Something Rhymes with Purple - Jerkwater

Episode Date: November 9, 2021

All aboard Purple People because today, Susie and Gyles will be taking you on a trip on the railways!  As our locomotive pulls the carriages along, we’ll see how freight trains are fraught, why university book sellers were also at the station and how a stop-off at a small town became insulting.  The Purple People will of course be receiving the red carpet treatment from Susie and Gyles will be making sure the timing on our schedules all align.  What are you waiting for? Let’s get on the (gravy) train!  If you have any questions for Susie and Gyles, please mark your letter ‘express’ and send it to [e-mail] for Susie and Gyles. A Somethin’ Else production.  To buy SRWP mugs and more head to.... https://kontraband.shop/collections/something-rhymes-with-purple  If you would like to sign up to Apple Subs please follow this link https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/something-rhymes-with-purple/id1456772823 and make sure that you are running the most up-to-date IOS on your computer/device otherwise it won’t work.  If you would like to see Gyles and Susie LIVE and in person on our Something Rhymes With Purple UK Tour then please go to https://www.tiltedco.com/somethingrhymeswithpurple for tickets and more information. Susie’s trio:  Malversation - corruption while in office  Farmer’s Haircut - leaves a visible line of pale skin between the hair line and the tanned back of the neck Acersecomic - someone whose hair has never been cut Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and sign up today. Hello and welcome to another edition of Something Rhymes with Purple. This is a podcast where we celebrate language, words. And I'm Giles Brandreth, speaking to you from London, England. And my colleague and friend is Susie Dent, speaking to you from Oxford. I assume you're in Oxford today, are you, Susie? I am in Oxford. Hello. Have you been travelling around the country all week? No, I haven't actually. I know you have, Giles, with your tour. But I have been to Chester for their Literary Festival, so that was really fun.

And you and I both went to Ilkley quite recently one of my favourite places and I think you went to Petworth too didn't you? I used to go there when I was a child I went to Petworth at the weekend I go to Chester regularly because I was the Member of Parliament for the City of Chester and I'm also the Chancellor of the University of Chester

so one of the great treats in my life is to help hand out degrees to students when they have achieved their degrees. And we do it in the magnificent cathedral in Chester. It's a thousand years old. It's just incredibly beautiful. And it's a very moving ceremony when people come up in their different academic robes to collect their degrees and looking out over the sea of faces of the proud parents and supporters who've come. It's just marvellous. So I love the city of Chester, which has an interesting name.

Is it Chester is based on the Latin for castle or something like that? Yes. So Chester or Castor, I think. Absolutely right. It means a fortified town originally. And how have you been, to these festivals you've been going? I've been going sometimes by car with a clear conscience because I have an electric car, but also I go by train a great deal. I'm an enthusiastic person on trains. Do you love train journeys? I do love train journeys. Very interesting. For almost, I think, the first time ever I went in first class, I have to say, which was lovely. Someone paid for me to have a first class ticket. Do you know what?

I didn't actually notice very much difference. Do you go first class or second class? I'm not sure I would in future really pay the difference, but maybe it was the train that I was on. No, there isn't a great deal of difference. I have to say, whenever I get the chance to go first class, I go first class. But I do remember when I was a member of parliament and you got a sort of kind of pass to go on the railways. I was traveling with Anne Widdicombe. Yes. I rather naughtily sometimes describe Anne Widdicombe as being a curious cross between Danny DeVito and Margaret Rutherford. She's actually a friend of mine and has been since we were at university together.

But anyway, she was, I think, the prisons minister at the time. And we were going on a trip together. And we got onto the train and I began moving to first class. She said, where on earth are you going? I said, I'm going to sit in here. She said, no, you're not. We're being paid for by the people. You will come and sit here with me in, well, she didn't call it second class, in standard class.

