You may have missed a particular joke, or a few hundred. You may want to know what the stuff in Dutch or Spanish was about. You may not know what an MOT is, or why someone is referred to a Madge Allsop. Well, this is where you find out. If you’d like an explanation for something and it isn’t here, why not email me and ask?
HERE BE SPOILERS, scroll down. A lot.
Still more. Keep scrolling.
Abbey School, The – There is an actual school in Torquay called Abbey Prep. Lizzy would be a bit too old for a prep school (and her parents too poor) so I renamed it.
A&E – Accident & Emergency, the emergency department of a hospital
A spouse divided is a play on ‘a house divided’, a term from a speech by Lincoln.
@BizzyBee is a Twitter handle that was already taken, but that I just wanted to use. Leave that woman alone, she has nothing to do with the story. @MrSarcy is actually Martin
Channel 4 – Not the classiest of television broadcasters
Commissioner van der Valk. For some unfathomable reason, ITV had a detective series made which was set in the Netherlands in 1972, starring police commissioner Van der Valk. Suddenly everyone in Amsterdam spoke perfect English. There wasn’t a Dutch actor in the whole series.
Dartful dodger is a play on the artful dodger from Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist. I was sad to discovery several darts teams were already using that name by the time I came up with it.
‘Do me a lemon’ is rhyming slang for ‘do me a favour’. Lemon → lemon flavour → favour.
Duck my Dog is a childish play on words: Martin is in the Dog & Duck bar and changing the words around makes it sound like ‘Suck my cock.’
Frasier is a reference to Dr. Frasier Crane, a pedantic comedy character (who often visits bars).
The Great Dismal Swamp is actually a large dismal swamp somewhere in the US. Several places bear the name. It’s the runner up name for ‘Florida’.
Hello Sean. Got a new motor? Refers to a song by comedian Alexei Sayle.
Humbert Humbert – male protagonist in ‘Lolita’. Martin refers to himself as such when talking to Linda.
Kegel exercises – Martin thinks women who want to keep their vaginas nice and tight after childbirth can do these. They are actually meant to prevent incontinence.
‘Last time you saw feet like that, they were on their way to toss that ring down mount Doom’ refers to Frodo in The Hobbit. Hobbits have large, hairy feet.
Love in a cottage is an expression, meaning to be married without having the financial means to actually live together.
Madge Allsop was the silent, downtrodden companion to Dame Edna Everage.
Mook is an outdated American expression which means ‘idiot’ in gangster parlance.
Morrisons is a UK supermarket chain.
Moped – small motorcycle, usually the first motorised vehicle teenagers get to drive. Obscenely prone to crashes and accidents.
MOT – Annual vehicle inspection in the UK.
Naughtychat.co.uk is not an operational website. The domain is currently for sale.
NHS – National Health Service. Socialized medicine at its best. And worst.
Nose in a Brooke is meant to sound like (to have one’s) ‘nose in a book’. Except when he eats out Allison Brooke, Martin has his nose in her, almost literally.
PC Plod is a dim police man in a children’s series called Noddy. The term is generally used for police officers who are out of earshot.
Ramblers Association, a collective that feels nobody should restrict the many public footpaths throughout Britain. Often at loggerheads with farmers that build fences.
Rolf Harris is a singer and TV presenter, arrested and convicted for indecent assault on underage victims in the 60’s and 80’s. Martin doesn’t want to borrow his slippers. (Newly arrived prisoners often don’t have all their kit yet and you don’t want to take a shower on bare feet in jail, as prisoners jack off in the showers.) I’m sure Rolf would let him borrow them, he is a lovely man who was treated much too harshly.
Samaritans – a public charity that offers mental support by phone to those in distress
Shock doc is a name for documentaries about shocking subjects, but doctor Linda shocks Martin by her change in sexual preferences.
Southern Twins is an expression Allison made up to refer to her feet, as opposed to ‘the twins,’ her breasts.
Sue Perkins is a British comedienne and TV-presenter. I really enjoy her in everything she does, but for some reason it struck me as funny to make Martin hate her with a vengeance. It is entirely irrational and undeserved.
Taking the piss is a British expression which means: ‘to ridicule’.
Waitrose is an ‘upscale’ supermarket. Get your quinoa moussaka here.
‘Watch with mother’ was a TV-show for toddlers in the days of black and white TV.
Wormwood Scrubs is a prison.
‘Yefff, lady Penelope’ is a reference to the butler in Thunderbirds, Parker. He has a weirdly stressed ‘s’, which Martin turns into an ‘f’.
‘You’re going home in a Torquay Bentley’ is a play on a threat sung by football fans that goes ‘You’re going home in a London Ambulance’, sometimes also ‘in the back of an ambulance’ even though that doesn’t scan. Martin leaves the hospital in his own car after talking to Linda.
Martin’s mother says, in very poor Spanish: “Jose, don’t water the plants! The water from the tap is boiling hot. You’ll just cook them.”
The German text in capital letters means: ‘And you should only speak the truth or there wil be trouble, do you understand?’
The Dutch sentence that Martin screams means aproximately this: ‘Goddamned bitch I was scared shitless.’