Something Rhymes with Purple - Monopoly
Episode Date: March 7, 2023Todayās show was recorded live at the Fortune Theatre in London.Ā Gylesā title of European Monopoly Champion comes into play (literally) today as he - alongside Susie Dent - take us on an etym...ological tour of the world of Property.Ā Come discover what the Bungalow has to do with Bengal, the connection between villas and villains, why Peppercorns were so important for renting before we ascend the hill of Palatine for a palatial revelation.Ā We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us here: purple@somethinelse.com 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' Donāt forget that you can join us in person at our upcoming tour, tap the link to find tickets: www.somethingrhymeswithpurple.comĀ Enjoy Susieās Trio for the week:Ā Fimble-famble: a very lame excuse. Nixie: A letter so badly addressed it canāt be delivered. Disco rice: dustmen-speak for maggots. Gyles' poem this week was 'Growing Old' by 'John Sparrow ' Iām accustomed to my deafness To my dentures Iām resigned I can cope with my bifocals But āo dear!ā I miss my mind. A Somethinā Else & Sony Music Entertainment production. Ā Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts Ā Ā To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email podcastadsales@sonymusic.comĀ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Something else.
Hello.
Good afternoon.
I was so excited to be here.
Thank you so much for coming.
Welcome to Something Rhymes with Purple.
A very warm welcome to another episode of our podcast,
which is all about words and language,
and is presented by me, Giles Brandreth,
and my very good friend, Susie Dent.
How are you, Susie?
Hello, I'm very well.
And I'm particularly happy to be sitting in our,
well, they're quite worn in now,
these armchairs in the Fortune Theatre in London.
We're back for another live show.
This is a live show.
We're on a purple set.
Purple carpet, purple chairs.
Yes.
And purple people in the audience.
Not all of them purple people.
Those of you who aren't purple people, we call purple people the people who listen regularly to the podcast.
So if you're new to the podcast, and we've now done 200 of these podcasts,
if you're new to the show,
essentially what happens is we take a particular subject,
explore it, and then we invite the audience at home,
our purple people, to either email us,
or in this case that we are live,
to have a conversation with us about words they want to talk about.
My favourite bit.
And then later we play a game, a slightly different version of Susie's Trio.
And I'm thinking of trying, I want to do an amusing poem today, I've decided.
Okay.
Because I usually end up with a little poem from me.
Speaking of games, you and I are both board games enthusiasts.
And our subject, our theme today is property, but not in the monopoly sense.
But I have to talk about monopoly because
i had i've known you for however many years as you as you mentioned to our audience
i had no idea you were once is it european monopoly champion It's incredible and slightly dweebish.
Dean, my wife is thinking that on my memorial stone
in the graveyard it should say...
Do not pass go.
Don't pass go, yes. Do not pass go.
Yes, I became the European Monopoly champion
about 50 years ago.
Wow.
And one day the telephone rang in the flat where I was living with my then girlfriend, but now wife.
And it rang, the phone rang, and I asked it.
And the fellow said, would you like to play a game of Monopoly?
And I said, no, no.
Scrabble is my game.
I'm the European Monopoly champion, but Scrabble is really my game. And I'm the founder of the National Scrabble. And they said, no, no, Scrabble is my game. I'm the European Monopoly champion, but Scrabble is really my game.
And I'm the founder of the National Scrabble.
They said, no, no, we're going to talk about Monopoly.
That was the ultimate humblebrag, if I may say so.
Anyway, carry on.
So they said, there is a fee involved.
I said, oh, oh, oh, well, I might be interested.
And where's this to be played?
I said, well, I said, what is the date?
And they took the date. And I was free. I said, I would go. So they said, we'll send you the played? I said, well, I said, what is the date? And they took the date and I was free.
I said, I would go.
So they said, we'll send you the tickets.
I said, tickets?
I'll put it with my invoice.
I'll add the price.
They said, no, no, you'll need tickets.
It's in New York.
And I flew as the European Monopoly champion to New York
to take part in the World Monopoly Championships.
Amazing.
Yeah.