And we sat there in standard class. She was going through her work. And I thought, oh, yeah, well, how right she was. Good for her. She's a very good class. She was going through her work. And I thought, oh, yeah, well, how right she was. Good for her. She's a very good egg. She's a very decent person. Whether you agree with her views or not is another matter. But, you know, integrity, you can't question. Anyway, that's travelling on a train with Anne Whittakin. What's the best train journey you have ever been on in your life, Susie Day? I think it was when I used to go on some holidays. I had a friend,

very lucky to have a friend at university, whose parents had a tiny flat in Annecy, which is the most beautiful place, as you know, as I think we've talked about it before, with the most gorgeous lake, which is in France, very close to Switzerland. And it's basically an alpine town in southeastern France. And it's just gorgeous. And I was lucky enough to go there by train, and then also to go from there to Venice, where they had the Biennale at the time, which is their wonderful art exhibition. And Howard Hodgkin, if you know Howard Hodgkin, was the British artist at the time. And I've always loved him ever since. There was just something very exotic about that journey,

even though I stupidly did not book a seat for the way back from Venice to London. And so honestly, I stood for 16 hours. That was not much fun. But there was something just so carefree about the whole thing. And I long for those days, I have to say. I'm glad you long for those carefree days. I rather agree with Noel Coward's view that if one can, one should travel through life first class and not stand for 16 hours. Though I do remember as a child going from London all the way to Zurich by train. And that was pretty exciting. It must have been. It was. It must have been the mid to late 50s because the train stopped somewhere in France, going across France.

In the middle of the night, it stopped. And we all got off the train to look up into the sky to see Sputnik. Oh, wow. The first Russian satellite. Wow. That was up in the sky. And the train driver stopped the train. And we were all invited.

And the train driver stopped the train and we were all invited. We clambered out of the train onto this old track and gazed up at the skies in order to see Sputnik flying overhead. So I think that would be about 1957. This is from memory. That is special. Well, should we talk about the vocabulary of the railways? Because that has got an amazing history. Well, let's begin. Can we with the word train?

We're talking about railway trains. Where does the word train come from? What is its origin? Well, it's led quite a complicated life, really, because it's taken in tractors and cloaks and grapevines and royal processions along the way. And it all began with the Romans, like so much in English, and their Latin trahare meant to pull or draw and the past participle

of that verb was tractus which hides behind the pulling vehicles that are tractors and the tracts of land that they cover as well as contracts which kind of draw together arrangements and extracts that's something that is drawn out. So from this idea of drawing, this highly versatile word also gave us train. And a train could mean the trailing part of a skirt or a gown that was dragged, pulled across the ground as their wear is moved. And from this sense of something being pulled along came the idea of a series or procession of things, so royal retinue perhaps, came the idea of a series or procession of things, so a royal retinue perhaps,

or in this case, a locomotive and the cars coupled to it. And then when we train somebody in a particular skill, that sense of kind of dragging or pulling along, however, is behind that too, because just as we train a vine to sort of draw it out and manipulate it into a certain form, we still talk about training our roses, don't we? We shape somebody by training them. We mould their minds and we equip them for a particular task. But all of these go back to that very, very versatile, as they say, Latin verb.

Very good. To train. Simple as that. But it must be one of those words that has, like the word set, so many different meanings for the same five letters. And almost all of them go back to the same ancestor, which is really interesting. And has the train, as in the railway train is what we're talking about, has that been called a train from the beginning of the railways? Yeah, I think so. I mean, we talked about, it's funny, I don't know if you've encountered this, but quite often I get people saying it's not a train station, it's a railway station. And people draw a distinction around that. They don't like train station for some reason, and they prefer railway station. But yes, I'm just looking that up in the OED to see the very first mention of that. You can keep talking if you like, Giles, because there are so many different meanings. I think people who complain about it being called a train station are being a bit pedantic because they don't complain about it being called a bus station, where buses gather,

and a railway station is where trains gather. But what I'm intrigued by is, did you have trains of buses or carriages before you had railway trains? Or did the train, how did the word train come linked to the railways? And why was it the word train? I can see it's because it's being pulled along. It's because it's a sequence, isn't it? But you could have, it could really have been like a caravan. I mean, a caravan is also a group of vehicles, one following another. It is, but I think there's less of an idea of things being coupled together. So if you look in some of the earlier centres of train, you'll find that it was linked to tram cars used for transporting ore in a mine. So it was a kind of set of tram cars and then the engine that kind of drew them along. So it's this idea of pulling that's key here. So I think 1801 is the first reference to a vehicle. And then a number of railway carriages, trucks coupled together, etc. is 1814.

