Something Rhymes with Purple - Usquebaugh

Episode Date: April 5, 2022

Susie and Gyles are in high spirits today as they lead us on a discovery to the essence of our souls…at least etymologically! We are delving into the world of spirits but not the religious or ghostly type… the alcoholic kind. This exploration will take us across the globe as we visit Geneva for our gin followed by a jaunt to Japan to discover why ordering “Sake” might not get you what you want. Susie will take us on a trip to Germany for a mouthful of Schnapps before she escorts us to India for a hot toddy to soothe her cold. We will learn why the name Gyles ‘Brandy’ Brandreth leaves him blushing and our hosts reveal the winning sonnet sent in from a Purple Person. A Somethin’ Else production We love answering your wordy questions on the show so please do keep sending them into [e-mail] 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. Susie’s trio: Brachiate - to swing through the trees with ease using your arms Hirrient - a trilling sound (purring of a cat, or rolling your ‘r’s’) Chirocracy - to ‘rule by hand’, the result of ruling with force Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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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 card. Other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to Something Rhymes with Purple, the podcast about words and language and just general musings really on life, who we meet. And I mean me Susie Gent and my brilliant co-host Giles Brandreth and does I have to say I was just noticing you doing what Anne Robinson does on

Countdown the game show this I work on which is you were sipping something with a straw now I think Anne does it because she doesn't want to ruin her lipstick what what are you up to I drink every morning now herbal tea. And I'm finding that drinking it through a straw makes it more interesting because it's the closest I get to excitement in my life is drinking this herbal tea. I'm on my low-carb diet drinking herbal tea in the morning. And then in the afternoon, I treat myself to one cup of green tea. Anyway, sucking it through the straw has made a difference.

I saw your friend, Anne Robinson, last week, and she spoke very highly of you. Yes, I went to a publisher's party, and there she was. The name-dropping I could do this week would embarrass even me. So I'm going to try and resist the temptation to tell you about. Yes, well, I must resist the temptation then. Good. To tell us about the Queen. Yeah, exactly.

I could start with the Queen. I could end with the Prime Minister. I could do most of the crowned heads of Europe in between. But I won't. Oh, OK. Well, maybe you could just sprinkle a few here and there. I think we would love to hear them. What are you going to talk about today?

Well, it's interesting. I'm in high spirits. You're drinking. Yes, you're in high spirits and you were drinking herbal tea with a straw because that's as glamorous as you and I get. But actually, we are going to talk about different kinds of spirits. The spirits that we drink that you no longer partake in, but the alcoholic kind. We've covered, haven't we, I think, alcohol before, the world of wine, etc. And just

essentially the vast lexicon for being drunk, particularly in the slang dictionary. But this is the hard stuff we're going to talk about today. Can you tell me, before we begin, and I want to ask about your first experience with spirits, what is the difference between wine and spirits? I mean, I know they always refer to them as wine and spirits. Wine, I assume, is made of grapes, and spirits is made of something else. Is the difference yeah so spirits is essentially the kind of essence or distilled extract so it's an alcoholic solution or distillation if you like of a specified substance and there was amongst the early alchemists there was spirit of amber spirit of heart horn spirit of salt spirit of sulfur spirit of vitriol and there was spirit of

wine as well actually and in fact that was the earliest spirit recorded the spirit of wine so it was a really concentrated distillation of it if you like and so that's why this is the strong stuff because as i say it is highly highly concentrated and why is it called a spirit what is the reason for that being the world yeah Yeah, I think it's called the Spirit because the Spirit is essentially something that is the central component, part of our core, if you like. So obviously it's got extreme religious connotations for the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is, if you like, again, a sort of distillation of all that is kind of good. again, a sort of distillation of all that is kind of good. And that is why I think it was then transferred over to things that represent our essential,

