal writes that all the world's trouble comes from a man not being able to sit still in his study. So, unheroic, unproductive, not sighing or striving, I do my bit for mankind by simply reclining. That is gorgeous. Giles, just before we give the credits, I have remembered my all-time favourite headline that I couldn't quite get my head around, but many people will remember this one. It was in February 2000 and Inverness Caledonian Thistles shock 3-1 Scottish Cup win over,

I'm looking this up as you can tell, over Celtic. And it was amazing. It was, I think, the Sun headline, Super Cali go ballistic, Celtic are atrocious. Genius. It's not brilliant. If you want more of this, you can subscribe to us and you can always communicate with us, purple at somethingelse.com.

Something Wise with Purple is a Something Else production. It was produced, as always, by the brilliant Laurence Bassett to us and you can always communicate with us purple at something else.com something right with purple is a something else production it was produced as always by the brilliant laurence bassett with additional production from steve ackerman grace laker and who was it charles gully oh gully no huff snuff he