So pretty early on. And the train is the cumulative thing of the carriages and the engine, which is often called the locomotive. In the early days, it was the locomotive. Yeah. And what's the origin of locomotive? Locomotive goes back to the Latin locus, meaning a place. So that gave us local as well. And it also, believe it or not, gave us allocation, that locare meaning place, and locate is another thing, and it gave us locomotive. And the idea here is that it is something that sort of moves, if you like, that moves from place to place. So

the loco is the place and then the motive is linked to motion. So it kind of moves its place, if you like. The locomotive is where the engine is seated. Yes. So what does engine come from? Oh, engine. Gosh, engine is so, it's really important in English. And again, has so many different derivatives, if you like. So if you think of something being ingenious, that too goes back to the idea of engine. So it's all about kind of creativity, if you like, and something that is sort of devised from an ingenium, which for the Romans was a talent, and then became a device. So the idea of being the product of ingenuity, and from that it specifically denoted a kind of large mechanical weapon, actually, originally, and then just a machine. You, of course, are probably too young to remember

coal-fired engines. When I was a little boy and would go to the railway station, my parents would take me up to the front of the train to see the people putting the coal into the engine to actually fuel the train. Do you remember any of that? I don't remember that specifically. I probably should because I'm sure I am old enough. But what about steam engines? Have you been on a steam train? Because those are absolutely amazing, aren't they? Just so full of nostalgia and, oh, I don't know, poetry, I think. I love steam engines. I'm constantly on them because I've reached the age where I only do old codgers work on TV. I ought to explain this to our listeners around the world. Susie Dent and I appear on

television in this country, and I've now reached the age where I only do old codgers work. This means I'm sent on journeys by television companies. I think they do this because they imagine the viewers also either wanting to be on journeys or are going on journeys, and so I'm either sent on canals or trains. And often there are these heritage railways that actually have old, genuine, old steam trains. So I'm very frequently on a steam train, and I love to be on one.

It's very exciting, and the steam is so beautiful. It is evocative, nostalgic of remote place because it denoted the places where early railway engines, which needed to be supplied with water in those areas, would dip a bucket into a stream and jerk it out by a rope. Water towns came to be ones that didn't have much else, but they did have a stream. So it was insignificant for anything other than that water, which was then used to propel the trains themselves and the railway engines. And it's possible that idea of insignificant then gave rise to the idea of being a jerk. This is why I come back to this podcast week in, week out. That's my takeaway of the week, that the word jerk, meaning someone's a jerk, meaning they're a burk, meaning they're absolutely bleh, comes from the idea of a jerk town where people jerked water out of the... That's marvellous. Yes, as one theory. I have to say there are other theories which link it back,

which are not so colourful, which link it back to another word for a fool. But certainly jerk water was used as an adjective for things that were inferior or insignificant. Insignificant, a bit of jerk water. Yeah. Very good, very good. Other types of train, there's a freight train, there's a passenger train. Where do the words passenger and freight come from? Passenger is really interesting linguistically

because it has what linguists call the intrusive N. So it actually comes from the French passager, which is still a passenger in french which means kind of passing or transitory and it's directly linked to passage obviously but because we found passage quite difficult to pronounce with our english tongues we put an n in there to make it easier so we put the intrusive n in there passenger we did the same with messenger as well but yes that's simply related to a passage. And then freight is linked to fraught, actually, as well, because something fraught is filled with danger or anxiety.

But originally, it just meant laden. And indeed, freight goes back to that idea of being, you know, something that is laden in a ship. So it's the ship's cargo. And ultimately, both go back to the German Wrecht and the Dutch Wacht. And they gave us freight in the end. So it's the ship's cargo. And ultimately, both go back to the German Wrecht and the Dutch Wacht, and they gave us freight in the end. Ah. So freight is the same thing as being fraught? Yes.

Burdened? Yes, laden. Yeah. Can I say, this is proving to be one of the most arresting days of my life. I'd never heard about the intrusive N. Isn't it extraordinary? The intrusive N. We've just changed passager, messager, to message and to pass through, put in an N just so it sounds easier for us to say. Because it was easy, because we did struggle with the language of the Normans. So particularly in words with three syllables that we adopted from other languages.

Harbinger is another one because that goes back to the old French herbergère, which was an auberge, an inn. So, again, we put the N in there too. So, yeah, we've done it a lot, I have to say. And it helps the tongue glide from what we call an unstressed vowel to a consonant because otherwise we would find it quite difficult. I love it. Can I say, this is poetry in motion for people who love words and language. Say that little bit again about the intrusive, what was it again? The intrusive N between the, glide between the, I mean, I just want to hear that again.