well, our essence, I think, is the way that we would do it. And then, of course, we talked about high spirits. You know, it kind of branched off into lots of different directions. And the word is Latin spiritus, French esprit. And what was the root, root, root of spirit? All of those. So obviously in ecclesiastical Latin, the spirit, as I say, has a sort of deeply sort of spiritual meaning for an animating or kind of vital principle, I suppose. You know, the thing that gives life to the body, the life force, the breath of life as

in contrast to its kind of purely material being. So it came to us ultimately from Latin, but as so often it came to us via the Normans. And so we took esprit from French and we made it in our Anglo-Norman kind of mashup, esprit, and then we dropped the E at the beginning and just had spirit in the end. Can you remember the first spirits you ever drank? I can. So my first alcoholic journey was not a very happy one, really. I don't think cider is a spirit, really. So cider was the first drink that I ever really had. It was extremely sick. It was at a friend's 15th birthday party. Never to be repeated. I'm not sure

actually I have ever had cider since then, which is very sad. But my first spirit, I think, was trying some rum and Coke at a party and deciding that it was really nice, but in the end I preferred the Coke bit. So I don't really have a very strong love affair with spirits. I quite like cocktails and obviously they are an essential ingredient in those. So I think an elderflower gin fizz is my current cocktail of choice. On the few occasions I actually get to sample one. But how about you? What was your first encounter? Well, quite, I remember it too vividly. As a child, because I went a lot to France on sort of holiday exchanges, I got used to drinking wine.

And often in France, they would give children wine diluted with water. So that was part and parcel of my childhood. And my parents on high days and holidays would have wine. But my first drink of spirit, it was the beginning of my gap year between school and university. I'd met a girl whose father was, I think, either the chairman or the chief executive of Shell, a huge international oil company. And she invited me to her house, which was in London in Regent's Park, because her father was very kindly going to give me some letters of introduction because I was going to America, age 17, 18,

and he was going to introduce me to various people over there. So it was very exciting. And I went and sat in the drawing room, this huge drawing room, this wonderful house. I'd never been anywhere where the carpets were so thick. And your feet disappeared, I felt, into the carpet. Anyway, I sat nervously on a chair. And the great man questioned me and told me. Anyway, he served me a drink. And I didn't really know what to ask for. So he was having whiskey. So I said, thank you, sir. He gave me this tumbler full of whiskey. And I sat on the far side of the room and took a sip of this and my eyes began to water. I thought, I can't drink this. What am I going to do? So the girl, I think her name was Cordelia. The girl was sitting in another corner. Her mother was sitting

in another corner. The great man was sitting in the third corner i was in the fourth corner i did not know what to do so as the conversation wore on i lowered i sat towards the front of my chair and i lowered the glass the tumbler towards my feet and i began pouring into my shoe and i was really happy because i managed to get all the, I mean, you know, my socks absorbed the moisture and I thought this is marvellous. So I occasionally appeared to take a sip and then I put the glass down, poured a little bit more away, took another sip. And so by the time the encounter was over,

I had appeared to consume the whole glass of whiskey. Then unfortunately, I had to get up, cross the room to say goodnight to Cordelia's parents. Absolutely. And as I walked, splodge, splodge, splodge. Nobody said anything. But I never saw Cordelia again. And the father's letters did come at the end of the introduction.

And I met some very high-powered people in America as a result of it. But I still feel deeply ashamed of those brown stains on that beautiful cream colored carpet in Regent's Park. Oh no. Yeah. So that's haunted me since the middle of the 1960s. Good grief. That's my first encounter with spirits.