And I came third, madly.
Wow.
Wow, yeah.
Yes, not bad, but it wasn't first.
Because they played, Monopoly is a game, as you will know, invented in the 1930s,
at the time of the Depression, by an American. It's an American game.
It was set originally in Atlantic City.
And on the original Monopoly board, it's all Atlantic City streets.
Do you remember what it was called?
It was called Monopoly.
Apparently it was called the Landlord's Game.
Ah, good.
Anyway, eventually, because we were playing, I was ridiculous.
I did a lot of gamesmanship while we were playing, saying,
oh, I don't understand this board.
I'm used to playing in London.
We play in London.
We play with pounds.
What are these dollars?
And all that.
And I was saying, well, I need a cup of tea, and sort of waving my pinky.
It was ridiculous.
Embarrassing.
To the extent that the person who came second would not accept his prize.
Because he was so annoyed by you.
Yeah, because he said, I won a prize for this twerp.
You know, he just went off.
We didn't talk about twerps.
And the person who won wouldn't accept the prize either,
because he was overwhelmed by the honor of becoming the world monopoly champion so you were the one who stood up wouldn't emerge from his hotel room
until his mother was flown in from Dayton Ohio as a consequence ladies and gentlemen I was by default
as European monopoly champion crowned world monopoly champion hey thank you
World Monopoly champion.
Yay.
Thank you.
Can I just remind you of the etymology of twerp?
Oh, yes, do tell me.
Thank you.
Bring me down to ground.
I'm so sorry.
I know you did mention the word.
I'm not calling you one.
But there was, I just reminded myself of this.
There was, do you remember somebody called T.W. Earp who went to Exeter College in Oxford?
T.W. Earp.
And apparently he got up to all sorts of ridiculous exploits,
and so we think Twerp comes from him.
It can't be.
Isn't that incredible?
It's named after a person.
Yeah, T.W. Earp.
That's called a what-nim?
Eponym.
Eponym, when it's named after...
Twerp is an eponym for a person whose initials were T.W.
T.W. Earp.
And was he a descendant of Wyatt Earp, do you think?
Oh, I don't know, but it's spelled the same way.
Thomas Wyatt Earp, possibly. Yeah, anyway. The English descendant of Wyatt Earp, do you think? Oh, I don't know, but it's spelled the same way. Thomas Wyatt Earp, possibly. Yeah, anyway. The English descendant. So, our theme today
is going to be property. Property, but not property in the Monopoly. So, at least not quite.
And property itself goes back to a Latin word. Property is meaning one's own,
something that belongs to you and that is special.
As in amour propre, belonging to me.
Yes, amour propre.
My own.
So then we have landlord, obviously lord of the land, looking back to feudal times. We have rent.
Well, first of all, tell me, have you moved a lot in the course of your lifetime? I think you probably have.
Not as much as many people. It's interesting. We in this country
feel we have to own where we live. I know, not like Europeans at all. Not like Europeans,
not like my parents. My parents lived in rented flats, sometimes rented houses, but mostly rented
flats in different parts of London. Earls Court, South Kent, Gloucester Road, those sorts of parts
of London. And that's what they did. But my wife said, we have to,
you have to buy something. That was her family's tradition. So when we were going to live together,
I thought we'd live in Baker Street, because that's where my parents lived. We'd get a flat
in Baker Street. My wife says, ridiculous. Can't afford to rent a flat in Baker Street. It's
ridiculous. I said, well, that's what my parents do. She said, no, it's ridiculous. We will go
somewhere else and rent a cheap flat,
which we did for five pounds a week.
It does rather date the story.
That's almost a peppercorn rent.
In those days, that was quite a lot of money,
believe it or not.
I'm talking going back 55 years.
Yeah.
Five pounds a week.
And what you used to do,
if you wanted to rent a flat in London,
you would get the first edition of the Evening Standard
about 10 o'clock in the morning.
And it was this before email
and there were no websites or anything.
There was just the newspaper.
And you would go to properties to rent.
And it was done by price.