It's like poetry to me. Oh, so it glides from an unstressed vowel to a consonant. It glides from an unstressed vowel to a consonant. Yes. When I ask you next to whisper sweet nothings in my ear, Susie Dent, these are the sweet nothings I want to hear. It's brilliant. Oh, OK.

We get off the train at a railway station. Yeah. So, station. Why is it station? Because it's stationary, I suppose. Absolutely. Yes, it's stand still. And in Latin, stasio meant standing still.

So the idea is that a station such as a railway station is a stopping place on a journey so travelers could get out stretch their legs take meals etc because everything was standing still which is also behind the idea of stationary the sort of pens and paper etc that we buy that we buy, albeit spelled differently, because that Stasio from Latin actually was also applied to booksellers who set up near a university and had a fixed shop. Because in those days, in the Middle Ages, most booksellers were actually itinerant. So they moved from place to place. But a stationer was a permanent bookshop, as I say, particularly near a university. And every time it became applied to anyone who was connected with the book trade or sold other requirements for studies such as paper and pens, wax, etc.

I'm sure we've touched on this before. Why is the spelling different? Stationery, the station with the railway train is with an a isn't it but stationary with an e is connected with the paper and the pencils and pens why is their spelling different well i like to think that for once we were quite logical in english because we have stationary meaning standing still which goes again back to that original latin and then when we wanted to talk about pens and paper etc because it might have been quite confusing to have the same spelling I like to think that we put an e in there to differentiate the two meanings but ultimately they do go back to that same idea of standing still being in a fixed spot just as those early booksellers were gosh we have the slow train we have the fast train we have the express

train why is it an express train well it's express because it's a special train. So, you know, when you say I wrote to you expressly to complain, the idea is that I am particularly intending a, you know, a certain something by writing you this letter, expressly doing it for that reason. So, express originally meant to press out And you'll find that in espresso, not expresso, but the coffee, the espresso, because the coffee is pressed out from the beans. But when applied to a train, express originally meant a special train. So it was going directly from one station to another without stopping. And because those were faster, express then took on the meaning of being fast and getting you to your destination quickly. We've almost got to the

halfway point. We must have our break. And then we might talk about railway timetables. I have long been fascinated by them. I used to collect the ABC railway timetable and have it as bedside reading. I'm really intrigued by it. Should we take a quick break first? Let's do that. about. Should we take a quick break first? Let's do that. Hi, I'm Jesse Tyler Ferguson, host of the podcast Dinners on Me. I take some of my favorite people out to dinner, including yes, my Modern Family

co-stars, like Ed O'Neill who had limited prospects outside of acting. The only thing that I had that I could have done was organize crime. And Sofia Vergara, my very glamorous stepmom. Well, I didn't want to be comfortable. Or Julie Bowen, who had very special talents.

I used to be the crier. Or my TV daughter, Aubrey Anderson-Emmons, who did her fair share of child stunts. They made me do it over and over and over. You can listen to Dinners on Me wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by LEGO Fortnite. LEGO Fortnite is the ultimate survival crafting game found within Fortnite. It's not just Fortnite Battle Royale with minifigures. It's an entirely new experience that combines the best of LEGO Play and Fortnite.

Created to give players of all ages, including kids and families, a safe digital space to play in. Download Fortnite on consoles, PC, cloud services, or Android, and play LEGO Fortnite for free. Rated ESRB E10+. This is Something Rhymes with Purple. We're on schedule. We're talking about railways, words that come from the world of trains and train travel.