But I realized how innocent one must have been as a child because later the same year, was it maybe it was a little later, I found myself in in france and ordering a whiskey i mean i knew i didn't like it because other people were doing it i felt it was a thing to do and it was at a seaside we'd gone to a place to meet believe it or not jean paul sartre you've heard of him i certainly have but he wasn't there that's the long and the short of it wherever it was he wasn't there we'd been taken to this bar he was supposed

to be there it was somewhere out on the coast somewhere. So I got this whiskey. And on this occasion, I didn't put it into my shoe. I poured it over the edge of the sort of parapet down some rocks. It was literally whiskey on the rocks. And I thought nobody would notice. But the noise in the still night air of the whiskey trickling down the rocks, again, humiliation. Why do we keep doing anyway now if people offer me a whiskey i say no i don't i thank you i don't drink at all i don't drink no and do you remember the origin of teetotaler no i'd love to know that what is it it's simply from the idea that it's kind of total as in total abstinence with a capital t so it's underscoring the t of total so t totaler

is absolute abstention total abstention t total you're underlining the t i never knew that yes that's why honestly that's why people tune in to something rhymes with purple because you suzy dent know it all well given you know it all tell me about whiskey we've started with whiskey and why irish whiskey has an e in it and the other whiskeys don't where does the word whiskey come from really really good point i don't know why the irish version has a whiskey in it i've always just seen the two as kind of being variants one of each other i'm just going to see if it gives us any steer in the oxford english dictionary uh no it's taken me straight to Bourbon, actually, or Bourbon, I should say, which is named after Bourbon, Larchambault, which is a town in the department of Lallier in France.

So there you go. But no, it doesn't actually tell me why there is an E in one and not in the other. It just does give them both side by side. But anyway, I can tell you that the word, however you want to spell it, comes from the late 16th century in a Gaelic word, which was usquabu, which is spelled U-S-Q-U-E-B-A-U-G-H. And it simply means water of life. So, eau de vie, in other words, is another name for it. We're almost back to spirit, aren't we? Exactly. In a sense.

It is. Exactly. The fundamental, vital part of our fundamental essence. Vodka. I don't know how you used to feel about vodka, but vodka comes from the Russian meaning little water, which all sounds quite innocent. My experiences of vodka have not been so innocent. I used to adore vodka. A Bloody Mary.

Oh, yeah. A, what was it called when you had orange juice and vodka is that um anyway i loved that do you miss drinking no not at all but i'm happy talking about these old days i used to love a vodka and orange juice during that gap year in america that's when i really discovered that the vodka and the gin i could cope with it was the brown stuff the whiskey that i didn't like well the gin itself i think we we covered this actually in one of our previous episodes on drinking, but that's from the old French Genève. And actually, that is a confusion with Geneva and also with the Latin Juniperus. And Juniperus was essentially juniper, because of course,

gin is flavoured with juniper berries. But because juniperus, you know how we tend to kind of take a foreign word and think, hmm, what does this sound like? Well, the French did it as well. They took juniperus and thought it sounds a little bit like Genève, which means Geneva. And so that's what they called it. And rum. We're not completely sure about rum, but it possibly comes from rumbullion. Now, rumbullion was an old dialect word meaning a great tumult or uproar. And of course, rum has got such a sort of long naval history, isn't it? That actually it's quite possible that Devon's sailors took the word over to Barbados and because rum is very, very strong, they decided to call it rumbullion because it causes all sorts of

upsets and noise sailors used to be given a tot of rum didn't they as part of their daily ration they did okay so what about oh is tequila a kind of rum it's definitely a spirit isn't it yes it is so you get tequila shots have you ever done lots of tequila shots no i'm i'm of an older generation i know with tequila shots what their little glasses and people to knock them back until they fall over have you done that exactly i've done a few tequila shots not my favorite but it is more of a kind of ritual i think and the sort of you know the group thing rather than the pleasure of the drink itself in my experience anyway but it's named after the town in mexico where tequila was invented and i'm just going to see if it tells us what it was made of, actually,

whether it's some exotic Mexican plant. Yes, the fermented sap of a maguey. And a maguey, I think, might possibly give us, you know, agave syrup, which people use as sweeteners these days. I think it might be related to that. So maguey or maguey, M-A-G-U-E-Y, that gave us tequila. Very good. When my father was at school, because his surname was Brandreth, he was nicknamed Brandy. And people used to love, it was a very popular drink once upon a time, and people always after dinner would have a brandy and soda. And I, in my drinking days, used to enjoy a brandy and soda, rolling it around in a sort of balloon shaped glass. Oh, it just looks beautiful, doesn't it? And soda from a soda siphon. I loved a soda