So you'd go to, if you could afford Ā£5, Ā£10, Ā£15 a week,
you would go to the Ā£5 properties.
So we managed to get 11 the Close,
Muswell Avenue, N10 for Ā£5 a week. And we were so happy.
And you were renting.
We were renting.
So renting, do you know where that comes from?
Do you know where this renting comes from?
So many of these came from the Normans and they're sort of fine because finance also
goes back to the Normans with fin, meaning the end or a completion is in finances and
fine and finish and all sorts, definitely. Anyway, rendre means to hand over in french so rent was handing
over some money essentially and if you were a tenant that also is from french tenir meaning
to hold so you were sort of holding a spot if you like or occupying it and what was the first
flat or house that you rented or bought i almost the very first one I finished studying in America was in Soho, actually,
in Broadwick Street. And I was in a fair rented Westminster Council, gorgeous three-story flat
that looked out onto Berwick Street Market. I was so lucky.
You were so happy there, weren't you?
And it was very cheap. I loved it. Yeah, I absolutely loved it.
So you lived in, you're a Soho girl.
I'm a Soho girl.
That's fantastic.
Yeah, no, it was brilliant.
And you rented, can you remember how much the rent was?
I honestly can't. Hundreds though, it wouldn't have been thousands, which it
would be now. Good grief. Yeah. Well, I'm shocked by that, because I know nothing. We then bought,
so my wife said, we'll save. And then we had enough to get a mortgage. And then we bought a flat
in Baker Street. And then we bought a house in Campton Hill Gardens in Notting Hill. And then
we bought another house in Barnes,
where we have lived for 36 years.
Which is beautiful.
Which is, well, it's a nice part of the world.
You have a flagpole.
You're the only person I know who has a flagpole in their house.
It reminds me of that Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Is it Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?
No, what is it?
It's Mary Poppins.
I have an idea.
I can run it up the flagpole and see if my wife salutes.
She doesn't often.
But you own property now. You now are somebody who buys. Well, I have a mortgage, I can run it up the flagpole and see if my wife salutes. She doesn't often. But you own property now.
You now are somebody who buys.
Well, I have a mortgage.
Yes.
Mortgage member.
Where does the word mortgage come from?
Well, a lot of people think it's linked to mortuary, which it is.
It's got death in it.
And not because it kills you to pay it off, but because the debt is dead when it's paid off.
It's very strange.
But yeah, mortuary and mortgage are linked.
When we had the flat in Baker Street,
we had to have a long lease.
Where does the word lease come from?
That's French as well.
So from the French laissez,
meaning to let or leave.
And of course, if you are advertising a house to rent,
you say to let,
which is literally giving someone permission,
giving leave for someone else to live there.
Is there a reason why so many of these words come from a French heritage?
Often when we're talking, it's a German heritage.
But all of these that we've mentioned so far seem to be French.
Yeah, it's the influence of the Normans.
And obviously that percolated through lots of different centuries.
So when the Normans came over, we struggled with their French.
So we came up with this hybrid called Anglo-Norman, which is a bit of French, bit of English,
kind of twisted words to make them more familiar to our tongue. And for centuries,
the language of finance, of law, of the sort of so-called educated subjects were heavily influenced
by French because it was the language of the nobility and the aristocracy and the people who
were considered to be top class and educated. So that's why. The word let is a word that has so many different uses, doesn't it?
It does.
And actually, I did look up, and I think I made a note of this,
how many entries, yes, how many entries it has in the OED.
So it is quite prolific.
And I use the Oxford International Online,
so I'm looking at its virtual pages.
But 28 big senses.
And within each sense sense you've got
five or six substances often but set is the longest the longest word if you like or the
word with the longest entry in the oed that's a ct 128 different ways you can use 154 sorry so
let is 28 154 senses and what does that mean of different definitions,
different ways of using the word?
Yes, different meanings essentially.
And then that's not to mention all the different like phrasal verbs that you have, to let up, let go, let on, let in, or set up, set off, set in, set out, all of those things.
So we're talking about incredibly versatile words
and often quite annoying because,
particularly if you're a non-native speaker, how can you know?