And railway time is something that has intrigued me for a long time. I really got into it, oh, about 40 years ago when I was involved in putting on a show at the observatory at Greenwich and learnt all about the origins of Greenwich Mean Time. And at the same time, I learnt about the origins of railway time and the beginning of the idea of standardized time. Because rather, as you've taught me, Susie, standardized spelling didn't really come along until dictionaries came along and printing made it necessary to have standardized spellings of words. Until then, orthography was pretty loose, wasn't it,

in the 15th, 16th, 17th centuries? It was all over the shop. All over the shop. And interestingly enough, time was also all over the shop until the advent of the railways because people had their own time, really based around the local church clock. But also the sun went up at certain times and came down and it was

either light or it was dark. It was breakfast time or tea time. You didn't really need standardized time until the advent of the railways. And railway time itself was first standardized in, I think, November 1840. The Great Western Railway of the time, it had local mean time synchronised and a single standard time was applied and it then spread from there. And the railway networks in America, of course, in the 1850s and then in India, huge railway networks and across Europe. So by the 1850s and 1860s, the world was getting used to a standard time and schedules for that were introduced. What is the origin of actually the word schedule? Schedule is actually Greek. So it goes back to the Greek for a papyrus leaf,

in fact, skida. I'm probably mispronouncing that, but that went into Latin where it meant a slip of paper and into English when an early schedule was a scroll or an explanatory note. So it didn't actually have the idea of a timetable until the mid 19th century. And that was in American English. And of course, the Americans pronounce the sh as a sk and I kind of alternate between the two. But shall I, shall I, I don't know if you've heard this, but it's a fantastic

Dorothy Parker quote. She who was just such a wit. And she said to the British actor Herbert Marshall, apparently who had really annoyed her by repeated reference to his busy schedule. And she said, I think you're full of skit. I love that. That's a good one. I mean, what people don't realise, and it is extraordinary now that we all have, you know, iPhones and, you know, we all know what the time is wherever we are in the world, that even within the country, times could vary. I mean, until the later part of the 18th century, time was normally determined in each town by the local sundial. Solar time is actually calculated with reference to the position of the sun. So it would actually vary between towns. So you could have local time differing by up to 20 minutes

from, say, Oxford, where you are, was used to be, I think, five minutes behind Greenwich Mean Time, because Greenwich was the place where, as it were, the basic timeline was established. Leeds was six minutes behind that. Carnforth, one of my favourite stations, because it's, the basic timeline was established. Yeah. Leeds was six minutes behind that. Carnforth, one of my favourite stations, because it's where the film Brief Encounter was filmed, was 11 minutes behind Greenwich Mean Time. Barrow was 13 minutes behind. So you can see the great confusion there would have been

unless they managed to get one unified time so we could all be on schedule together. That's fascinating. I love that. I didn't know. I had no idea. I should just mention, because we need to get to the correspondence in a minute,

there've been lots of expressions that have come from the railways as well. And I'm often asked about the origin of the gravy train, which is, oh, that's gravy used to be in slang, meaning that's really easy. And the idea is that gravy was slang for money or success. And the idea was that it was something for money or success. And the idea was that it was something that just kind of flowed easily, much as gravy might flow over your roast potatoes.

The gravy was slang for money and gravy train simply meant a short haul that paid well. That was your gravy train. And also red carpet. Did you know that the red carpet might have originated in an exclusive express passenger train that was run by the new york central railroad this is at the beginning of the 20th century and it used to welcome its passengers aboard with a red carpet oh i like that the red i think a red carpet actually the sort of idea of red being sumptuous and luxurious does go all the way back to classical times but in terms of the red carpet treatment, that seems to have been popularised at least by the railways. I remember a few years ago when I was following the Queen as a journalist, when she was going on one of her Jubilee tours,

I went to various railway stations with her. And every time she got onto a train, two people would emerge with a little roll of red carpet and roll the red carpet just so that she would then step across the tarmac onto the little red carpet to walk roll of red carpet and roll the red carpet so that she would then step across the tarmac onto the little red carpet to walk up the red carpet and onto the train. Then they rolled it up again and took it on to the next stop. Only most of us were so lucky.

Yeah. How funny. Although she probably gets a bit tired of it, to be fair. Do you know, I tell you what she doesn't get tired of, getting onto an aeroplane, sitting down and the aeroplane moves immediately. She doesn't realise that doesn't happen with the rest of us.

No. There's all that bit about putting on your seatbelts and all those announcements. No, no. The queen gets on, sits down, and the plane moves immediately. Oh, there are advantages to being the queen. Of course. Well, I'm sorry we haven't got more time for this. Have we ever done a conversation about time?

Because time is fascinating. Time and clocks and horology, that would be a brilliant one. Let's do that. Meanwhile, so many people have been in touch with us. We are really grateful to the purple people. We love you, purple people, and we're hoping to meet you, those of you who can get to the United Kingdom. And we don't advise flying in.