siphon that you could squirt. Yeah. Great fun. It's funny you should say that because I was listening on Radio 4, the British radio station. They've repeated, I think, a dramatization of the 39 steps, John Buchan. And it was just, someone comes in and says, oh, I really need a drink. And the host says,ess will help yourself and I just thought you know in every sitting room across the country there must have been these silver trays with decanters full of spirits that were just always there and people could literally just walk over to them and then pour themselves a drink it was just standard wasn't it yes which is so not these days and if you watch a programme like I do called Bargain Hunt, often they are selling little silver signs that say things like brandy,

that people would hang around their decanters. I remember these. And you're right. So you had brandy and then you had a soda siphon by it and you just sort of, oh, wonderfully evocative. And people used to drink, I think, much, much more and not quite morning, noon and night, but certainly at lunch and then, you know, before dinner, during dinner, after dinner.

Yeah. OK, so let me just tell you about brandy very quickly. So it's from Dutch, actually, brandewien, I think, which is burnt, i.e. distilled wine. It's distilled from wine or grapes, isn't it? And it literally means burnt wine. Burnt wine. And a cherry brandy would be the same thing, but made from cherries. Yeah.

With cherries added for flavour. The same distillation. Yeah. And then there's Kirsch, of course, as well, which is a liqueur, isn't it? And that is from cherries. That's German for cherry. Kirsch. Well, look, we've got lots more drinks like, you know, from Absinthe and Schnapps and all the rest.

Let's cover those after we've taken a quick break. 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.

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Download Bumble and try it for yourself. This is Something Rhymes with Purple. We're in high spirits in the world of spirits. Tell me about schnapps. I always like the sound of the word schnapps. I'll have a glass of schnapps. Yes. So, well, that's German, as you might guess.

And there's a Dutch equivalent as well. And schnapps, it basically means a mouthful, but it's a bit like a snack. So it's got that sound of the mouth closing very quickly on it. Schnapps is lethal in my experience. I remember having it in Austria and wow, yes, it is very, very strong. The word schnaps means a mouthful, does it? Yes, it does. But as I said, it's got that sort of idea of something snapping shut. How intriguing. What about absinthe? Absinthe. Okay. So absinthe makes the heart grow fonder famously. And that goes back to the Latin term for the wormwood plant, which is this really bitter and quite medicinal plant.

And wormwood in German is Wermut. And actually that gave us Vermouth. Oh, goodness. So all linked there. I think proper absinthe is now illegal in France. I discovered this when going to the celebrations for the centenary of Oscar Wilde's death in 2001. They wanted to serve absinthe because he was partial to a glass of absinthe. It may have helped to take him on his way when he was still quite young and in his 40s.

And they couldn't get any. They had to have champagne instead. So I think that sort of pure upset is now illegal it's i think it's it's pretty pretty lethal stuff wow yes i think so too a hot toddy so i feel i've got a bit of a cold at the moment and a hot toddy sounds extremely inviting so that goes back to the Hindi word for sap from palm trees that is fermented and that creates the liqueur that is used in a hot toddy. It's just very soothing about the word toddy, I think, because of all of its associations. It's intriguing how so many of these words are really international. I mean, we've gone from Germany to India now all of a sudden. Saki is japanese rice wine

what is sake yeah you have it in very small quantities don't you in japanese interestingly sake actually means any kind of drink at all so they are much more specific when they want to talk about what we would call sake and that's nihonshu so if they want any kind of alcoholic drink they would say they'd have a sake or sake i suppose but yeah if they wanted what we would call sake that is a nihonshu and i'm just uh yes you're absolutely right it's fermented liquor made from rice thank you the oed i'm going to allow myself to go off at a tangent for a split second you mentioned saki and that's made me think of saki s-a-k-i oh yeah which was the pen name of a wonderful english writer called hh monroe yes do you susie dent know the short stories of saki