Very good. We're talking about flats to begin with.
Where does the word flat come from?
Yes. So flat goes back to the Vikings.
It had a very similar word and...
Did they have flats in those days?
No, they didn't have flats.
But for them, it didn't have flats.
But for them, it meant smooth and even.
And I think what we're talking about really is just a one single story building. So that way it's flat because it's on the flat.
It's on the flat or it's just, it doesn't go up.
It doesn't have a set of stairs.
They don't have flats in America, do they?
They have apartments.
They have apartments.
Why don't they have flats?
I don't know.
Because we deliberately have two very Why don't they have flats? I don't know. Because we deliberately
have two very different languages. Deliberately? Well, the War of... You won't remember the War
of Independence. But rest assured, when we get to the Crimean War, I've got some very good stories
about me and Lord Raglan. So both nations wanted to have a language that was true to their identity.
Obviously, there's a lot of enmity involved. For the Americans, rejecting the king's English was
the same as rejecting the king. It was a big drive to make them as distinct as possible.
And a word like apartment comes from being apart.
Yeah, French as well. Yeah, apart. So it was a private dwelling. That was the idea. It said
it was originally something that was private and set aside, set apart from public areas.
So we had a flat, then we had another flat, then we had a house. Now where does house come from?
That is Germanic. So house, you still have das Haus.
Oh, it's because maison is the French for house. And that gives you maisonette.
Maisonette, a little house.
And maybe, does that give you mansion?
Mansion is related to manse, and that is definitely Latin.
And I'm going to look it up, because I've never lived in a mansion.
Well, the flats that we lived in were called mansion blocks.
They were Victorian or Edwardian mansion blocks.
The ones in Baker Street are quite impressive.
They are impressive.
Did you ever live in a penthouse?
No, I've never lived in a penthouse.
But I once appeared in the magazine of that name.
In younger and happier days.
So I should have guessed this.
ManorƦ in Latin meaning simply to stay,
which gave us remain as well.
So it's somewhere where you stay,
which doesn't quite give you the grandeur of it, does it?
But the Anglo-Norman version was mention,
meaning dwelling or abode.
And I guess because it was French,
it meant something, you know, where the noble people lived.
A bungalow is a word that isn't French or German in origin.
I think it's Indian.
Am I right?
Absolutely right.
It means done in the manner of houses in
Bengal. Gosh, it's a Bengal-style house. It's a bungalow. Yes, exactly, because they had the
single-storey houses. And penthouse, just to go back to those, it goes back to the Latin pentis,
meaning sort of lean. It's almost like a lean-to. I mean, a penthouse is now very swish, isn't it?
But it was something that was attached, really, or stuck on to another building or another
apartment. So it was originally, you know, like a shed or a garage,
and then moved up in the world.
Where was your first house? House, house.
Oxford, and then rented there.
You rented there?
I did, yeah.
Did you feel different renting and owning?
No, no. If I lived in Germany, which was always my plan, I'd be renting happily.
That was your plan, your ambition to life was to live in Germany. I always wanted to live in Germany, yes. Berlin was where I wanted to live and then
various places. Then I went to America and wanted to live there and then, yeah. Why didn't you do
that? I don't know. Well, visa was the main reason for America. You mean your card, your visa card,
they'd cut it up? Yeah. You couldn't get a visa? Well, once my student visa expired i had to get a job within
however many months and i didn't i came home from germany or from america why didn't you live in
you could live in germany now couldn't you i could do i could do well maybe i will maybe i do
sometimes have that found v remember that longing to be far away maybe that's that word found me
oh it's just beautiful found v so it means far sickness so instead of homesickness
it's far sickness where you just yearn to be somewhere else gosh don't we all feel that not
now but yeah okay give me some more words to do with property okay so we we've done much what
about palace well you've written about palaces, obviously, a lot.
Very strange.
I've written a biography of the late queen.
And how curious it must be to be someone who has so many houses,
you know, that you have, literally, Buckingham Palace,
you have Windsor Castle, you have the queen.