I know people have been doing that recently for COP. Did you follow the COP thing the other day? I certainly did, yes. Did you follow the COP thing the other day? I certainly did, yes. Did you know what COP stood for? Oh, no, you put that in a tweet, didn't you? So remind me. It's Conference of the Parties. Unusual title.

Conference of the Parties. These were the parties who signed up to United Nations manifesto on climate change back in 1994. And this was their 26th gathering. Anyway, don't necessarily fly in to see our live podcast because it may not be good for the environment. We will be broadcasting or podcasting moments from our live podcasts. And if you want to come and see us, we're going to all sorts of places around England

and we're going to be in London too. And maybe you can book and come and see us between now and Christmas and then in the spring. Perfect. Who's been in touch? We've had a letter from Chris Gilbert, who has said, Hi, Susie and Giles. Whenever we pull into my local train station, the conductor announces, for trains to Seaford, please cross to platform three via the overbridge for some time I've been wondering if this is a word that has just been coined by southern rail in an attempt at complete unambiguous clarity on the other hand if it's real is bridge just a shortened form of

the original and what other types of bridge are there that might be a source of confusion if the announcement just referred to a bridge I've not heard overbridge. Have you in your many travels? I have. I have. I think I've been on that very station. Please go over the overbridge. Yes. Is it a bridge?

Is it an overbridge? It isn't an underbridge. An underbridge, I think, would be an underpass. Well, actually, do you know what? I looked this up. An overbridge, the bridge over a railway or a road, goes back to 1876, which specifically mentions the over and under bridges of railways so it's not

a sort of you know original words that then got contracted to bridge bridge goes back to old english so that's been there for a very long time and it's got lots of siblings and other languages etymology unknown although some people think it's related to brow because a bridge looks like the brow of a hill or even an eyebrow, I suppose. But yeah, 1876. So we've been talking about overbridges for a long time and I think Chris is right that it is there for clarity.

But personally, I would say I haven't been to that particular railway station so I may be wrong but I would think not particularly necessary, I would imagine. Donkey Bridge. This is from Rob Quinn from Wicklow in Ireland. Friends, he writes, and the wife, used a phrase a couple of weeks ago. And as a 52-year-old human, I had never heard of it before.

It is donkey bridge. And I have no idea what it means or what it comes from. Any thoughts, please? Well, I had not heard of a donkey bridge at all before, so I'm grateful to Rob because it got me doing a little bit of research. I can't find it. I can't find any mention of it in the Oxford English Dictionary, but I did find a German equivalent, which is Eselbrücke. And an Eselbrücke means a donkey bridge or an ass, as in a donkey bridge. a donkey bridge or an ass as in a donkey bridge.

And in German, it refers to a mnemonic that's used to remember facts or information. So, you know, Richard, what was it, Richard? I was trying to think of the one for rainbow. Richard of York gave battle in vain. Gave battle in vain. Thank you. So that is a mnemonic and that in German would be an Eselbrücke. And perhaps the idea is that donkeys who are a bit stubborn and a bit obstinate need a bridge to be built in order to cross small streams of water and to be encouraged to do it.

So the idea is that a bridge would help somebody across, just as a mnemonic helps you to grasp a particular idea or piece of information. Brilliant. You are brilliant, Susie Dent, and every week you introduce us to three words that you tell us are real words, though they're not necessarily current words. Where do you come up with all these words? From my bookshelf, I have to say. You know me, Daz.

I just read books and jot down little words of interest. And it may be that we will never, ever use them. But nonetheless, I think they're interesting to know. And my first one actually tweeted quite recently. And it is just quite interesting. It's malversation. Malversations. It's like conversation, but with mal in front of it.

Mal, of course, meaning bad. And malversation means corruption while in office. Malversation goes all the way back to 16th century. Good word. So that's that one. Interesting too that it goes all the way back to the 16th century. Turns out nothing's new in this sordid world. What's your next word?