i have a copy on my shelves and i remember opening them when i was at university and absolutely loving them but i now can remember absolutely nothing. Tell me. If you're listening to this and thinking, you know what I don't want to read this week, get a book, a collection of the stories of Saki. They're ideal bedside reading because they're quite short. They're pithy, they're witty, they're cynical, they're dark. There's often a twist in the tale. It's a fantastic world that H.H. Munro created using this name Saki, which I think is an Indian word, S-A-K-I, and probably not at all connected with the Japanese word S-A-K-E, which is what we're talking about. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, good recommendation. Talking of hot toddies, dram. You take a dram, I associate a hot toddy with Scotland,

don't ask me why, and dram i definitely a wee dram what's what's that yeah well believe it or not that's greek you said that we're traveling around the world so that's from the greek drachma because the weight of the old coin was an eighth of an ounce of alcohol so if you're having a wee dram you are having essentially the weight of an old drachma goodness it's interesting isn't it oh i love it oh i have to say i did like when i used to go to greece in younger and happier days ouzo oh yes and the seed it is it's like perno isn't it perno is the the french equivalent yeah no i imagine is a brand it's a it's a make of yeah aniseed drink yeah um and ouzo is a version of that, is it?

It is, yeah. So it's clear aniseed flavoured. It's an aperitif, isn't it? And we don't quite know where it comes from, but a popular story attached to it is that it comes from the Italian ouzo massalia, meaning for the use of Marseille, which apparently was stamped on packages of silkworm cocoons that were exported in the 19th century. And that came to stand for something that was superior quality, because of course, silk is very exotic. And the spirit distilled as ouzo was thought to be this kind of very superior thing. So that's a popular story attached to it, that it goes back to packages of silkworm cocoons. I loved Ouzo because when it came, a sort of greyish, yellowish colour, and you poured water onto it and it got a bit cloudy and you could make the drink last the whole evening if you want.

You know, you could pour more and more water. I just loved it. Oh, I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed Ouzo. Talking like this is not going to get me back on the booze, though we know moderation in all things is good for you. If you could, if just for an evening, if you could go back to alcohol, what would you choose? When my wife and I were in our twenties and we took to having one, if not two, glasses on special days, glasses of champagne before dinner. Oh, wow.

And I remember that that was magic. Well, when we were staying at a hotel or going out somewhere, just one or two glasses of champagne more was too much. The first one got you, oh, and the second one went you, ah. And there was magic in the air. Two glasses of champagne. Then, I think, when I got to my 30s, discovered the champagne cocktail. With the champagne cocktail, you had two cubes of sugar, poured on a little brandy, and then you poured on the champagne. Oh, my goodness.

But I think it was probably too rich. Did that not make it just very, very effervescent and fizzy? Gloriously. Gloriously effervescent and fizzy? Gloriously effervescent and fizzy. So there are little tickles, little bubbles in your nose. And we used to have, and still have, but don't use, champagne saucers as opposed to flutes. So the champagne was spread across the saucer. So you could hold it under your nose and the little bubbles would tickle your nose. Oh wow, I've never heard of a champagne saucer. It's called a champagne saucer. It's a champagne glass as opposed to a flute. As you know, the champagne saucer, famously the shape of it, was modelled on the breast of Madame de

Pompadour. I had absolutely no idea. You had no idea? No. This is famous in the legend of wine glasses. The shape of the champagne glass of the saucer, you know, you can picture the bowl I'm talking about, can't you? I'm going to look it up. Look it up. So a champagne glass shaped like a bowl was modelled on the breast of Madame de Montboudour. Oh, I know what you mean.