She always used to complain about Windsor Castle, you know,
so thoughtless to build it so near the airport.
Wasn't it her favourite residence, though?
That wasn't one of our jokes, it was another.
But how strange to be somebody who has palaces to live in.
So there's Balmoral, there's Sandringham,
all these extraordinary places.
And I wouldn't want to be moving around like that
from one palace to the next.
Oh, I wouldn't mind.
You wouldn't mind?
I don't think so.
No, I think you wouldn't like it at all,
because also they're so huge,
you have to have staff there to help you to run the thing,
so that you're never really alone.
I also wrote a biography of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.
That's how I came to meet the Queen, really.
And that's what led to my writing the book about the Queen.
And he, towards the end of his life, when he retired, age 97,
I think the Queen felt, actually, you've done your bit. You're clearly ready to not do as much.
So feel free just to relax for a while. Do it your own way. Do your own thing. And the Duke of
Edinburgh basically gave himself, set up a kind of a smallish house on the Sandringham Estate,
where a small family farmhouse, where he lived. And then during
one of the lockdowns, the Queen moved in there with him. And towards the end of their last,
as it were, time, proper length of time together before his death and then hers, was in this
farmhouse together, like a normal home the size of a... How lovely, with no staff. Yes, they still
had people helping them, but not all the time. So it was really like being at home in a real home.
How lovely.
Which is interesting.
So I don't think a palace is necessarily...
No, you're probably right.
Anyway, going back to its origins,
it goes back to the Roman emperors
who would build their chief residences on the Palatine hills in ancient Rome.
So it goes back to Palatine.
And a paladin also is... A noble knight is kind of related to that
really. What about a palaquin? Oh, what's a palaquin? I think a palaquin is four big hulky
guys carrying two long sticks on which is a kind of dais. Ah, palanquin. Isn't that a palanquin?
But yeah. Oh, fine. palanquin but yeah oh fine
palanquin it turns out to be
you didn't have the first idea what it was
I still don't
I still don't
no you're absolutely right
fill it out and share with the world
a covered conveyance
usually for one person
consisting of a large box
carried on two horizontal poles
and that's what they're called
a palanquin
and it goes back to a Latin word
meaning to carry a burden
oh yeah that's nice thank you no idea about that at all yes it's a palanquin. And it goes back to a Latin word, we need to carry a burden. Oh.
Yeah.
That's nice.
Thank you.
No idea about that at all.
Yes, it's a palanquin, is that the word?
A palanquin.
A palanquin.
Would you like to be carried around on a palanquin?
No.
With people cheering?
No.
Would you?
Yes.
No, I don't know.
I think you could be the Meghan Markle of words.
Oh, controversial.
I'm so sorry.
Moving swiftly on. I'd love swiftly on. We love everybody here.
I would love to be the Meghan Markle of words. So yes, thank you. Wear the leggings. I'll do
the whole thing. And if you are the Meghan Markle of words, I'm certainly the Prince Harry. I adore
you. Thank you. Thank you. I haven't yet got a note saying get off, but I think it's imminent.
Oh, have we done all the words we possibly could? You haven't given me tenement.
Oh, tenement, from the same idea as tenant, it means to hold.
But of course, if you go to New York, you get tenement buildings,
often the sort of ones that are quite run down.
Yeah, I think of tenement as being down, a bit down.
Yeah, weren't always.
It was simply a building that had lots of different apartments or flats in.
Very good.
Any other word words?
Oh, villa.
I'll tell you about a villa.
Oh, yeah, tell me about villa.
So the reason I find villa quite interesting, because obviously you will
find villa in lots of different languages. In French, you'll find Latin, a villa was a country
house, is that villain comes from a villa, because the original villain was somebody who worked as a
servant, essentially, in a big country house. Is that a Villain? It was also spelt Villain with the E-I instead of the A-I.
But essentially, because they were seen as being menial and working class,
and this happened so often,
they got all sorts of associations of being disreputable
and probably on the take, completely unfairly.
And someone attached was thought to be a bit of a scoundrel attached to a villa.
