As Secretary of State for Health Mrs Castle was visiting, under the full spotlight of the media, the site of an old peoples home which had been destroyed by fire, when her wig was lifted off her head by a piece of debris. She re-assumed her dignity as quickly as possible, with her entourage doing the decent thing of pretending not to notice
She was relieved - & surprised – to find that the media did not make use of any pictures they had of the incident
It is hard to imagine such a reaction – for any active politician – these days
But sometimes an attempt to cause bother or embarrassment does not work – such as with David Cameron’s Twitter gaffe
Rack my brain as I might I cannot be sure that I ever knew that this word had an offensive meaning. If I did, it was only from something like one of Eric Partridge’s dictionaries or Peter Fryer's Studies in English Prudery
I am sure that I heard it regularly from a colleague in the 1980s who used it in the same sense as did Cameron. It was offensive: even worse than wally
It is interesting that in the specific business of the naming of the part (the one allegedly called twat by some) we English have no generally accepted common, or even anatomically correct, term which can be used in polite discourse
I had West Indian friends who were genuinely astonished that large posters could go up all over London in 1964 proclaiming Pussy Galore. In the Caribbean the word was in very specific common use.
It was interesting that in the Womans Hour discussion not one participant mentioned pussy, even as a word used within the family. And yet we accept with seeming equanimity the double entendre, even on family tv in Are You Being Served
Not all cultures however understand the English use of language related to the Cameron sense of twat
My mother in law once gave me a real roasting:
Don’t call my son an idiot. I keep on hearing you do that. He is not an idiot, he’s very clever, he’s got [all these qualifications]
I did my best to explain that, where I came from, idiot was a term of affection & endearment; that the worst insult anybody in England could throw at a man, then at least, was that he was too clever by half
A point of which Lord Rees Mogg yesterday reminded Lord Mandelson
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