I just wouldn't have called them a saucer. What would you have called it? It's known as a champagne saucer as opposed to a champagne flute. I would have called it a coupe, I think. It is a kind of coupe. It is a kind of cup. Yes. A a coupe i think what it is a kind of coupe it is a kind of cup yes a champagne coupe it modeled on the rest of malamudu nobody knows what the champagne flute was modeled on we don't like to think about that very interesting so what would be your if you had one so i've given you my two glasses of champagne

what would be your absolute favorite drink i think it would be as i if you had one, so I've given you my two glasses of champagne, what would be your absolute favorite drink? I think it would be, as I said earlier, I think it would be a gin fizz. So tiny bit of gin, not much, Prosecco and some elderflower cordial. It's delicious. Could you give up alcohol completely? Yeah, I don't drink very much. I did actually, I didn't drink for quite a few years after a few people in my family had breast cancer.

And I was reading up on the associations between breast cancer and alcohol. And I never used to drink that much. So I thought, well, I'm going to reduce my risk. I'm not going to drink. But then sometimes it's just really nice to have a glass of red wine or, you know, a gin fizz. So I don't overdo it at all.

I'm such a lightweight, notoriously a lightweight. As we know, moderation in all things we recommend. But if there's anybody listening to this who thinks, oh, maybe I am drinking too much. I had a sister, no longer alive, whose life was saved when she joined AA. It transformed her life. So she had an alcohol issue for many years.

And then one day somebody introduced her to AA and she began going to the AA meetings and it transformed the rest of her life. So for the next 30 years, she was an alcoholic, but didn't drink and also found a wonderful community through AA. I recommend it to anybody who feels the need. Go for it. Anyway. Excellent. At the same time, we like people enjoying a drink. If you want to enjoy a drink, do. Cheers.

Well, actually, we must have done that before. What's the origin of cheers? Why do people do toasts like that? I suppose it's just saying cheer up, is it? What is it? Cheers is to your very good health. So if you remember, cheers goes back to the Greek kara, meaning head or face. And so people would say, what cheer?

When they met people in the 16th and 17th centuries meaning how is your mood i.e how are you because of course the face is a reflection of your mood and do you remember that what cheer became watcher so when people said watcher that actually was a shortening of the much much older greeting what cheer so really when people come up to you say watch a cock the watcher part is what cheer what cheer. So really, when people come up to you and say, watch a cock, the watcher part is what cheer. What cheer, yeah. Centuries on. It's weird, isn't it?

Oh, the whole thing is weird. Well, if you have thoughts and you're listening about the origins of any of these drink names, you think we've got it wrong. We didn't touch on Mezcal, did we? Now I think of it. Do you know about Mezcal?

Oh yeah, I don't. I've never ever had Mezcal. Have you? Have you ever had it? No. No, okay. Does it come from Mexico? It does come from Mexico and it is still, again, I mentioned the agave plant. It's made from the heart of the agave plant, which is called the piña. And it is indeed from Mexico, I think 16th century. Yeah. So there you go. I mean, it's so exotic. The history of alcohol is inevitably, I suppose, global and very, very exotic. I think I have had mezcal because I went on a trip to Mexico and they very kindly gave

me every kind of Mexican food and drink you can imagine. Well, we've really been all over the place. And we should just say that if anybody wants to hear us wittering more enthusiastically about tequila or other things that take our fancy, do remember if you'd like to support the show, you can do so for a monthly subscription

of £1.89 a month. And that will give you ad-free episodes, discount codes on our merch and exclusive bonus episodes. And we've done a three-part mini-series on swearing, haven't we, Giles?

Oh, yes yes and we're going to be doing more poetry and anyway you can find out more if you want to follow the links in the program description but we're really grateful for you listening to us in whatever way you choose now Giles we don't have correspondence today because you remember we recently encouraged the purple people to write their own sonnets. And of course, they didn't disappoint. Thank you so much, everybody who submitted their poems. Some were bespoke to the podcast. Others were just brilliant.