And so we get Villain from it. it strange isn't it it is strange and very classist i wish i had a villa i know you don't have a villa i don't have a but you do have a flagpole what i have
i do i've got a flagpole you're you're right i have got a flag, bro. You have? I have got a flag, bro. This is huge. Thank you.
I think it's time to take a break.
Thank you.
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It is time to go to my trio.
If you're listening at home,
this is part of the podcast where normally
Susie just gives us three interesting words
that she has come across that she thinks we would enjoy hearing about. But today you're doing it slightly
differently as you do at the live podcast. Explain the rules. Yes. So the rules are I give a word or
expression and I will later tell you the proper definition, the actual definition of this word
or expression, but we have asked our lovely audience to come up with their own supposed definition. So it's just fun. It was a bit like, I'm sorry, I haven't a clue. This is
my homage to them or homage. Right. The first one was fimble famble. Fimble? A fimble famble. F-I-M.
F-I-M. Yeah. Fimble famble. Yes. And what definitions have we been given? Okay, so Hugo in Essex says, this is the prodigal Teletubby.
I love that.
Andrew in Marlow says that a fimble-famble
is getting frisky in the morning
when you don't have much time.
A fimble-famble-fumble.
And then, this is similar.
Jan in Eastbourne says it's foreplay for seniors.
Oh my goodness. You have to decide for seniors. Oh, my goodness.
You have to decide on these.
Oh, I know.
Oh, that's too near the knuckle to be funny.
Yeah, well, if it were thimble fan.
Anyway, let's move on.
Okay, are you going to choose before I give you the real definition?
Well, I think, because we've only got one prize, haven't we?
We don't have any prizes, because Andrew forgot.
I have no prize.
Andrew forgot.
There's the honour of winning.
Well, of those three, I have to say all of them
are very good, but I think getting
frisky in the morning when you don't have much time
is rather clever. It's a fimble-famble.
That's my winner. What is the real definition?
The real definition is a very lame excuse.
Don't give me that
fimble-famble. Well, I mean, that actually
chimes with foreplay for seniors, doesn't it?
That is true. Darling, that was a very lame excuse.
On we go. Okay. The next one is a nixie. I so like being at one of my relate meetings here.
What's next? Nixie. N-I-X-I-E. N-I-X-I-E. And what are the definitions? Okay, so Jane Seddon in
London says,
a person who takes great pleasure in declining to take part in anything fun.
A Nixie.
Oh, there are such people, aren't there?
Yes.
A Nixie.
Whatever you suggest, however jolly you are,
they manage to lower the temperature, lower the mood.
Yes.
Oh, yes, a Nixie.
Yes.
Brilliant.
Absolutely.
Okay, or we have Claire, who lives in Clapham,
but is hoping to move to Barnes.
You'll get a better height of flagpole in Barnes.
Claire says that a Nixie is a naughty knitting game originating from the deep south.
So instead of Dixieland, maybe Nixieland.
Oh, I see. Clever.
Very clever. And then Ruby from Essex, when you know a pixie is sitting next to you,
but you can't prove it,
but you still know she's there.
That's very clever too.
Well, that's charming.
I love the fantasy world that Ruby lives in.
But I think the winner has to be,
because it's a really useful word,
a nixie is a person who takes great pleasure
in declining to take part in anything fun.
Yes.
Well done, Jane Senn.
I agree.
A round of applause for Jane.
That could take hold, actually.
We need that, don't we?
So is that a real definition?
Yes.
A Nixie is a letter so badly addressed it can't be delivered.
Oh.
Is that a word used then by people in the post office?
I don't know if they still use it.
It was definitely recorded in quite a few dictionaries,
English dialect dictionary, for example.
So we're talking about 100 years ago. wouldn't it be lovely if it was still
nowadays it's really i mean since none of the letters are now delivered um
it's true no no they are they're particularly in barns uh rest assured okay what's the next one
okay so regular listeners to something rhymes with Purple will absolutely recognise this expression
because we have talked about it before.
But nonetheless, I love it, so I brought it back.
Disco Rice.
