Spectacles, Testicles, Wallet and Watch

Spectacles

Dorothy Parker once wrote a little rhyme. She called it News Item and it went like this:

Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses

Dorothy lived in Kansas with her dog Toto. She was a founder member of the Algonquin Round Table. Ironically, no Algonquin was ever invited to join. The members spent their time being self-consciously witty, then writing it down so nobody would miss it. "Brevity is the soul of lingerie," Parker would extemporise. The others would consider the merits of this proposition. Had she thought of it beforehand? They looked at her face for clues but she was concentrating on lighting a cigarette. Reluctantly they decided to include it in their respective newspaper columns, although it would mean less room for their own witticisms.

Throughout her life Dorothy was attracted to tin men, often with tragic consequences. Some of the tin men with tragic consequences were called Robert although many weren't. She consoled herself with alcohol and had so many hairs of the dog that Toto was virtually bald. Late at night she would list the girls that men seldom made passes at. These included:

Girls who wear glasses
Girls with leprosy
Siamese twins

She also had her doubts about the marriage prospects of girls with testicles.

Testicles

Why oh why oh why
Did I ever eat that pie?

- FTSE (attributed) -

1. Peel the testicles

In Spain, testicles are colloquially referred to as huevos, or eggs. Write this down, it might be important.

2. Pound the testicles flat

Some men might be feeling a little uncomfortable at this point. Serves them right for not taking their turns at the washing-up.

3. Coat the testicles in flour, salt and pepper.

I usually miss out the first two stages and jump straight to this one. I like to give the ladies a savoury, snacky treat.

4. Deep fry the testicles

Tell your guests they're prairie oytsers. While they're arguing about hangover cures they'll yump them all down without even noticing it. Other names you can give them include cowboy caviar, dusted nuts and bull wallets.

Wallet

Bessie 'Wallets' Simpson was an East End pickpocket who married a king. Born in 1896 to Homer Simpson, a nuclear plant worker, and wife Marge, she showed early promise as a cartoon but was forced to abandon her career when lack of credibility caused her to be painted magenta. She took readily to street crime and earned the sobriquet Wallets when she stole some wallets. The East Enders are nothing if not logical.

Having seen King Edward VIII on TV, Wallets became obsessed with the idea of marrying him. She was a sucker for a uniform. "I'll make him my pearly little king," she avowed. One day she knocked on the doors of Buckingham Palace, dressed in her pearly finest, and Eddy 'The King' Windsor fell immediately in love with her. Constitutional convention required her to clean the Augean stables to prove her worthiness to be Queen. She refused, saying it would get her frock all dirty. Eddy had no choice but to abdicate.

Eddy was given a spare title, Duke of Windsor, which made him duke of his own name. Wallets was charmed to find it wasn't really his name, he had pinched it from a town and had given his old one, Saxe-Coburg, to a wino on King's Cross station. "We're going to have quite a knees-up," she exclaimed. "Just you watch!"

Watch

Not on my watch is a phrase most strongly associated with amateur conjuring performances. The performer offers to take a watch belonging to a member of the audience, smash it, then restore it to wholeness and a life of good works in the community. The audience responds with the customary phrase. The Welsh version of not on my watch is not on mine, look; other regional variations include not on mine, see and you're asking for a smack in the gob, mate.

The man most solicitous for the safety of his watch was William Paley, who regarded it as proof of the existence of God. He didn't believe in watchmakers. Nor did he believe in glasses for women, he didn't want them making spectacles of themselves.

Spectacles

See above.

For those who missed school that day

Dorothy Parker was an American writer known for her acerbic wit. She wrote for the New Yorker where she reviewed books under the pseudonym Constant Reader. Often quoted is her response to The House at Pooh Corner: Tonstant Weader fwowed up. She did not live in Kansas or have a dog called Toto: that was the Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.

The Algonquin Round Table was not that different from the way I described it. A group of self-styled wits met at the Algonquin Hotel for lunch each day. Most of the members are little known now although they were mostly minor literary celebs in their day.

The Algonquin Indians - ask MaggieG!

The testicles recipe, made with calf testicles, produces a dish known variously as prairie oysters, dusted nuts, swinging beef, and so forth.

Bessie Wallis Warfield, later Wallis Spencer, then Wallis Simpson, the name she is now most commonly known by, caused the abdication of King Edward VIII when he refused to abandon his plan to marry her. At the time (1936) it was unthinkable for the King to marry a woman with two living ex-husbands. Wallis was an American socialite and had no connection with London's East End.

In Greek mythology, cleaning the Augean Stables was the fifth Labour of Hercules.

William Paley (1743-1805), in his book Natural Theology, put forward a teleological argument for the existence of God, in which he likened the universe to a watch and argued that the existence of such a watch must imply the existence of a watchmaker (God).