And we really, really enjoyed reading all of them. And as promised, the winning entry will receive a copy of Jazz is Dancing by the Light of the Moon. So, Jazz, are we ready to reveal the winning? I think we are. and i would like you to read the poem because i always read the poems and but i love your voice oh gosh i was going to ask you because i'm not sure i'm going to get the right rhythm to this because i'm not sure how much i'm in the the bloodstream of the sonnet but i can give it a go i think you should give it a go i

mean the sonnet form as we know 14 lines with a certain rhyming pattern after eight lines is a change of mood. We discussed all that on our episode about sonnets. We challenged people to come up with sonnets. And I think the winning one, which we both agreed on, there were so many. And we may have time in another week to share some others with you.

Who knows? But the one we've chosen is the one you're going to read. And it's Danny Edmonds. So congratulations, Danny. You get a copy of Giles's brilliant book. And this is an ode to purple. And I have to say, we didn't just choose it because we want to congratulate ourselves. I just think it's really, really clever.

Okay, here goes. The world has sadly been, well, not that great. Our day by day spent in clouds of anguish, unsure in fear self-isolate but one thing still connects us all language nobody uses words like Susie Dent they flow in magic dialogue from her their roots their histories and what they meant she's the greatest lexicographer Giles Brandreth is her fellow logophile with word trio Susie does bestow him, and though he likes to name drop while to while, he always ends with a thoughtful poem. Pod in ears, I walk without a herple. Life is good, for something rhymes with purple. That's so clever. It's a proper sonnet,

and it's delightfully done, and we are very flattered by it, and so congratulations. And indeed, I produced a collection of poetry called Dancing by the Light of the Moon which is an anthology in a sense of poems to learn by heart it contains old ones and new ones well it's fun poetry to read out loud and to have by the bedside yeah so I thought I would in a moment I'm going to do one of the poems from it but first we want to have from you suzy your words of the week a trio yes do you think i've got time just to read one more of the sonnets which we absolutely loved because i feel i feel slightly bad that that one felt a bit boastful that last one and this this one also well there were just so many it's rather amusing

have you seen donald trump's letter about his hole inin-one. It's hilarious. Donald Trump genuinely managed to, he plays golf enthusiastically, and he was playing with some very distinguished international golf players. And Donald Trump, secure, got a hole-in-one. He really did get a hole-in-one. I mean, it's there. It's been filmed. He got a hole-in-one. And he issued this amusing statement about this hole-in-one, boasting about his triumph of getting a hole-in-one and he issued this amusing statement about this hole-in-one boasting about his triumph of getting a hole-in-one with these great international players and he ends his statement by saying people have been asking who actually won the match that he was playing and he said he he couldn't reveal who won the match because if he did people would think he was boasting

and um bragging is the one thing he doesn't approve of. Well, it shows he's got a sense of humour. Anyway, that's by the by. Grief. People can't see Susie. She's got her head in her hands at this point. Anyway, you're allowed to boast. A little bit of gentle boasting is nice. I know. I feel a bit bad.

But just I would also like to doff my cap to Jackson, the poet, to Claire Dawn Starmer, to Kevin Westerman, and also to Fintan O'Higgins because they all produced absolutely wonderful wonderful sonnets for us so I'm just going to read you Claire's because it is quite beautiful when tasked with creating a sonnet of note with purple as theme and person embed our fellows outreach to keyboards to pote our thoughts to lilac magenta and red does purple have limits to rhyme and to think to pote our thoughts to lilac, magenta and red. Does purple have limits to rhyme and to think or boundless an impact to define our world? Cerulean lacks the magic of pink and cherry lacks taste when royal unpearled.