Disco Rice, Dave Imbudely, again,
says the small hole-punch excretions from a dance ticket in the 1980s.
Okay, I quite like that.
That's almost like the the aren't they called
chads the dimpled bits that you push through do you remember when we had the when there was an
election in america and there was yeah the tattered chads the chads anyway that's a nice one clever
dave clever yeah michael and paul in st john's would say that disco rice is high carb food before
going out on a big and long night on the tiles.
I love that.
I like that too.
And Lawrence in London says sex on the dance floor.
I get the rice bit.
Maybe I shouldn't go that way.
Let's not go there.
But yeah, so.
Well, I think the winner is going to be torn between all of them,
but the high carb food before going out
for a big and long night on the tiles.
I need my disco rice.
Yeah.
So a round of applause there for Michael and Paul
in St. John's Wood.
Is that a real definition?
Yeah, I mean, it's ingenious.
So if you go to talk to a group of refuse collectors,
dustmen, dustwomen, you will find out that Disco
Rice is their speaker for maggots. Because they are moving all the time. It's very clever. They
look like rice and they're doing that squiggly thing. The world of words is quite wonderful.
We've had a wonderful audience here. Before the lights go completely down, I love short poems that go to the heart of matter.
And this one, for me, goes alarmingly to the heart of matter.
Now I'm the age that I am.
I first heard it more than 55 years ago.
It was performed for me by a man called John Sparrow.
Now, do you remember that name?
He was the warden of All Souls College, Oxford,
and a famous character, a great wit, and he wrote a number of terse verses, short poems.
My favourite poem by him is only four lines long, and it's called Growing Old.
And people of ripe years like me listening to this will feel some sympathy with what
he expresses in this short poem. I'm accustomed to my deafness,
to my dentures, I'm resigned. I can cope with my bifocals, but oh dear, I miss my mind.
That's excellent.
fantastic thank you so much for joining us here in the fortune theater and thank you to all our regular purple people as well for tuning in and joining us today if you did love the show please
continue to follow us wherever you get your podcast you can find us on social media
at something rhymes on twitter and facebook or at Something Rhymes With on Instagram. And most importantly of all, please do email your
questions through. It's purple at somethingelse.com. Something without the G. Purple at somethingelse.com.
Oh, do join us next time we're here at the Fortune Theatre. It's going to be on the 19th of February.
Yes. We will be live here. I think there are only a handful of seats left for that,
but we will be doing more live shows,
we hope, as the months and years go by.
Thank you, this wonderful audience,
for being so friendly.
After the show, I'm going to pop down
for two minutes to return this pen.
And I think there are a couple of books still to sign,
which I will do.
You probably have to catch the train back to...
I have to skedaddle, unfortunately.
Because you're going back to Oxford.
I am going back to Oxford.
With your daughter, who's been out shopping.
Did you give her the credit card?
No, but she has Apple Pay.
It's even worse.
What?
Apple Pay?
Apple Pay.
What is Apple Pay?
Maybe nobody has Apple Pay.
Well, I remember when I was a boy,
apple pie beds.
But what is apple pie?
That's from French.
Un nappe pliƩ.
That's when you would just fold up the blankets.
It's when someone can't get out the sheets.
Yeah.
Un nappe pliƩ. So folded, kind of nappe. Do you know why I love you so much?'s when someone can't get out the sheets, right? Yeah, nappe plie, so folded kind of napkin.
Do you know why I love you so much?
Why?
I can say any word to you, and you've got a wonderful story.
So many things I'm going to take away from today
is hearing from the lips of my own dear friend, Susie Dent,
you've got a flagpole, and it's enormous.
Something Rhymes with Purple is a Something Else
and Sony Music Entertainment production
produced by Harriet Wells and Nia Dio,
alongside Sam Hodges and Andrew Quick
from Tilted for these live shows.
Additional production from Chris Skinner,
Jen Mystery, Teddy Riley and...
He's got no femble-fumble. Where is he?
He's gully.
Thank you.
Where is he?
He's gone.
APPLAUSE Amazing.
Thank you.