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BECCLES

The small bone buttons placed in bacon sandwiches by unemployed guerrilla dentist.

BEDFONT

A lurching sensation in the pit of the stomach experienced at breakfast in a hotel, occasioned by the realisation that it is about now that the chamber-maid will have discovered the embarrassing stain on your bottom sheet.

BELPER

A knob of someone else's chewing gum which you unexpectedly find your hand resting on under a deck's top, under the passenger seat of your car or on somebody's thigh under their skirt.

BENBURB

The sort of man who becomes a returning officer.

BEREPPER

The irrevocable and sturdy fart released in the presence of royalty, which sounds quite like a small motorbike passing by (but not enough to be confused with one).

BERKHAMSTED

The massive three-course midmorning blow-out enjoyed by a dieter who has already done his or her slimming duty by having a teaspoonful of cottage cheese for breakfast.

BERY POMEROY

1. The shape of a gourmet's lips. 2. The droplet of saliva which hangs from them.

BILBSTER

A pimple so hideous and enormous that you have to cover it with sticking plaster and pretend you've cut yourself shaving.

BISHOP'S CAUNDLE

An opening gambit before a game of chess whereby the missing pieces are replaced by small ornaments from the mantelpiece.

BLEAN

Scientific measure of luminosity : 1 glimmer = 100,000 bleans. Usherettes' torches are designed to produce between 2.5 and 4 bleans, enabling them to assist you in falling downstairs, treading on people or putting your hand into a Neapolitan tub when reaching for change.

BLITHBURY

A look someone gives you by which you become aware that they're much too drunk to have understood anything you've said to them in the last twenty minutes.

BLITTERLESS

The little slivers of bamboo picked off a cane chair by a nervous guest which litter the carpet beneath and tell the chair's owner that the whole piece of furniture is about to uncoil terribly and slowly until it resembles a giant pencil sharpening.

BODMIN

The irrational and inevitable discrepancy between the amount pooled and the amount needed when a large group of people try to pay a bill together after a meal.

BOLSOVER

One of those brown plastic trays with bumps on, placed upside down in boxes of chocolates to make you think you're-getting two layers.

BONKLE

Of plumbing in old hotels, to make loud and unexplained noises in the night, particularly at about five o'clock in the morning.

BOOLTEENS

The small scatterings of foreign coins and half-p's which inhabit dressing tables. Since they are never used and never thrown away boolteens account for a significant drain on the world's money supply.

BOOTHBY GRAFFOE

1. The man in the pub who slaps people on the back as if they were old friends, when in fact he has no friends, largely on account of this habit. 2. Any story told by Robert Morley on chat shows.

BOSCASTLE

A huge pyramid of tin cans placed just inside the entrance to a supermarket.

BOSEMAN

One who spends all day loafing about near pedestrian crossing looking as if he's about to cross.

BOTCHERBY

The principle by which British roads are signposted.

BOTLEY

The prominent stain on a man's trouser crotch seen on his return from the lavatory. A botley proper is caused by an accident with the push taps, and should not be confused with any stain caused by insufficient waggling of the willy.

BOTOLPHS

Huge benign tumours which archdeacons and old chemisty teachers affect to wear on the sides of their noses.

BOTUSFLEMING

A small, long-handled steel trowel used by surgeons to remove the contents of a patient's nostrils prior to a sinus operation.

BRADFORD

A school teacher's old hairy jacket, now severely discoloured by chalk dust, ink, egg and the precipitations of unedifying chemical reactions.

BRADWORTHY

One who is skilled in the art of naming loaves.

BRECON

That part of the toenail which is designed to snag on nylon sheets.

BRISBANE

A perfectly reasonable explanation (Such as the one offered by a person with a gurgling cough which has nothing to do with the fact that they smoke fifty cigarettes a day.)

BROATS

A pair of trousers with a career behind them. Broats are most commonly seen on elderly retired army officers. Originally the brats were part of their best suit back in the thirties; then in the fifties they were demounted and used for gardening. Recently pensions not being what they were, the broats have been called out of retirement and reinstated as part of the best suit again.

BROMPTON

A bromton is that which is said to have been committed when you are convinced you are about to blow off with a resounding trumpeting noise in a public place and all that actually slips out is a tiny 'pfpt'.

BROMSGROVE

Any urban environment containing a small amount of dogturd and about forty-five tons of bent steel pylon or a lump of concrete with holes claiming to be sculpture. 'Oh, come my dear, and come with me. And wander 'neath the bromsgrove tree' - Betjeman.

BROUGH SOWERBY

One who has been working at that same desk in the same office for fifteen years and has very much his own ideas about why he is continually passed over for promotion.

BRUMBY

The fake antique plastic seal on a pretentious whisky bottle.

BRYMBO

The single unappetising bun left in a baker's shop after four p.m.

BUDBY

A nipple clearly defined through flimsy or wet material.

BUDE A polite joke reserved for use in the presence of vicars.

BULDOOO

a virulent red-coloured pus which generally accompanies clonmult (q.v.) and sandberge (q.v.)

BURBAGE

The sound made by a liftful of people all trying to breathe politely through their noses.

BURES

The scabs on knees and elbows formed by a compulsion to make love on cheap Habitat floor-matting.

BURLESTON

That peculiarly tuneless humming and whistling adopted by people who are extremely angry.

BURLINGJOBB

A seventeenth-century crime by which excrement is thrown into the street from a ground-floor window.

BURNT YATES

Condition to which yates (q.v.) will suddenly pass without any apparent interviewing period, after the spirit of the throckmorton (q.v.) has finally been summoned by incessant throcking (q.v.)