This is one I have to thank Paul Anthony Jones for this one. He's written a lovely book called Word Drops, which is just linguistic curiosities. And I didn't know this one. This is from American slang. It's an expression rather than a word. A farmer's haircut is one that leaves a visible line of pale skin between the hairline

and the tanned back of the neck. That is a farmer's haircut. And you see it quite often during the summer, don't you? And staying with hair, my third one is an acerce comic. And this is a really odd one. Okay, so A-C-E-R-S-E and then comic, acerce comic and this is a really odd one okay so a-c-e-r-s-e and then comic acerce comic and it's someone whose hair has never been cut oh and that goes back to a greek root that actually is behind it's got nothing to do with comedy in this sense and everything to do with hair because comet actually goes back to the greekster kometes which means a long-haired

star which is a lovely image because you've got this trail behind it as if it's swirling hair being pulled along in its wake so a comet is a long-haired star. When I was at school there were two or three girls who competed to see how long they could grow their hair and they all grew hair that was long enough to sit upon and they claimed never to have had their hair cut. So what's that word again? A serser comic. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, but A-C-E-R-S-E and then comic.

Have you ever grown your hair incredibly long? Yes, it used to be very, very long when I was little. And I'm not sure if I could ever sit on it, mind you, but it was very long. And I remember going to Debenhams in Kingston to have my first haircut and I cried for two days I was this is when not my probably not my first first haircut but when I had all that long hair chopped off and I was absolutely devastated bad decision how about you do you have a poem for us today I do have a poem can you guess what the

poem might be given the subject of what we're talking about? Okay. Is it from Brief Encounter? Is it some lines from there? No. Though they are, my gosh, I will do some lines from Brief Encounter. That would be lovely. One of my favourite films and a brilliant script by Noel Card. Now, this is a poem that was written in 1936 as a verse commentary to accompany a documentary film produced by the General Post Office Film Unit. Has that given you a clue? The poem is called Night Mail, and it had music to accompany it by Benjamin Britten,

and the poem celebrated the nightly postal train operated by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, the LMS, from London to Glasgow. And the poem is called Night Mail by W.H. Auden. And I'll just read the beginning and the end to you. You will recognise it at once, and you will also, I think, recognise the genius of the poetry because it's written with the rhythm of a train.

This is the nightmare crossing the border, bringing the cheque and the postal order. Letters for the rich, letters for the poor, the shop at the corner, the girl next door. Pulling up, beethock, a steady climb, the gradient's against her, but she's on time. Past cotton grass and moorland boulder, shoveling white steam over her shoulder. Snorting noisily as she passes, silent miles of wind-bent grasses. Birds turn their heads as she approaches, stare from bushes at her blank-faced coaches. Sheepdogs cannot turn her course. They slumber on with paws across. In the farm she

passes. No one wakes, but a jug in a bedroom gently shakes. Asleep in working Glasgow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh, asleep in granite Aberdeen, they continue their dreams. But she'll wake soon and hope for letters, and none will hear the postman's knock without a quickening of the heart for who can bear to feel himself forgotten. So that's moments from that famous poem by W.H. Auden, and I do recommend people, you can find it in all sorts of anthologies, including Dancing by the Light of the Moon, Poetry to Learn by Heart. But it's a wonderful poem, isn't it? It's just beautiful. And it just reminds me of how important letters were once upon a time, you know, now we'll just get a quick text or an email and, and all of that anticipation and expectation is, is lost. Although we do talk about textpectation,

which is when you're desperately waiting for the text that you long to come. So there is still that apprehension, I suppose, but it's not quite the same. Once upon a time, somebody sent me a little collection of their hair when she'd had it cut. She tied it in a little bow and sent me through the post. It was an amazing thing to receive, a locket of hair sent through the post. It doesn't happen very much, does it? No, I find hair a bit creepy. I've often sort of looked at locks of hair from people like Keats, etc.

and there's just, I don't quite, I don't know, it's a bit like, for me, like finding a hair in your in your food. I don't quite know what it is. Thank you. I hope to end on a wonderful, elegiac, rather romantic note, remembering my teenage romances, but no, Susie Dent has brought us quite firmly

and rightly down to the ground. It's as it should be. Sorry, sorry. Well, look, if people have enjoyed our company, well, we love your company, Purple People. Keep in touch. It's purple at somethingelse.com if you want to communicate with us.

And who makes this? How does this happen, Susie? Something rhymes with purple. It's a Something Else production, Giles. It was produced by Lawrence Bassett and Harriet Wells with additional production from Steve Ackerman, Gem Mystery, Jay Beale, and he's actually here today, albeit with a bit of a

cold. No, not the old jerk water himself. Golly.