The lavender hue of dawn and of dusk seeks cheer in irises across the globe. Whilst people of plum gladly pen paper busk to please Susie Giles in their purplish probe. Violet are words on the page itself, to submit a sonnet to something else. Well, that's almost as good as the winner's one, isn't it? Well, I know, they were honestly, they were really good. Let me persuade my publishers to give two copies of the book, and we'll send her one as well. I think we should. God, they're brilliant, these guys. brilliant these guys whoa i love it and also it's what fun to play with words and language in that way and there's plenty of use of of sound oh great no absolutely gorgeous okay my trio what

shall i start with um i'm going to start with something that monkeys do, that Tarzan did. And wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to do this ourselves? It's to brachiate. And to brachiate, which is B-R-A-C-H-I-A-T-E, is to swing through the trees with ease. Brachiate is a part of a tree, isn't it? It's a branch or something. It is. Is it? Exactly.

But it's also referring to kind of your limbs, I suppose, as you kind of grab one bit of this wonderful tree vine and then use it to swing to the next one. I would absolutely love to be bracketing through the forest right now. The next one is hirient, H-I-R-R-I-E-N-T. And it describes, it's an adjective, a trilling sound. So this could be the purring of a cat this is kind of kneading your lap or a hyriant sound might be rolling your arse which famously i cannot do i have tried all my life to roll my arse and i can't and apparently it's genetic i think we talked about this on a previous episode but yes i'm definitely not a hyriant unfortunately what's the word so that's the second one hyriant hyriant hyriant hy. Yes, you can roll your eyes in the middle. Yeah. I can't do it. And finally, there is

chirocracy. So this is the chiro is like the chiro in chiropractor. So you could say chiro, chirocracy, if you like, C-H-I-R-O-C-R-A-C-Y. And chiro means the hand. So a chiropractor kind of manipulates you with the hand. And a chirocracy is a rule with the hand, in other words, by force, which seems quite relevant at the moment. To rule by force, a chirocracy. Very good. It's the result of ruling by force, a chirocracy, just as you might get cacistocracy or aristocracy, etc. I met someone this week

who is a purple enthusiast and they keep a purple notebook. And in it, they write down these words of yours. Oh, excellent. And they found that's the only way to remember them, is to write them down

and the definition and then try to use them. Because otherwise, you know, it's in one ear, out the other. Excellent. Have you got a poem for us? Yes. And it's from my anthology, Dancing by the Light of the Moon.

It's a poem by me. And the reason I'm reciting it is I'm not frightened of bragging or boasting. The poem is called How to Lose Two Pounds a Week. And I'm thinking of it because I told you I could name drop for, you know, forever. But this week, I could have done a lot of name dropping from the crown heads of Europe, too. As it happens, I happened to see the Prime Minister, the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, this week, I could have done a lot of name dropping from the crown heads of Europe, too. As it happens, I happened to see the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, this week. And we were talking about trying to lose weight, because it's something he would like to lose a little bit of weight. And he said, how do I lose weight? And I told him, I have this special low-carb diet.

And I recited this poem for him. And I'm sharing it with you. It's by me. It's called How to Lose Two Pounds a Week by Giles Brandreth. To lose two pounds a week, to regain a figure slim and sleek. The rules are simple, if not nice. No bread, potato, and no rice. And when it comes to pasta, basta. Carbs are out out and booze is too it's tough but do it and the news is you while inwardly resentful bitter outwardly a liether fitter trimmer slimmer nippy zippy yippee there we are excellent i can do that my carbs no well again moderation all things yes that really is the rule well i'm looking for excess in all things as you know that's going to be my new motto thank you so much for everybody

who has listened to us today and generally follows something rhymes with purple we really appreciate it and of course you can keep following us on apple podcast spotify stitch jams and music wherever you get your podcast if you did like, please do recommend us to friends or much more importantly, please do get in touch at purple at something else dot com. And as we said, please do consider joining the Purple Plus Club

if you would like for some bonus episodes. Something Rhymes with Purple is a Something Else production produced by Lawrence Bassett and Harriet Wells with additional production from Chris Skinner,

Jen Mistry, Jay Beale, and... Golly, I mean, I think he's off brachiating. He's got the beard, hasn't he? Yeah, he's certainly one of the swingers.